Why am I nervous on airlines

I just poke my head up front and see if the pilots have sectionals available. If they do, I sleep like a baby the whole flight. If there are no sectionals to be seen, I'm wide awake white-knuckling the armrests the whole time!
 
mscard88 said:
Decing is used to remove contaminants, like frost for instances. That may all that's needed and there is no effective time restraints to worry about. But if conditions require it anti icing is applied to the aircraft. There are 4 types (maybe more don't remember) and depending how a type is mixed, pilots have a chart that lists the effective time it's useful for different variables, ie light snow, heavy snow etc. If that time expires before the plane is able to take off, then the PIC is required to return for additional anti icing.
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Thanks, so it's not nearly as simple a process as I thought. Good to know!
 
Busflyer said:
"Which got me to wondering (I still don't know how long it is effective) what rights a passenger has actually. You have to trust the pilots, but say you knew conditions were ripe for wing icing, and that the time since deicing had gone too long....would you as a passenger be able to call the FA and request to leave the plane?"


But how do you "know" it's been too long? Our device manuals contain over a dozen different holdover tables just for type IV fluid. Depending on the temperature and intensity of the precipitation, the holdover time could be in the 90-120 minute range. The type IV fluids are very good.
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Great points you make, but let me simplify the problem, though maybe this never comes up for the reasons you mention.

Forget about deicing, let just say some other point. Let's say there is a situation where a pilot as a passenger on a commercial flight CAN see something that they believe means there is a bad situation, an unsafe operation, going on before takeoff, and decides they don't trust the decision of the PIC. What then? Do they have the right to say "even though we are nearing takeoff, I do not want to fly on this plane because I believe it is not airworthy"? I'm really just wondering what rights passengers in commercial aviation have if they believe something unsafe is going on?
 
LongRoadBob said:
Do they have the right to say "even though we are nearing takeoff, I do not want to fly on this plane because I believe it is not airworthy"? I'm really just wondering what rights passengers in commercial aviation have if they believe something unsafe is going on?
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Weather being one of the biggest ones. I wish I can make my own go/no-go decision on the day.

I know airlines will take off in weather that the bravest GA pilots won't get to within a 1000 miles. At least the smaller 100-seaters still attempt to fly around it. I've been on some of those long haul trans-ITCZ flights where it's obvious that the pilots just turn on the AP after takeoff and set a course straight to the destination, right through thunderstorms - even though you can pick out clear weather with very little diverts. Sometimes it feels like they're aiming for CB's. I think they just don't bother anymore, probably figuring ITCZ is going to suck no matter what you do.

I know that statistically a 747 or A380 is probably safer flying straight over a thunderstorm on AP than a pilot turning it off and flying around it. But still - it's not the decision I would have made.
 
Airline pilots have a company requirement to avoid thunderstorms. Usually you can fly around them or even better be on top of convective activity. However at times there's no where to go without experiencing turbulence at times. An airline pilot will divert somewhere, hold somewhere, or even return to the departure airport if within range if there's say, a severe line of thunderstorms and no way to get around them. IOW they do not turn on the AP, sit back, and penetrate t-storms or any other significant weather.
 
I just flew from Norway to the Netherlands for a funeral, back on the same evening.

I always check where th exits are, relative to me, and how the exit doors open. I still think the "how to use a seatbelt" is a bad start, gives people the idea it isn't important to pay attention. But oh well.

No, the thing that puzzles me totally is how many people don't even look out the window, or glance out the window and then turn away as if it were the worlds dullest tv show, back to their little movie on their phone or iPad. Maybe even I find it more interesting now that I'm flying GA, I don't know but I have always loved the view, when under the clouds, and then even above them (spectacular).

I was thinking, if you drive the same person up to the top of some mountain exactly where you are now, they would be all "wow, what a wonderful view, this is amazing" but somehow being in an aircraft negates it all for them.

I don't understand people that don't check out the view from above. Maybe some nervous flyers don't like to be reminded they are up in the air and rather pretend they are in a cramped living room that magically ends up in Des Moines?
 
deonb said:
Weather being one of the biggest ones. I wish I can make my own go/no-go decision on the day.

I know airlines will take off in weather that the bravest GA pilots won't get to within a 1000 miles. At least the smaller 100-seaters still attempt to fly around it. I've been on some of those long haul trans-ITCZ flights where it's obvious that the pilots just turn on the AP after takeoff and set a course straight to the destination, right through thunderstorms - even though you can pick out clear weather with very little diverts. Sometimes it feels like they're aiming for CB's. I think they just don't bother anymore, probably figuring ITCZ is going to suck no matter what you do.

I know that statistically a 747 or A380 is probably safer flying straight over a thunderstorm on AP than a pilot turning it off and flying around it. But still - it's not the decision I would have made.
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No sane airline pilot would fly in the face of - a thunderstorm.
 
mscard88 said:
Airline pilots have a company requirement to avoid thunderstorms. Usually you can fly around them or even better be on top of convective activity. However at times there's no where to go without experiencing turbulence at times. An airline pilot will divert somewhere, hold somewhere, or even return to the departure airport if within range if there's say, a severe line of thunderstorms and no way to get around them. IOW they do not turn on the AP, sit back, and penetrate t-storms or any other significant weather.
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My flight back to Boston from San Diego a couple weeks back got delayed by two hours because the pilot wanted to wait out a severe storm system in the Northeast that would have been slated to be overhead during our landing. Well, he dodged that system, but we ended up coming across its evil twin. The cn clouds were so freaking high. As we got closer and closer, I really thought he was going to divert. I think he started to at one point. The plane started entering into a turn, but then suddenly he shifted back on course. He managed to find a valley through the craziness and we made it in. Definitely a few bumps on that flight!!

