Danke, do something

[Danke]

I would pay a few extra bucks if the flight guaranteed a male pilot.

I never did understand why airlines thought saving a few bucks by hiring females, at the expense of safety, was a good idea.

With all the extra training cost, female pilots are more expensive.

[Swordsmyth]

With all the extra training cost, female pilots are more expensive.

"Training" costs.

How many have you "trained"?

You should know by now that they are always expensive.

[Swordsmyth]

Boeing Outsourced Its 737 MAX Software To $9-Per-Hour Engineers

[Anti Federalist]

That particular system can be disabled by turning off the stab trim to cut out. But I'm saying Boeing should disable it.

If I'm reading this right MCAS is a not a stall control device, but actually is a flight control enhancement system.

It was fitted because, basically, the new "green" hyper efficient engines on the 737 MAX were so much bigger and mounted so much further forward, that it so negatively affected flight characteristics and control, they had to add this nonsense, that is not automatically overridden by a pilots inputs on the yoke, just to make them airworthy.

That about the long and short of it?

$#@!...even ship's autopilot disengages if you make a manual rudder/thruster change.

[Anti Federalist]

Boeing Outsourced Its 737 MAX Software To $9-Per-Hour Engineers

Boeing had recent college graduates working for Indian software developer HCL Technologies Ltd. in a building across from Seattle's Boeing Field, in flight test groups supporting the MAX. The coders from HCL designed to specifications set by Boeing but, according to Mark Rabin, a former Boeing software engineer, “it was controversial because it was far less efficient than Boeing engineers just writing the code.”

Rabin said: “...it took many rounds going back and forth because the code was not done correctly.”

Just doing those jobs that Americans can't do.

[Danke]

If I'm reading this right MCAS is a not a stall control device, but actually is a flight control enhancement system.

It was fitted because, basically, the new "green" hyper efficient engines on the 737 MAX were so much bigger and mounted so much further forward, that it so negatively affected flight characteristics and control, they had to add this nonsense, that is not automatically overridden by a pilots inputs on the yoke, just to make them airworthy.

That about the long and short of it?

$#@!...even ship's autopilot disengages if you make a manual rudder/thruster change.

Runaway trim should stop by opposite yoke movement, but then a cut out switch needs to be thrown to stop it from happening again.

MCAS system was put in place to push the nose down at high AOA. But any well trained/experienced pilot doesn't need the system, that is my point. Even an inexperienced pilot would probably be able to handle those situations without MCAS. MCAS was not explained well by Boeing, pilots were not trained to understand it.

My personal option, it is not necessary. Unless you are of the opinion automation can make up for lack of pilot training and experience.

[Danke]

BTW, I was an instructor on the 737 before MCAS.

Some things I'd point out to students. They would have autopilot engage, and above 2500' AGL I tell them to "go-around." Boeing, for whatever reason, made the autopilot disconnect if you hit the TOGA switches above 2500'. (my memory is a little sketchy as it has been 20 years ago, but something like that.)

Anyway, we had some test pilots do that, they pushed the throttles forward as they hit the TOGA switch. Plane appeared to be still on autopilot...it was pitching up as expected.

Problem was, it was the thrust of the engines that pitched it up, much like MCAS is built to prevent. So they finally realized the autopilot was not engaged as the pitch kept increasing and they stalled...luckily they had enough altitude to recover.

[Anti Federalist]

Woman Kicked off Flight for Wearing Revealing Top: I Felt ‘Cheap’

https://www.breitbart.com/politics/2...op-felt-cheap/

AMY FURR 30 Jun 2019



A woman was reportedly kicked off an EasyJet flight after passengers complained about her “revealing” outfit.

Harriet Osborne, 31, was removed from a flight leaving Malaga, Spain, bound for London Stansted Airport on June 23 because her fellow passengers were uncomfortable with the see-through top she was wearing.

“The crew were horrible and made me feel cheap,” the mother and make-up artist said. “This air hostess confronted me in front of the whole plane and said I wasn’t allowed on in that top.”

She told reporters that the crew made her feel “cheap” and that the flight attendant tried to get Osborne to cover herself with her hands.

“She said to me, ‘Oh no, move to the side,’ and tried to cover me up with my hands,” Osborne told reporters.

Passengers allegedly complained to the crew that they did not want children on board the flight to see Osborne’s nipples which they said were clearly visible through the sheer fabric.

However, the airline stated that it had provided Osborne with a top to wear over the blouse but was then forced to remove her from the flight because of her behavior.

