Originally posted by mongu
Skill, training and responsibility do not entitle anyone to earn a certain amount.

That sure is a bold statement. How much is a flight crew worth when an engine throws a fan blade? When the weather is 100 foot overcast with 45 knot winds? When at 35,000 feet aircraft goes dark with a full electrical power loss? They are worth as much as the ramper?

What’s the common result of errors by the following airline employees?

Rampers
Dispatchers
Air Traffic Controllers
Fuelers
Mechanics

If any of these people screws up the Pilots die. These folks still go home to their familes that night.

Here’s a recent 1900D accident here in the States.

http://www.avweb.com/newswire/9_22b/complete/185073-1.html#3b

The mechanic decided to skip 5 steps in the maintenance procedure and as a result 21 people died. The pilots didn’t even have a chance as the forward yoke movement was limited to nothing more than a few inches.

What about United flight 232? The work of those pilots saved the lives of most the people on board. The high school dropouts loading bags did nothing to save those passengers.

The problem in this day and age is that people take flying for granted. They think nothing of sitting in a multi-million dollar aircraft blasting through the sky near the speed of sound 7 miles above the earth. They all see the pilots job as being easy, pushing buttons and nothing more, unaware of what really goes on beyond the now bullet proof door. We’re trained professionals, of course we’re going to make it look easy. I can’t even tell you how many “oh s#$%” moments I’ve been apart of in a cockpit without the passengers knowing a thing. All we get at the airport are barbs about a rough landing. “You’re welcome for us saving your butt up there.”

I’ve watched people tip their cab driver more that I get paid to fly from NYC to Chicago in the busiest airspace in the world. All the passenger wants is a cheap ticket at the cost of the employees paycheck, specifically those highpaid pilots.

Here in the US those rampers are pulling down more money in their 1st year than I will by my 5th. These guys graduated high school, took a 2 week course and pull down some pretty good money. If the company tanks, they’ll come to us looking for the concessions. I have friends making slightly above what qualifies for Food Stamps (government food allowance) being asked to give up a part of their income to save the company.

Does anyone really know what the AC pilots are making? Or are they just assuming that they are all making $200,000 a year with 20 days off a month?

Sorry for the rant, it’s a bitter subject. 😡

Originally posted by EGNM
Hi WD. As far as i am aware airlines such as bmi don’t use the a/c at any airports where Weight restrictions or Runway length would be a major consideration

Interesting. I wonder why a special lower weight version was created for the European market then. Maybe it’s a certification thing.

To be honest I wasn’t aware of an EU or EP. I checked the Embraer website and it doesn’t cover their varients so I can’t be of help there. The only versions that I know of are the ER, LR and XR versions. Perhaps EU and EP are Spanish or Portuguese translations of the ER and LR. Only a guess.

The LR is the exact same as the ER with a slight increase in the engine performance and increase in fuel capacity. The engine difference won’t exist for very long as I think most operators of the ER are upgrading the AE3007A1. There is no external difference that can distinguish between the ER and LR that I know of.

The XR as I said before is an increase over the LR in fuel and engine power (AE3007A1E). It has the winglets and an enlarged belly skid plate to protect the center fuel tank in a gear up landing.

As for the reversers, they are an option just like heated seats for your car and some operators have not gotten them. The brakes are pretty good on the LR and XR so most times reversers aren’t needed anyway.

It looks good in the BMI livery too.

Another bit of advice I can give is doing what we called at my flight school, hangar flying. When you have freetime and there’s a free airplane, take sometime to sit in the cockpit and practice the stall procedures from start to finish. Several students I had who had problems with the stall series ususally were a result from their lack of knowledge of the procedures. Once they got the procedures down they were able to concentrate on the flying portion and not keeping their head inside trying to remember what to do after they lower the nose. 🙂

The EMB-145 from the inside. I don’t know if anyone will find this picture interesting.