Personally I’d say that unfortunately it seems that the crew on AF 447 were at fault. A normal pitch and power setting for their phase of flight would be around 2.5 degrees nose up and 80% to 85% N1. Regardless of what your ASI says, if you set these parameters you’ll remain in stable safe flight. Check your Fuel Flow and EGT to confirm you have power and you’re good until your fuel runs out. It seems that they were too keen to follow the immediate actions for an unreliable airspeed and then stalled the a/c to such an extent that a large nose down application was required, something in the region of 30 to 40 degrees nose down. This never happened and so the a/c never regained controlled flight. This sequence was partly due to the training system which instills a rigid formality of checklist and QRH reference after memory items and partly due to a lack of ANC, Aviate, Navigate, Communicate. When the proverbial hits the fan, fly the a/c, if you’re not doing that, nothing else matters.

Composites neither fatigue nor corrode.

Err, yes they do. Not as much a metals, but they do. Fatigue is mainly due to stresses in the polymer matrix. Corrosion is due to temperature and humidity factors. 🙂

Here’s a link with an introduction to it. I hope you all like differentials! 😀
http://www.firehole.com/documents/mct_Fatigue_Life_Prediction_Composites_WP.pdf

I’m hoping it was a clue in the thread title…. :rolleyes: In which case this is it:

Plane Finder App

Even better is the augmented reality version, just point the phone’s camera into the sky and enjoy!

Plane Finder AR

Merkin the vc is named on the reverse.

I’m guessing you know Merkle or were distracted whilst typing because a Merkin is something entirely different, lol!:D

Remember that you can’t consume your own alcoholic beverages onboard. The main reason is that it allows the cabin crew to monitor individual passenger consumption during the flight, as alcohol has an increased effect at the reduced pressure in the cabin.

I had a similar problem with my home printed boarding pass for an easyJet flight last October.

The scanner at the security gate couldn’t read it so I was sent back to the check-in desk. Unlike the Ryanair incident though, I was allowed to go to the front of the queue and had a new BP printed for me straight away. I think the entire incident, including walking to and from the gate, took about 3 minutes to resolve and I was more than happy with the service, in fact I was pleasantly surprised.

Whilst Ryanair’s business model undoubtedly works very well, this is another example of why I don’t use them. I can’t believe that they couldn’t have let her move to the front of the queue and get a new BP printed. Then she could have made the flight and the other passengers wouldn’t have been inconvenienced either. It sounds suspiciously like they didn’t care whether she made the flight, and that’s not the type of service I want from an airline.

I can only agree with Moggy. Go and have your Class 1 medical done.

If you fail it, then you can talk to the guy about it and at worst you won’t get your ATPL and will have to find fulfillment in another career (and seeing as how there are NO pilot jobs at the moment or for the foreseeable future that isn’t necessarily a bad thing). If you pass it, then there’s no problem.

Trying to bluff your way through it and then getting rejected by airlines after you’ve spent a lot of money and slogged your guts out to get there will be soul-destroying, especially with only yourself to blame.

Phone up Gatwick, get it booked, get it sorted, end of.

what would have happened had we needed to reject the take-off?!

If you were below V1 you would have stopped on the runway, above V1 you would have taken the problem into the air. Simple. 🙂

But seriously, one of the limiting T/O speeds is Vmbe, Maximum Brake Energy Speed, this is always higher than or equal to V1, meaning that with just the wheel brakes the a/c can stop on the available runway or stopway. Of course, there are airfields/operations where the use of reversers is included in this calculation, but then you wouldn’t even have taxied out to the runway!

Flying without an operational thrust reverser is perfectly legal, as long as it is allowed by the Minimum Equipment List (MEL (Written by the airline and approved by the local authority)) or the Manufacturer’s MEL, whichever is the more limiting.