Originally posted by Distiller
That sidestick is a stupid Airbus idea. You learn to fly with something central (hopefully a stick, since you are not a bus driver), you fly as copilot 7, 8, 10 years with the (Airbus) sidestick on the right hand, all your reflexes get trained for righthand action, then suddenly you get promoted to captain and – switch hand to the left! That is crazy! And with a sidestick you can’t switch hands in case you need/want. Sidestick = bad idea.

Exactly as Minidoh says, you have exactly the same change of hands when going from right to left seat on a Boeing. Even so, what’s the big deal? Have you never gone from driving a left hand drive car to driving right hand drive (or vice versa)? After 2 minutes you don’t even think about gear changing.

Coming back to the main point…if you’ve got a decent FBW system in place why do you want feedback? The aircraft will deal with all that by itself. The idea is to be free of all the waffle so you can get on with the task of flight guidance.

Air Law certainly, don’t know about the R/T License. Neither are too tricky though.

A330’s are not making a loss. The reason for the 767 talk is because TCX wants more 330’s but they can’t get their hands on any soon enough. If the 767’s come (probably not from Condor) then it may make sense to go away from the A330 due to both their leases needing renewal. There is no talk of any fleet swaps between UK and Germany, not even the 753’s. Germany has mentioned ditching their 753’s in a year or so which is most likely to result in a massive order from one manufacturer to equip all the Thomas Cook fleets of all the Thomas Cook Airlines. From the signs I have seen it looks like we are moving away from shorter charter work so the requirement will be for aircraft with the ability to go the distance. The low costs have got Spain sewn up. The charter market will head towards the Canaries (until the low costs take over Tenerife and Gran Canaria), Greek Islands, Turkey and long haul.

Originally posted by EAL_KING
when you starting at virgin wys and what type will you be flying

Well it looks like the Sydney route won’t now start until October so they havn’t needed to be too hasty about giving us start dates. They are however recruiting again later this month so hopefully that means I may get the news I want fairly soon. Rumour has it that there are now going to be a few 747-400 courses in addition to all the Airbus courses and usually they tend to keep former Boeing pilots on Boeings and Bus drivers on the Bus. I don’t really care what it is, I just want the terms and conditions.

Anyway, changing tack completely, can I highly unofficially say just a few words to get the tongues wagging.

Thomas Cook UK ………… and ………… 767

I agree Moggy. Unfortunately as you know too well many pilots don’t fully understand the actual lack of protection under information and air to ground service, believing that just because someone ‘advises’ it may be clear to land, etc then that is good enough for them. The American system cuts out the is he/ isn’t he a controller middleman and leaves it clear whether positive control exists or whether you need to sort things out yourself.

Not that I’ve been aware of. I might have to start paying a bit more attention now.

I’m quite dissapointed to read this…not because I’m personally not much of a fan of BriSh1t Airways but because you have always supported them and their 767’s. I’m sorry they’ve upset you Michael.

I would be very surprised if it wasn’t just about identical to the 777.