Scene from the movie "Clear and Present Danger": Jack Ryan (Harrison Ford): Do you have any time in this type?
Pilot: Nine o'clock. Paul Trusten, Registered Pharmacist Vice President and Public Relations Director U.S. Metric Association, Inc. www.metric.org trus...@grandecom.net On Jul 8, 2013, at 8:15, "Carleton MacDonald" <carlet...@comcast.net> wrote: > I learned to fly in the San Francisco Bay Area, and, back when traffic was > much lighter, flew air taxis in and out of San Francisco International > Airport. > > The weather on Saturday was absolutely clear, bright sun, light wind. The > wind is normally out of the west so landing operations are made on runways > 28L and 28R. When the weather is good, pilots will either be cleared for an > ILS (Instrument Landing System) approach, or a visual approach. For the > latter, there are two sets of lights on either side of the runway, called > VASI (for Visual Approach Slope Indicator). These lights shine up at an > angle. If you are above the angle they appear white; if you are below the > angle, they appear red. > > http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Visual_approach_slope_indicator > > The idea is to have the lights closer to the approach end of the runway > appear white, and the ones farther away appear red. That means your descent > angle is between the two and you will touch down between them. With those, > you descend by looking at the lights (so you are on the proper descent angle) > and your airspeed indicator (so you don’t stall). This is private pilot > stuff. > > The pilot of this particular Boeing 777 had only 44 hours in type. (This > includes cruising time, as well as takeoffs and landings.) He came in too > slow for some unknown reason and the airplane was about to stall. Finally > recognizing this he applied full throttle but the B777 is a ponderous beast > and doesn’t respond the way a small airplane would. There was not enough > time or altitude to recover. The tail struck the seawall at the approach > end of rwy 28L and broke off and the rest was inevitable. I’m surprised he > didn’t take out the approach lights while he was at it. > > Had he coupled his ILS instruments to the rwy 28L ILS the plane would have > been brought in automatically and all he would have had to do was to pull > back the throttles to land. Airbus aircraft have more systems to help keep > the pilot out of trouble; a voice counts down the aititude to the ground > (based on a radar altimeter, so it’s actual height above the ground, not > height above sea level, although at SFO the two are essentially the same): > “Four hundred, three hundred, two hundred, one hundred, fifty, forty, thirty, > twenty, retard, retard, retard” – the last being an admonition to the pilot > to pull back (retard) the throttles. I don’t know if Boeing aircraft do this > – Boeing’s philosophy is different, they give the pilot more > freedom/leeway/room to hang himself/etc. I suspect if had been an Airbus the > plane would have recognized that he was in a precarious situation and all > kinds of warnings would have been going off in the cockpit. > > This had nothing to do with US vs. metric altitude indications. > > Carleton > > From: owner-u...@colostate.edu [mailto:owner-u...@colostate.edu] On Behalf Of > Henschel Mark > Sent: Monday, July 08, 2013 06:31 > To: U.S. Metric Association > Cc: U.S. Metric Association > Subject: [USMA:53033] Re: FAA must Metricate > > korean pilot > admit to that > i wonder when the faa will go metric > part of e.o. 12270 > > > > ----- Original Message ----- > From: Bruce Arkwright Jr <a-bruie...@lycos.com> > Date: Monday, July 8, 2013 12:41 am > Subject: [USMA:53031] FAA must Metricate > To: "U.S. Metric Association" <usma@colostate.edu> > > > What if that poor tired Vietnamese pilot, forget he had hit the > > convert button, after crossing into our air space, but still > > read meters instead of feet as he aproched the landing strip? > > Will FAA emit to that? At any rate its time for FAA to get on board! > > > > > > Bruce E. Arkwright, Jr > > Erie PA > > Linux and Metric User and Enforcer > > > > > > I will only invest in nukes that are 150 gigameters away. How > > much solar energy have you collected today? > > Id put my money on the sun and solar energy. What a source of > > power! I hope we dont have to wait til oil and coal run out > > before we tackle that. I wish I had a few more years left. -- > > Thomas Edison♽☯♑ > >
