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Delta flight lands in Charlotte without front landing gear

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Re: Delta flight lands in Charlotte without front landing gear

#141

Post by ghaff »

bombcar wrote: post #24
sokoloff wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The FCC licenses are given with those station identifying letters and there’s a requirement to broadcast the station ID periodically. Many stations have an additional brand (often “Fox Boston”), but they still have to use the FCC ID as well. One of my favorite station IDs was an independent local analog UHF channel 56 with call letters WLVI. I heard those letters for years before I realized it was 56 in Roman numeral…

This is why it became common; the FCC requires you say the station ID once every period of time (10? 30?) so people became very used to hearing it. You can think of it as the "smash like and subscribe" of the radio days!

Fun fact. My college radio station had the station ID WTBS (technology broadcasting system or something like that). When Ted Turner was spearheading one of the fairly early major cable TV stations, he bought the ID for what I imagine was a lot of money for a college radio station for the Turner Broadcasting System or something similar.

Re: Delta flight lands in Charlotte without front landing gear

#142

Post by Scoundreller »

quest88 wrote: post #119
bostonsre wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would imagine simulator practice is a good amount different from executing the real thing when your adrenaline is kicking in and they have a full plane. They are professionals that executed a complex task gracefully to minimize the terror that their passengers experienced (they balanced on the back wheels for a long time to bleed off speed and the landing seemed more graceful than many with all landing gear that I'…

Just to nitpick, this landing technique is something every pilot has to demonstrate to an FAA designated examiner to get their first pilot certificate (or, the private pilot license). So it's kind of like saying "Wow, you did the thing every pilot has to do!". I get what you're saying though - there's an emotional difference between doing this when everything is fine and when you have a real emergency.

I suspected it wasn’t required for every pilot since most initially licensed pilots will train on airplanes that don’t have retractable landing gears in the first place.

But I guess the technique isn’t much different than if your nose tire blew, which might be included in all training?

Looks like flying with a retractable landing gear is a separate “complex aircraft endorsement” that “has no corresponding check ride or minimum number of flight or ground hours that must be completed.“

(Though that’s what the regs say, the schools that provide it do have those)

https://www.flyingmag.com/guides/how-to-earn-a-complex-aircr...

Re: Delta flight lands in Charlotte without front landing gear

#143

Post by bbatsell »

Scoundreller wrote: post #137
bbatsell wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Delta and Hawaiian are the two US operators. Hawaiian loves it, and is struggling to replace it. They use them for island-hopping. Modern airliners don't do well in this use case — modern engines have been engineered to tight tolerances to extract fuel economy, and their thermal designs rely on the cold air at cruise altitude to keep them healthy. Island hops are too short and too low for that to hold. The engines on…

> The engines on the 717 handle it just fine, but anything else on the market will require the planes to sit on the tarmac for a significant length of time between landing and takeoff for them to cool enough Is it just a matter of the brakes and tires/wheels needing to cool down or other parts need the cooldown period as well?

No, it's entirely the engines — there are a lot of moving pieces of metal that have to safely expand and contract in understood cycles. The brakes and wheels are fine with tight turns (assuming you don't have to use max braking). Southwest operates on a very similar timetable, and in fact flies a few of the more-trafficked Hawaii island hops. The difference is that Hawaiian's 717s _only_ fly island hops all day, every day. Southwest rotates its planes, so any given plane will do at max two island hops before it flies the 6 hours back to mainland and gets plenty of cooling time, e.g., LAX -> Honolulu -> Hilo -> Honolulu -> LAX.

Re: Delta flight lands in Charlotte without front landing gear

#144

Post by telotortium »

xwdv wrote: post #140
justinclift wrote: post #92

What's with them putting "a hold" on all of the passengers possessions? Like, that's leaving people without their wallets (aka id, money) and so on. Sounds like they may not get it back for an unknown period of time (weeks, months?) either.

You guys have wallets? Seems like the only possession you’d really need to do anything useful is your phone.

> You guys have wallets? Seems like the only possession you’d really need to do anything useful is your phone.

I wouldn't want to be stuck away from home on a flight without some physical ID. Also don't want to completely rely on Apple Pay to buy anything (not to mention that some stores still don't take Apple Pay).

Re: Delta flight lands in Charlotte without front landing gear

#146

Post by NoZebra120vClip »

tekla wrote: post #71
jwestbury wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The prevalence of post-traumatic stress disorder would disagree.

People are free to not use airplanes if a designed for maneuver gives them PTSD.

> People are free to not use airplanes if a designed for maneuver gives them PTSD.

You know, that's insensitive in terms of minimizing the suffering endured by people with bona fide PTSD, as well as dismissive. Because what do you suggest as an alternative? Drive an automobile, with higher accident rates than air travel? Walk across the street in traffic? Life is dangerous, choose your poison.

I personally appreciate aviators and all air crews for really going all-in to make flying safe and tolerable, if not enjoyable. When I think of some of the crazy train or bus rides I've had, air travel is pretty amazing in comparison, especially at a bargain price.

And I do suffer from (complex) PTSD, but thankfully such an incident as in TFA would not particularly trigger an episode. Thanks for caring.

Re: Delta flight lands in Charlotte without front landing gear

#148

Post by selimthegrim »

DonHopkins wrote: post #38
bombcar wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They are from the radio call signs - K or W is the first for almost all of them. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Broadcast_call_signs

The other thing that might not be obvious to non-residents is that K is for West of the Mississippi, and W is for East. It must be weird to live near the Mississippi and get a mix of K and W station call signs!

Can confirm in New Orleans WYLD has their transmitter in Algiers on the west side of the river and I’m sure that situation applies to other stations can’t recall any Ks around here

Re: Delta flight lands in Charlotte without front landing gear

#149

Post by NoZebra120vClip »

acheron wrote: post #40
bombcar wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is why it became common; the FCC requires you say the station ID once every period of time (10? 30?) so people became very used to hearing it. You can think of it as the "smash like and subscribe" of the radio days!

Station ID is every hour. Also you have to say it in a very specific format: Call letters, city; or call letters, frequency, city. No additional words in between: “WKRP in Cincinnati” would be invalid. TV stations are allowed to do it visually. When I was young it was common to see it as a full screen ID in between shows (often with a quick weather report, “time and temperature”). Later most stations I saw quit that…

I always wondered why they chose "WKRP" and whether it had to do with spelling "crap" in a censor-evading manner.

Re: Delta flight lands in Charlotte without front landing gear

#150

Post by duxup »

ryandrake wrote: post #128
ipnon wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is an algorithm for everything in aviation. If you suspect your landing gear is not functional, you typically fly by a tower and have them make visual confirmation. Then you have another algorithm (they call them procedures) for how to land without gear. The airport likewise has a checklist of everything to do in this case. All of these procedures are hard won, the NTSB uses every hull failure and fatal acciden…

And when there is not a tower nearby, you, uhh... find a way. My buddy was flying into one of the many uncontrolled airports in NorCal, and there was a guy in a single-engine retractable gear circling the airport. When Buddy made his downwind call, the Guy radioed "Hey I'm not getting any indication whether my gear is down or not, can you fly by me and tell me if it's down?" It was down, so Guy ended up attempting th…

I recall a mid air collision that occurred that way once. I forget the exact crash name, but IIRC a civilian aircraft was trying to spot for damage on another aircraft and they got too close.

Not that people shouldn’t help but you gotta be careful with maneuvers you don’t typically make, even if trying to be helpful / are a pilot.

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