139
Alrighty then, that took some detective work.
Here's another flight around the same time, SkyWest 4458, which arrived 2 minutes later. Notice it's one deviation, compared to two deviations in your example.
Weather seemed fine, but KSEA has TBFM (Time Based Flow Management) since Aug 2013. If the ATC asks a plane to delay its arrival time, the way it's done ...
130
Large parts of France's airspace are designated military training areas. If there is military flight training going on, the choice of routing over France is very limited. The only option is to fly around these areas, which results in the routes you found.
Higher altitude route map of France courtesy of EUROCONTROL[PDF, 8MB]
Since the PDF seems to be ...
87
It is a typical dogleg used to increase spacing between aircraft or delay their arrival. If the airport does not have enough capacity to handle incoming traffic, the air traffic controllers have basically two options to delay arriving aircraft:
reduce their speed
increase their path length
Speed reduction works, but only when the distance to travel is ...
69
The pilots in this case did know where they were going: Edinburgh.
BA said a paperwork error was to blame, with the pilot following orders from Germany, where WDL’s head office had filed the incorrect flight plan. The pilots flew according to the flight plan they were given, and ATC happily routed their plane along that flight plan as well. The pilots had ...
56
A helicopter will achieve its best climb rate at a moderate forward speed. Climbing in a spiral helps to have forward speed in what is essentially a vertical climb.
In a hover all the airflow which is available for lift creation must be generated by the rotation of the main rotor. This means that a small amount of air must be accelerated by a lot. If the ...
54
The first thing you usually do as a pilot is to look at a sectional chart, which shows all the airports and airspace in the area you want to fly (and transit). They look like this:
You can see that the Orlando area offers a number of airports. I would avoid anything with the word "International" or "INTL" in the name. Mostly these airports cater to ...
43
If you're not seeing them, you're not looking.
I see planes all the time when flying commercial. Obviously, I see them a lot more when close to a major center, and a lot less when in the sparse parts of the Pacific Northwest (Montana, Idaho, Oregon, Washington).
I think spotting them may take some practice. Visually, a plane 10+ miles away is a very ...
42
There is an old saying "If you put a big enough engine on it, you can make anything fly."
The Lockheed Starfighter was a classic example of that. With its short stubby wings it is basically a guided jet engine / missile.
With small wings you have two issues. Obviously, the sheer lack of lift at low speeds, but also the lack of control surface area at ...
42
I can't be completely sure but the most likely reason is a planned strike by ATC in south-east France. It was planned from the 30th of June to the 1st or 2nd (depending on the source) of July, meaning that ATC services would be unavailable or at least seriously reduced in that area, presumably with knock-on effects in other parts of the country. Some ...
39
Just call up ATC on the approach frequency and request flight following to see the location you're interested in. They'll assign you a transponder code and any restrictions. For example:
N12345: "Houston approach, VFR request for Cessna 12345"
Houston TRACON: "Cessna 345, say request"
N12345: "Cessna 12345 is at 1200 ft, 3 miles south of ...
34
The cost index is a number used in the Flight Management System (FMS) to optimize the aircraft's speed. It gives the ratio between the unit cost of time and the unit cost of fuel.
With this number, and knowledge about the aircraft's performance, it is possible to calculate the optimal speed for the aircraft, which results in the lowest total cost.
Speeds ...
32
Emergency landings often dictate landing at the safest airport, not necessarily the closest one. As I said in the comments, the flight was operating IFR and had turned the window heater on presumably for anti-ice. It could be that a line of weather was preventing VFR operation at closer airports and they diverted to the closest possible VFR airport.
When ...
31
This particular flight was a Boeing 747 flying from YSSY (Sidney) to SCEL (Santiago). Because a 747 has more than two engines, they don't have specific time limits on how far from land that they can fly like two engine airplanes do.
That being said, they do have to carry enough fuel to make it to a suitable airport in the event that the airplane ...
30
Generally people don't fly GA aircraft into major international airports. It can be done, but the landing fees tend to be high, fuel is expensive, and they often charge quite a bit for parking. If you are flying to Orlando in a C172 you would likely land at one of the smaller airfields on the perimeter of the city, say X04 Orlando Apopka Airport which ...
28
The following includes the changes you allude to (which were proposed in ICAO State Letter SP 59/4.1-11/8 on June 30, 2011).
Commercial Flights
Per ICAO Annex 6, Part I, section 4.3.6 "Fuel Requirements," airplanes should calculate their required fuel quantity as follows (summary; see below for actual ICAO text):
Taxi fuel
Trip fuel (to reach intended ...