EasyJet said:

We can confirm that a passenger travelling from Malaga to Stansted on 23 June was unable to travel due to behaving disruptively. Following concerns about her clothing crew politely requested that the customer wear an additional top for the flight which the customer agreed to. However she then proceeded to act disruptively towards a member of our crew. Our cabin and ground crew are trained to assess all situations and to act quickly and appropriately. We do not tolerate abusive or threatening behaviour towards our staff.”

Osborne said officials at the airport were confused as to why she would be escorted off the plane.

“I was in shock. It was so sexist. I just burst out crying. We had to walk back through the terminal where Spanish police stopped to question us. They were baffled when I told them why we’d been kicked off.”

[Danke]

I would not have kicked her off one of my flights.

[Swordsmyth]

I would not have kicked her off one of my flights.

We know, you would have offered to train her to fly.

[Danke]

We know, you would have offered to train her to fly.

I could make her reach heaven.

[Warrior_of_Freedom]

"Training" costs.

How many have you "trained"?

You should know by now that they are always expensive.

Taking them out to eat, buying them drinks, etc

[Anti Federalist]

MIGRANT'S PLUNGE Sunbather narrowly escapes death as jet stowaway falls 3,500ft and lands 3ft from him in his garden

https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/941483...jet-sunbather/

A JET stowaway’s body fell 3,500ft and smashed into a back garden — as the house’s horrified tenant sunbathed 3ft away.

The tragic migrant plunged from the landing gear bay of the Kenya Airways plane over Clapham, South London. The 787 was lowering its wheels for a Heathrow landing.

The tenant’s friend said: “He was so lucky not to be hit and killed. The impact obliterated the body.”
The sunbather, in his 20s, was dozing in the garden of the terraced house as the body hit with such force it left a crater in the lawn and smashed a path.

His friend, who was inside the house, said: “He didn’t even realise what it was to begin with. He was asleep and then there was a huge impact.

“The body literally landed one metre away from him and was obliterated. My friend was very shaken.

'THE IMPACT WAS HORRIFIC'
“There were a few of us in the house at the time and it was lucky only one of us was in the garden.

“Nobody would have survived being hit. The impact was horrific.”

The sunbather, who rents the house in Clapham, South London, with friends, has left London and is staying with his family.

The Kenya Airways flight from Nairobi passed over the house just after 3.30pm on Sunday — descending to around 3,500ft and flying at 200mph as it prepared to land at Heathrow.

The landlord’s brother said: “A witness saw an object fall from the plane. He couldn’t see it was a body at that height.”

'OBLITERATED'
The brother said the tennant was “very badly shaken.”

He added: “It was a narrow miss. The garden isn’t very big.

“There was more than a lot of blood. It wasn’t pretty and caused a significant amount of damage.”

The force of the impact was so severe that police were initially unable to tell whether the body was male or female.

[Swordsmyth]

Dummy bombs were accidentally dropped by a US Air Force attack plane during a training run over Florida after a mid-air bird strike.
The A-10C Thunderbolt II aircraft, a fearsome low-altitude jet capable of pinpoint destruction, “inadvertently released” the three 25lb mock munitions in the low-tech collision, a spokesperson said in a statement.


It occurred after the jet, assigned to the 23rd Fighter Group, took off from Moody Air Force Base, in Lowndes County, Georgia on Monday afternoon.
The drop happened 54 miles south, just over the border in Florida.
The Air Force estimates that all three of the bombs – which are inert but do contain a small pyrotechnic charge – landed close to the Suwannee Springs area.

More at: https://news.yahoo.com/us-air-force-...084636378.html

[Danke]

Before Suzanimal posts this.

BA to investigate after crew ran naked through Singapore hotel after playing "spin the bottle"

The airline said it would not "tolerate unruly behaviour" from staff (Photo by Nicolas Economou/NurPhoto)British Airways has said it will “fully investigate’ claims that three of the company’s cabin crew were caught running naked through a Singapore hotel.

The trio were banging on the doors of other guests following a game of “spin the bottle” in their room, according to reports.
It happened after the crew completed a 14-hour flight from Heathrow Airport.

A spokesperson for BA told Yahoo: “We expect the highest standards of behaviour from our teams around the world at all times and we're investigating what happened.

“We do not tolerate unruly behaviour by colleagues and will always fully investigate claims and take whatever action is required.”
The trio were apparently sent home and could lose their jobs after a complaint was made by bosses to a BA official.