The video isn't great and certainly does not do the storm justice, but I caught a little bit of it. Can hear a little girl tearfully say "I'm scared!!!" at the end -



The surface winds were crazy, but he nailed the landing. The poor Captain looked like he had been through war when we were deboarding.
 
This time of year, I'm flying *around* thunderstorms all the time. And during deplaning there's sometimes a passenger who makes a comment about me flying *through* one. Just because there is lightning out the window (like in the video above), or heavy rain, or even some moderate turbulence - we're not just up there drinking our coffee and pointing the plane straight ahead. We're constantly looking for the smoothest paths to get to where we need to go - not just laterally, but vertically too. Sometimes smooth won't be possible. I'm not out for a $100 hamburger and I'm not likely to scrub the flight just because there's convective activity along our route. My dispatcher and I will have a chat about the best route to file, we'll pack on the gas so I have a bunch of options, and then I'll go fly. If it gets too crappy once I get there, I'll hold until it gets better, or I'll land somewhere else.

If I start making go/no-go decisions based on what the weather might look like 4 hours later at my destination, I'll never go anywhere. But guys, if you really feel I'm being unsafe, feel free to walk off my aircraft. Just do it before we close the door - it's a PITA to go back to the gate. :)
 
kayoh190 said:
This time of year, I'm flying *around* thunderstorms all the time.
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Yeah, I was trying to figure out how to word it better than "through". Just changed it. As I stated, we went along it... kind of in the valley of the storm, based on the radar the guy next to me was looking at on his iPad. I never once felt the situation was unsafe and didn't fault the pilot for any part of it - I thought he did a commendable job. Honestly, I'm not sure if it was the pilot trying to wait out the storm or the higher powers (the airline).

I guess I'm in the minority, as I love flying commercially. I never fall asleep before takeoff because I'm still like a kid in a candy store. If anything, it's nice sometimes to NOT be the pilot and just relax and enjoy the flight :)
 
evapilotaz said:
Dos airline pilots judge other pilots when flying on an airline as passengers or do they just sit back and enjoy the plane ride?
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When they do a PA about their fighter time in the military.... :D
 
mscard88 said:
Airline pilots have a company requirement to avoid thunderstorms. Usually you can fly around them or even better be on top of convective activity.
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I think this depends on the company. I know for a fact JetBlue does this when I fly Seattle to New York. You can feel the plain constantly dodging CB's left and right. I'm not sure if BA does this on e.g. Seattle to LHR flights. It feels like they're only changing altitude.

But the cross ITCZ carriers especially over Africa - there's no way. Emirates used to have forward looking cameras with a projected display in your seats. (I think they took those out after 9/11). So you could actually see them flying straight into the only CB in the sky without making any attempt to fly around it. Even without the cameras I have a pretty good idea that they don't. Clear skys everywhere - then suddenly all white and shaking like crazy for 1 to 2 minutes - then clear skys again.

Worst case I've had was a flight from Jeddah to Dhahran on Saudia. We were delayed for 3 hours, and then took off. Didn't tell use what the delay was. Just as we passed Riyadh we flew into an electrical sandstorm. That thing gives you new respect for the words "severe turbulence" - I've never encountered anything like that since, and it was like 30 minutes of it and lightning all around us. Pretty sure we got struck at least twice. Overhead bins came open and dumped stuff all over everybody - and no way the flight attendants could get up to help. Anyway, long story short, we survived - I never liked those pants anyway. However, when we got to the ground I found out that the delay was because another plane also flew through that, got struck by lightning enough to be damaged, subsequently made a bad landing and either damaged the runway or got stuck on it (never figured out which), and they had to clear it up first before they wanted more flights to land there.

But then... why the hell would you continue to send more planes through that crap? Maybe they figure because they pray before the flight everything is gonna be ok. Who knows. But the pilots clearly knew that they were about to do that. We were still in clear air when the announcement came: "Flight attendants, please sit down" (never words you want to hear). And then 30 seconds later it hit. They could have obviously turned around if they decided that they didn't want to go through.
 
When crossing the Atlantic, it's not as easy as "center, Delta 44 request 10 right for weather". We are on the North Atlantic track system - if the weather is bad enough we have ways to get around it, but it's not the simplest procedure. Echo the other comments about avoiding convective activity when able. There are a lot of guys in the air and they are all asking for that altitude with the smooth ride, or a vector to that break in the weather - not everyone gets what they want. I never saw anyone that just "turned the auto pilot on and drank coffee" when the weather was getting foul.
 
I was on a flight from FLL to LGA on Tuesday. My flight got canceled. JetBlue rebooked me on a later flight into LGA but I didn't want to wait an extra 2.5 hours so I changed it to JFK. We left an hour late from the gate, then had to park and sit in the ramp (away from gate) before they gave us our clearance for 90 minutes more.

Thunderstorms in eastern and mid-atlantic. On the way up, I was on my cell looking at Foreflight. I pulled up the radar and there were some moving cells and we happened to squeeze in between them. Nice job. But it was bumpy. I took a screenshot. Looks like a TS sigmet (or airmet?) that we flew through.

Btw- I flew on 3 different JB planes this weekend, and 2 of the 3 were brand new with the better quality leather, bigger screen, more TV channels, USB port, better tray table. (321 and a 320)
 

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evapilotaz said:
Dos airline pilots judge other pilots when flying on an airline as passengers or do they just sit back and enjoy the plane ride?
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My wife ranks all of the landings on commercial airlines. She's a tough judge.
 
The company will pay what was due to the beneficiary. Unfortunately I've seen it happen too many times. We're getting a little morbid here. o_O
 
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