28
It is mostly standardized procedures.
I take as example Amsterdam airport (AMS), but the following is applicable to most, if not all, major commercial airports.
Let's look at the departure charts, in particular this one:
as you can see, if an airplane is departing via that runway, it MUST follow one of the two specified paths to exit the airspace of the ...
27
When you file a flight plan, you don't enter an arrival date or time. You just enter proposed UTC departure time and estimated length of time enroute. For aircraft or pilot logbooks we only use UTC date and time for departure, and UTC date and time for arrival. The local arrival date or time does not matter. The international date line has no bearing on UTC ...
27
A steady (continuous) head wind (or tail wind) will not affect your climb rate, only your climb angle. It means you will reach a specific altitude in the same time interval, but your ground distance will be affected.
A head wind increase (as in a gust) will momentary increase your indicated airspeed, which you can trade for a (momentary) increase of climb ...
25
You didn't specify the jurisdiction that you were asking about, but in the US there is a regulation that covers the minimum that you must do before flying.
Much of it is common sense:
You want to check the weather, because it can impact you much more than it usually does in your car and you don't want to get stuck in a really bad situation.
You want to ...
25
This thread should be a great source of tips and tricks :)
The way to think about this is to think about the purpose of being asked to divert during your checkride.
What the examiner will be looking for is not that you have all of the information for every possible airport you might be asked to fly to. The examiner is wanting to see that if you had to ...
25
Please forgive me for asking if you are a "flat earth truther". We sometimes get those numpties passing by trying to justify their theories (especially the one about Antarctica being a ringed ice wall with the military guarding it to make sure no-one learns the secret).
There have been many flights over the geographic South Pole, the first documented one ...
24
Looking at the route your plane took, this low altitude flight was likely to avoid the polar jetstream. This is a band of wind that blows west to east in roughly the area the first half of your flight was flying through. It exists mostly between 30,000 and 39,000 feet altitude, and can range from about 60mph to over 200mph. I suspect that the low altitude ...
23
General Answer
The heavier the airplane, the more fuel it will burn in a given amount of time. Therefore, if you takeoff with enough fuel to fly further, you will be burning more fuel in each corresponding hour than if you took off at a lighter weight to fly a shorter distance.
Example
I don't have performance information for the 747, but I can give you ...
23
Aside from the storms causing an earlier re-routing, that jog north is to join the arrival into EWR. A common fix in NE Ohio on flight plans into EWR is the DJB VOR which is in Loarine county (I think, somewhat near Cleveland). and then routing over Slate Run and then Williamsport, PA on the way into Newark. If you are a jet coming from the west, this is ...
22
Outlandings are a regular occurrence when gliding cross-country. During competitions with tens of participants, it is not uncommon for a few gliders to land out each day. For this reason, in the UK at least, glider pilots are taught how to land out, and think about this eventuality on every flight. Many will have experienced a landout with an instructor ...
22
There seem to be two parts to your question. First, what practical steps can I take on the ground immediately after landing? Second, which authorities must be notified?
For the first point, there are just too many scenarios to have a single answer but basically you should immediately check for injuries or damage to property and activate the emergency ...
22
The METAR format is defined by the World Meteorological Organization's (WMO) on behalf of ICAO. According to the specification (section 15.6.3), visibility is to be reported in meters. The upper bound for visibility reporting is 9999, which indicates the visibility exceeds 10 kilometers.
In North America, the METARs deviate from the standard format by ...
21
Over the North Atlantic, there are no predefined low-level or high-level airways as there are over the continents. In order for aircraft to get a tailwind for eastbound flights and get out of the wind for westbound flights, Canadian and UK air traffic control set tracks based on the expected wind conditions twice a day.
The lines you are seeing are called ...
21
Generally when GA pilots talk about climb performance we speak of two different airspeed values:
Best Rate of Climb speed (Vy) gets you the most altitude per unit time (feet per minute).
When you want to get to cruise altitude quickly for maximum efficiency you'll aim for the best rate of climb so you spend the least time at lower, less efficient altitudes. ...
21
Although voretaq7 has already nicely answered it, I wanted to present a picture worth thousand words.
VX
Best angle of climb speed
The greatest gain in altitude over a given horizontal distance. VX is used to clear 50' obstacles and so forth.
VY
Best rate of climb speed
The greatest gain in altitude over a given amount of time. VY is used on normal ...
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