The incident happened in Singapore (REUTERS/Lim Huey Teng)The claims appeared in the Sun newspaper.

“It didn't take long for 'spin the bottle' to start - it's a drinking game with ludicrous and increasingly daring forfeits designed to get everyone steaming drunk,” one source told the newspaper.

“Suddenly, three were tasked with running up and down the corridors to create havoc. In their state they didn't think this was a bad idea.”
The paper reported two men and one women were involved in the risky game.

“Drinking is far too expensive in Singapore for the young fleet, so provisions are taken for everyone to have a good time after.

The three BA crew were sent home (Photo credit should read AAMIR QURESHI/AFP/Getty Images)“There were some frisky crew on this plane. There was snogging and stripping and fumbling between the crew, who were all naked.”

It is not the first time BA crew has been in trouble in Singapore.

The Sun reported that officials at the same hotel are fed up with the behaviour of BA crew after allegations of sex assault and a staff member being thrown in a pool.

[Swordsmyth]

[timosman]

She was praying?

[Swordsmyth]

She was praying?

That Danke would do something.

[timosman]

That Danke would do something.

That's epic.

[Swordsmyth]

German researchers at Technische Universität München (TUM), located in Munich, Germany, have designed and tested an autonomous system that can land a small civilian plane without relying on ground systems. This technology could open up a new era of autonomous flight -- and take the human error out of landings, reported TechCrunch

Commercial passenger planes heavily rely on ground-based systems that aid pilots in locating the runway on the final approach. This system is called the Instrument Landing System (ILS), guides a commercial aircraft to the runway. Pilots use ILS to verify their alignment and glide slope with the runway but rarely use it for an automated landing.

The new automated landing system is called C2Land, uses a set of cameras and sensors mounted in the nose of the plane to guide the airplane for final approach. The plane's computers take over and land the aircraft on the centerline of the runway, without human reaction nor any help from ground systems. The automated system was installed on a Diamond DA42 Twin Star, a twin-engine plane that seats four, for experimental testing.

The first test flight was conducted in May as the Diamond DA42 made a successful automatic landing at the Diamond Aircraft airfield.




More at: https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2019-...anding-germany

[Danke]

German researchers at Technische Universität München (TUM), located in Munich, Germany, have designed and tested an autonomous system that can land a small civilian plane without relying on ground systems. This technology could open up a new era of autonomous flight -- and take the human error out of landings, reported TechCrunch

Commercial passenger planes heavily rely on ground-based systems that aid pilots in locating the runway on the final approach. This system is called the Instrument Landing System (ILS), guides a commercial aircraft to the runway. Pilots use ILS to verify their alignment and glide slope with the runway but rarely use it for an automated landing.

The new automated landing system is called C2Land, uses a set of cameras and sensors mounted in the nose of the plane to guide the airplane for final approach. The plane's computers take over and land the aircraft on the centerline of the runway, without human reaction nor any help from ground systems. The automated system was installed on a Diamond DA42 Twin Star, a twin-engine plane that seats four, for experimental testing.

The first test flight was conducted in May as the Diamond DA42 made a successful automatic landing at the Diamond Aircraft airfield.




More at: https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2019-...anding-germany

Maybe read the comments? Autolands are usually conducted when visual conditions are poor. This system seems to able use cameras when they are not obscured by clouds or fog.

[Danke]

The captain did it?

https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine...rlines/590653/

This leaves us with a different sort of event, a hijacking from within where no forced entry is required—by a pilot who runs amok. Reasonable people may resist the idea that a pilot would murder hundreds of innocent passengers as the collateral price of killing himself. The definitive response is that this has happened before. In 1997, a captain working for a Singaporean airline called SilkAir is believed to have disabled the black boxes of a Boeing 737 and to have plunged the airplane at supersonic speeds into a river.* In 1999, EgyptAir Flight 990 was deliberately crashed into the sea by its co-pilot off the coast of Long Island, resulting in the loss of everyone on board. In 2013, just months before MH370 disappeared, the captain of LAM Mozambique Airlines Flight 470 flew his Embraer E190 twin jet from cruising altitude into the ground, killing all 27 passengers and all six crew members. The most recent case is the Germanwings Airbus that was deliberately crashed into the French Alps on March 24, 2015, also causing the loss of everyone on board. Its co-pilot, Andreas Lubitz, had waited for the pilot to use the bathroom and then locked him out. Lubitz had a record of depression and—as investigations later discovered—had made a study of MH370’s disappearance, one year earlier.

