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Author Topic: Pilots Numbers  (Read 8502 times)

Offline reape

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Pilots Numbers
« on: September 17, 2008, 03:42:08 PM »
Sometimes I hear a pilot who's in sequence, already has a cleared flight plan, report back to the tower they don't have their numbers yet. Sometimes they need just a few extra minutes..What numbers? Something to do with Plane weight and speeds for takeoff? Just curious.

Thanks



Offline cessna157

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Re: Pilots Numbers
« Reply #1 on: September 17, 2008, 07:02:13 PM »
At some airlines, the crew doesn't compute the weight/balance.  The ground crews input the variables into the comptuer and it then spits out the correct information.  So when they're "waiting for their numbers" they are just waiting for the station to send them their w/b information.

Let me know if I can explain further.

Offline NWA ARJ

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Re: Pilots Numbers
« Reply #2 on: September 17, 2008, 07:20:37 PM »
I believe that with Northwest and Pinnacle the dispatchers do it. As is the same with Skywest. As rampers we would figure out the weight and balance but the dispatchers had the final numbers.

Offline Scrapper

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Re: Pilots Numbers
« Reply #3 on: September 17, 2008, 08:27:37 PM »
Cessna, doesn't it make you feel kind of weird having someone else calculate the #s for you? Does the Pilot IC do a double-check on what the actual calculations were to make sure it makes sense? I mean, wasn't it something like this that caused the Gimli Glider incident in the 80s in Canada? for those of you who don't know, the Gimli Glider was a B767 that took 22,000 units of fuel for a flight, and it turned out that the pilots were using the new metric system at the time but the groud crews put in 22,000 lbs instead, which is significantly less... not sure if my #s are right but you get the gist... the pilots thought they had the right amount of fuel on board, and not halfway through their trip got low-pressure indications, ran out of fuel and had to glide into originally winnipeg, but when they realized they weren't going to make it, landed on a small abandonned airfield (that happened to be used by go-kart racers that day... of course the plane coming in on a wing and a prayer didn't make that much noise either so it was only at the last minute that people saw the airliner gliding in and scrambled out of the way for it to make a landing... there's a pretty terrible made for tv movie out there somewhere about it as well... maybe someone knows the title?

Offline Tom56

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Re: Pilots Numbers
« Reply #4 on: September 17, 2008, 08:34:03 PM »
Is this the one you were thinking of Scrapper? "Falling from the Sky: Flight 174"

Offline NY Z Pilot

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Re: Pilots Numbers
« Reply #5 on: September 17, 2008, 11:10:48 PM »
Northwest and USelessair (cactus) NEVER have their "numbers"

Offline cessna157

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Re: Pilots Numbers
« Reply #6 on: September 18, 2008, 08:03:32 AM »
Cessna, doesn't it make you feel kind of weird having someone else calculate the #s for you? Does the Pilot IC do a double-check on what the actual calculations were to make sure it makes sense?

Well, me personally?  No.  But thats because my airline is so old fashoned that we don't have acars, so me do all of the calculations for weight/balance by hand (calculator, I don't have 80,000 fingers).  But we do get a bag slip from the ramp agents who loaded the bags.  The slip has the count of each type of bag, plus the weights of any cargo on board.

But honestly, having my w/b calculated for me wouldn't bother me at all.  It would be done by someone who was trained how to calculate the load.  Some airlines call them load planners.  Some call them ALAs (Aircraft Load Agents).  Its usually a ramp agent who went through specific training on how to enter all of these numbers into a computer, which then calculates the weight, C/G, trim setting, etc and sends it, via acars, to the aircraft.

You just have to have a specific amount of trust in people to do their jobs.  I'm not saying we let our guard down, people do make mistakes.  Its similiar to the trust that we have in our dispatcher to make sure we have the correct fuel on board, legal alternate, etc.  They're trained to do so.  But we still check the weather anyway.

Offline reape

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Re: Pilots Numbers
« Reply #7 on: September 18, 2008, 11:24:29 AM »
Thanks for all the info. Appreciate it.

Thanks
Tim

Offline N628PW

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Re: Pilots Numbers
« Reply #8 on: September 19, 2008, 03:23:04 PM »
Cessna, doesn't it make you feel kind of weird having someone else calculate the #s for you? Does the Pilot IC do a double-check on what the actual calculations were to make sure it makes sense? I mean, wasn't it something like this that caused the Gimli Glider incident in the 80s in Canada? for those of you who don't know, the Gimli Glider was a B767 that took 22,000 units of fuel for a flight, and it turned out that the pilots were using the new metric system at the time but the groud crews put in 22,000 lbs instead, which is significantly less... not sure if my #s are right but you get the gist... the pilots thought they had the right amount of fuel on board, and not halfway through their trip got low-pressure indications, ran out of fuel and had to glide into originally winnipeg, but when they realized they weren't going to make it, landed on a small abandonned airfield (that happened to be used by go-kart racers that day... of course the plane coming in on a wing and a prayer didn't make that much noise either so it was only at the last minute that people saw the airliner gliding in and scrambled out of the way for it to make a landing... there's a pretty terrible made for tv movie out there somewhere about it as well... maybe someone knows the title?

Im pretty sure I have the link

This is the whole episode:
http://www.youtube.com/view_play_list?p=992823605870443E

This is the last (shorter) part, reviewing what happened pretty much.



Offline tyketto

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Re: Pilots Numbers
« Reply #9 on: September 19, 2008, 06:25:11 PM »
Northwest and USelessair (cactus) NEVER have their "numbers"

Don't know where you got that from, but I've only seen a handful of times either of those airlines pull into the holding pad at KLAS because they didn't have their numbers. In fact, they were waiting for their release time from the Center than anything. Additionally, they've never called in to say that they are waiting on them either when #1 for the runway.

If anything, it had been some of the AAL guys or those flying MD80s and such that didn't have their numbers more than NWA or AWE, at least from what I have seen at LAS..

BL.

djmodifyd

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Re: Pilots Numbers
« Reply #10 on: September 22, 2008, 11:24:22 AM »
well...from what i see
NWA, MES, and FLG all never have their numbers.

its been many times where their center release times come up...we tell them cleared for take off...and they say "we don't have our numbers"

so...before i even get a release for them....i make them tell me they have their numbers.


Offline NY Z Pilot

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Re: Pilots Numbers
« Reply #11 on: September 22, 2008, 07:17:55 PM »
I know cause I work them daily...   AAL guys are always ready, HOWEVER, they are slow as shit. I will never run a squeeze play with an AAL MD80.