Flightdeck PA's

Re: RE: Flightdeck PA’s

Originally posted by SOFTLAD
Cruise:
1.Ground speed.
2.Height.
3.Where we are (Including any visible citys/landmarks)
4.Routing.

On all my PA’s this week I made sure to add the ground/flight speed as per the advice given here. I never thought a pax would care but it seems I was wrong so thanks for the input SOFTLAD.

wysiwyg, I had my new digital camera out for the trip this week but as luck would have it it was solid overcast for the entire trip thanks to the last tropical storm to hit the US. I did get some ground to ground photos so I’ll have to post those.

Thanks WD, keep the air to air and air to ground shots coming.

Hey it worked! Looking at it now the picture doesn’t do the flight justice. I needed a better camera and I should have taken a picture with at least a wing in the frame so you could tell that it wasn’t taken from a C172 or something.

Ok a couple days off and I’m giving it another go…

don’t get your hopes up the picture will end up being a disappointment. 🙂

I hope we can get this picture thing sorted, I love WD’s pics.

I’ll try again….

not yet.

It’s still not fixed Whiskey Delta 🙁

Here’s a picture I took during the tour. It’s not the best scan but you get the idea.

Let’s see if I can post a picture……

…guess not, darn.

The best PA I was a part of definately wasn’t from me. On a flight into Buffalo, New York we were early and ask/recieved permission to fly the Niagara Falls tour. The Captain let the folks know what we were doing and gave them an opportunity to move to the appropriate side of the airplane. I decended to 2000′ AGL and spend 5 minutes circling the falls as the Captain (who lived most of his life in the Niagara Falls area) gave a great tour. He pointed out landmarks and gave the history of falls and those landmarks. We all learned a lot. I must say that the passengers loved it. A lot took pictures and a few even took video of the flight. Very cool.

If flying many short sectors, be sure you tell people the right airport you’ve just landed at 😉 (Not Christiansand, Norway, when it is Karup, Denmark)

And as already said, be honest: Don’t blame ATC if they are not involved.

One honest captain after an “arrival”:

“That was not one of my best landings. I hope that you will fly with us again another day though!”

The PA’s will easily be given on the guard frequency 121.5 as well!
(those that have – and those that will)

Spot on with that last remark, wysiwig!

best regards
atc pal

Yes it really annoys me what I read sometimes in the newpapers. I was reading the Sun once and it was something about the two girls from the pop band Tatu being let into the cockpit and sitting on the pilots knee whilst flying the plane! Then one passenger told how ‘ the two girls were trying to fly the plane and as it come into land the wing nearly hit the ground and the plane was going all over the place’. I think this is just an excuse for it being turbulent, and the paper stirring it up because those two girls were onboard the plane. It said it was a KLM Fokker 50.

Well that depends…if it’s been a long night I could do without it as all I want is my bed but if it has been a nice short day flight it’s good fun hauling on the coals and once more round the block!

What the newspapers fail to realise is that doing a go around isn’t dangerous but not doing a go around is!

Wys, do you find that go-arounds make a change and are exciting, or do they annoy you having to go through all the approach procedures and everything else again?

I remember a go-around with UA onboard there B767 on landing at Delhi, the pilot gave a pretty nicely put explanation.

Originally posted by wannabe pilot
…A question for you wys (or any other pilots out there), how do explain to passengers what has happened after a go-around? If I was in a plane and all of as sudden we began to pull up and the engines were put on full throttle, I would realise that it is a go-around, but I can’t imagine many other passengers understanding what a ‘go-around’ is.

A good question. As everyone here knows a go-around is not a life and death situation but just a conventional manoeuvre that doesn’t occur particularly often. I always endeavour to tell passengers the truth, however the amount of the truth can vary depending on what misconceptions the average passenger may have. The important thing is never to lie because you can be damn sure it will rear it’s ugly head and bite you! A go around only usually occurs for one of 2 reasons, firstly in poor weather because we haven’t achieved the required visual references at the decision point or secondly because another ircraft hasn’t vacated the runway in time. In either situation I would tell exactly what happened although I’d word it in a very ‘in control’ manner, which of course would be how it is!

great circle distances as detailed on many flight plans would be good – MAN-AGP = 1007nm, MAN-TFS 1647nm etc

The most important service provided on a flight last summer was the score updates in the World Cup which was being played at the time.

Other than this, I like to hear the weather updates, turbulence warnings, time to arrival, direction of arrival, old man passenger’s first flight announcements, cues for birthday sing alongs, “you may know use the toilets” after long seatbelt sessions.

I also like to know what’s causing a delay and not just being told “we’re delayed” for example, on arrival at LAX ” We’re unable to disembark you right now because that big Thai Airlines 747 out the window to your right has failed to get out of our space in time”

All of the above served with a dose of wit and cheerfulness purrrlease ! 😀

In a PA I find the height and the altitude interesting to know, but I think the most interesting things have gotta be where we are flying over, and how far in distance we have covered/ got left to travel. I always find it amazing to find out how far we have travelled when it only feels like a few minutes.

A question for you wys (or any other pilots out there), how do explain to passengers what has happened after a go-around? If I was in a plane and all of as sudden we began to pull up and the engines were put on full throttle, I would realise that it is a go-around, but I can’t imagine many other passengers understanding what a ‘go-around’ is.

“Ladies and gentlemen, if you all care to look out the right side…

You’ll tilt the plane…”:p

Best PA I’ve ever heard was on finals to Heathrow (09L) with Lufthansa. Just as we are flying over Windsor Castle Captain says ‘Ladies and Gentlemen we are now on our final approach into Heathrow, if you look out to the right you will see that we are flying over the historic Oxford University’. He was of course talking about Windsor Castle.

I was worried as I live in Oxford I thought that the city had been moved 36 mile South East while I’d been away!