[Swordsmyth]

Maybe read the comments? Autolands are usually conducted when visual conditions are poor. This system seems to able use cameras when they are not obscured by clouds or fog.

I don't think it is ready to put you out of a job either but I got a rise out of you.

[Danke]

I don't think it is ready to put you out of a job either but I got a rise out of you.

Rise? Just pointing out the uselessness of it not eliminating ground based systems for autolands when they are actually needed.

[Swordsmyth]

Dozens were injured when intense turbulence hit an Air Canada flight, causing passengers who weren’t buckled into their seats to hit the ceiling.
The flight from Vancouver to Sydney had to divert to Honolulu, Hawaii, when sudden turbulence hit the aircraft and it dropped mid-flight.
Thirty seven passengers and crew were injured. Of that number, 30 were taken to hospital and nine had serious injuries, according to Associated Press.
People onboard described passengers who were not sitting down and wearing their seatbelt shooting out of their seats and hitting the ceiling of the aircraft.
“There was a lot of blood everywhere,” passenger Llyn Williams told AP.
Fellow passenger Andrew Szucs said: “All of a sudden the plane dropped and went sideways. And that’s when the people who weren’t strapped in flew, hit the ceiling.”
Szucs added that there was no warning from the crew that the plane was about to drop.

In February, five passengers were injured when a Delta flight nosedived twice due to “crazy turbulence”.

More at: https://www.yahoo.com/lifestyle/bloo...072802032.html

[Danke]

Dozens were injured when intense turbulence hit an Air Canada flight, causing passengers who weren’t buckled into their seats to hit the ceiling.
The flight from Vancouver to Sydney had to divert to Honolulu, Hawaii, when sudden turbulence hit the aircraft and it dropped mid-flight.
Thirty seven passengers and crew were injured. Of that number, 30 were taken to hospital and nine had serious injuries, according to Associated Press.
People onboard described passengers who were not sitting down and wearing their seatbelt shooting out of their seats and hitting the ceiling of the aircraft.
“There was a lot of blood everywhere,” passenger Llyn Williams told AP.
Fellow passenger Andrew Szucs said: “All of a sudden the plane dropped and went sideways. And that’s when the people who weren’t strapped in flew, hit the ceiling.”
Szucs added that there was no warning from the crew that the plane was about to drop.

In February, five passengers were injured when a Delta flight nosedived twice due to “crazy turbulence”.

More at: https://www.yahoo.com/lifestyle/bloo...072802032.html

The Delta Connection flight, “We did a nose dive, twice,” he added.

[Swordsmyth]

Cabin Chief Denies Korean Pilot Alcohol – Gets Demoted

[Anti Federalist]

Are cellphones a flight danger? They could be on these Boeing jets

https://www.bnnbloomberg.ca/are-cell...jets-1.1288882

Anita Sharpe, Bloomberg News




U.S. government officials in 2014 revealed an alarming safety issue: Passenger cellphones and other types of radio signals could pose a crash threat to some models of Boeing 737 and 777 airplanes.

More than 1,300 jets registered in the U.S. were equipped with cockpit screens vulnerable to interference from Wi-Fi, mobile phones and even outside frequencies such as weather radar, according to the Federal Aviation Administration, which gave airlines until November 2019 to replace the units made by Honeywell International Inc.

Today, potentially hundreds of planes worldwide are still flying with the unsafe systems cited in the FAA report. Flight-critical data including airspeed, altitude and navigation could disappear and “result in loss of airplane control at an altitude insufficient for recovery,” the FAA said in the safety bulletin, known as an airworthiness directive.

Honeywell hasn’t heard of any blanking display screens caused by cell phones or other radio frequencies while an airplane was in flight, spokeswoman Nina Krauss said. When airlines and Honeywell argued that radio signals were unlikely to cause safety problems during flight, though, the FAA countered that it had run tests on in-service planes -- and the jets flunked.

Boeing Co. found the interference in a laboratory test in 2012 and hasn’t seen similar issues on other aircraft, a company spokesman said. Honeywell is aware of only one case where all six display units in a 737 cockpit went blank, Krauss said. The cause was a software problem that has been fixed and is currently being flight-tested, she said.


The affected 737s are the so-called Next Generation model, a predecessor of the Boeing Max, which was involved in two crashes in less than five months. Cockpit displays on the Max were made by Rockwell Collins, now a unit of United Technologies Corp., not Honeywell. Boeing’s 777s also were covered by the FAA order.

The FAA order didn’t quantify the amount of radio signals needed to cause interference problems. An agency spokesman said Thursday that the FAA bases the compliance time for its airworthiness directives on the risk that a condition poses. “A 60-month compliance time frame means the risk is low, and does not need to be addressed right away,” he said.

Still, the radio-signal threat extends beyond that specific display system and FAA warning.

Numerous cell phones left on during any airplane flight “could be a real problem," said professor Tim Wilson, department chair for electrical, computer, software and systems engineering at Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University. The greater the number of phones emitting radio signals, he said, the greater the potential for interference with a plane’s flight system.

Airplane Mode

Many airlines now permit passengers to turn their phones to “airplane mode," which allows Wi-Fi transmissions. But mobile phones operate at higher power levels, Wilson said, since the signals must reach a cell tower and not just a local antenna or router. “So cellular service is potentially more impactful," he added.

The FAA in 2013 began the process of allowing wider use of electronic devices on planes, provided airlines could demonstrate it was safe. That prompted an outcry from consumer groups concerned about passengers being subjected to the cellphone conversations of seatmates.

No U.S. airlines allowed it and, in 2018, Congress barred the use of cellphones for calls during flights.

Honeywell initially told the FAA that 10,100 display units -- or the equivalent of almost 1,700 planes -- were affected worldwide. When asked this week about the progress of the fixes, Honeywell’s Krauss said that 8,000 components had been replaced and fewer than 400 needed upgrading.

The lower number reflects the fact that some airlines might have had the work performed at non-Honeywell facilities, and regulators in other regions of the world might not have ordered the units replaced. In addition, some planes might have been taken out of service due to age.

Depending on how many planes are still in service, the global number flying with display units that could cause critical data to disappear could be in the hundreds. But Krauss said that “even if a blanking incident were to occur," the units are backed up by multiple redundancies.


Both Delta Air Lines Inc. and Southwest Airlines Co. have completed their overhauls, according to the companies. American Airlines Group Inc. has 14 more jets that need refurbished units, and United Airlines still needs to replace components across 17 aircraft, representatives from those companies said.

Ryanair Holdings Plc, the large Irish-based discount carrier, told the FAA in 2014 that its planes held 707 of the affected Honeywell units and argued at the time that changing out all of them “is imposing a high, and unnecessary, financial burden on operators.” A Ryanair spokeswoman said the airline hasn’t upgraded all 707 screens but that the carrier inspected all of its display units and “any affected DUs have been replaced.”

‘Potentially Disastrous’

In just the past three years, mystified pilots flying Boeing NG or 777 jets -- the same models cited in the FAA warning on cellphones -- have reported more than a dozen instances of important flight information disappearing. Calling the situations “critical,” the pilots filed their concerns with the Aviation Safety Reporting System, or ASRS, which is administered by NASA.

Last September, pilots of a 737-700 noticed that various flight information was flashing on and off, and showing different air speeds and altitudes. Then a primary display unit went blank. “At that time,” the pilots wrote, “we decided it was best to get the aircraft on the ground.”

In January 2017, pilots of a 737 flying out of Costa Rica lost all of their map displays and the flight-management computers on both sides of the plane “during a critical phase of flight in mountainous terrain,” according to the crew’s ASRS report. If the flight information had disappeared in bad weather or at night, “it could have been a potentially disastrous outcome,” the pilot wrote.

Later that year, the captain of a 737-800 reported that key flight data intermittently disappeared as the jet was climbing through turbulence and the screens blanked even more during the descent. After the plane landed, maintenance crews couldn’t find any reason for the blanking display units. “Due to no known cause for a known recurring problem,” the pilot reported to ASRS, “I refused the aircraft for the next leg.”

The NASA-administered database scrubs the reports of identifying details, including names of airlines, pilots and usually the locations. Aviation experts caution that the ASRS filings are based on crew reports and don’t provide official findings. And blanking display screens haven’t been cited in crashes, only in scary incidents.

Two years ago, the pilot of a 737-800 reported multiple episodes of important flight information “blanking or simply not functioning,” including an incident where the plane flew into a wind shear due to lack of data. “The so-called momentary blanking," the pilot wrote, “is a puzzle."

[Danke]

Ya, in low visibility landings, we ask passengers to turn every thing off.

[Danke]

How is this for doing something?

https://www.fastcompany.com/90377949...he-middle-seat