"Pph" means pounds per hour. A gallon is a volumetric measurement, and for purposes of calculating weight and balance, it's converted to pounds, usually with assumed standard temp and pressure. Six pounds per gallon for avgas, approximately 6.7lbs per gal for Jet-A.
Turboprops ARE more efficient,achieving a propulsive efficiency of over 80% versus about 60% for a high-bypass turbofan, but that efficiency fall precipitously above.5 mach.That's because they use the energy released differently. Jets and props both generate thrust, but the thrust generated by a prop is low-speed, high-mass, and they are much more efficient in thicker atmospheres. You aren't depending on accelerating small quantities of air to high speeds. This works better the higher you go, because jets run in a perpetually lean conditions. Stoichiometric values are about 14 parts air to each part gas, but jets run in the hundreds of parts of air to each part of fuel.
The Dash 8 is powered by various Pratt & Whitney Canada turboprops, from 2,000 to 5,000 shaft horsepower, and is considered an exceptional plane. However, it's speed is limited by the fact that props can only operate efficiently at lower speeds. I haven't been able to find specific fuel consumption figures yet, but I discovered that the PW100 series engines have twin radial flow (like a turbocharger), rather than axial flow, compressors, and that acutally surprises me- I'd thought the application of radial-flow compressors was limited to engines of less than 1500 horsepower, due to flow inefficiencies. I DO know that the Honeywells on a Rockwell Turbo Commander are much more efficient than similarly powerful PT-6s for several reasons. The Honeywells are gear-driven- if you turn the prop, you can look in the intake and see the compressor turning. But the PW100 has a free turbine to drive the blades, meaning that the prop is driven by a second set of turbine blades that are not mechanically connected to the turbine and the compressor of the core engine. All the jet engine does, in this case, is generate a flow of high-temp, high-velocity air to drive the free turbine.
As for jets flying short commuter hops like the one you mentioned, it'll never happen. Jets, even turboprops, burn way too much fuel at low level to ever achieve cost parity with piston engines. Besides, the difference in speed over 50 miles is negligible when you factor in the time spent getting to, and through, the airport. On the flight you took, I do find it odd that the pilot stayed low. How long was the flight? It might be that it was more efficient in terms of time to stay low than to climb up, then descend. A short flight makes climbing into the flight levels less useful. Flights on smaller airlines are generally more because the majors have hundreds of seats per flight to spread fixed costs across, and they get much better fuel prices, since they buy hundreds of thousands of gallons at a time... All in all, I'd rather fly slow, low, and see what's going on outside.:)
I've heard the Free Flight theories... I know NASA's been pouring money into it.
It's a waste. As someone in the aviation industry, I'll tell you it's a crock and a waste of taxpayer and corporate R&D dollars, though it doesn't have to be. Light jets... does anyone KNOW what the cost of maintaining an aircraft, let alone a TURBINE aircraft is? You can't just get parts at AutoZone and let some yokel install them. And turbines ain't cheap!! A Cessna 172 burns about 9 gallons of fuel per hour (gph), or 54 pph. A light jet engine powering an aircraft that could carry a similar load would burn at least to 150-200pph. (20-25 gph, a figure quoted for a proposed jet using the Williams International FJX-2). Furthermore, that's at altitude-- tubines are very inefficient at altitudes below 29,000 feet. And if you're making small hops, you spend a lot of time dinking around below FL290.
Secondly, consider why the cost of general aviation has skyrocketed after September 11, 2001. Fuel doesn't cost much more, nor do aircraft, nor hangars nor landing fees. Insurance is the cause of the rise. And insurance for TURBINE aircraft is higher, much higher. Insurance for single-pilot turbine ops is insanely high, because turbine acft are both complex and very fast. Complexity and speed mean you can get behind the aircraft much, much more easily. Having an autopilot doesn't mean a thing, because what kills people now is getting behind on the damn button-pushing and forgetting to FLY the aircraft. Pilots spend too much time head-down, programming, and not paying attention to where they are and what the plane is doing.
I haven't heard ANYONE credible address how the insurance companies will treat a new generation of unproven light jets that fly random courses across the country, landing at small airports, and that are designed to be flown by ordinary owner-operators instead of professional pilots.
Third, where will we fly these things? We're currently revamping airspace above FL290 to increase the capacity of the system, and this requires a LOT of new (read: expensive) equipment for DRVSM. Oh, and one other thing: You can't just hop in a jet and fly away- you MUST have a type rating, and those generally cost about $10,000 and require more smarts than driving your Lexus to Starbucks for coffee. New transportation scheme? Only for the insanely rich. Free Flight is a lame duck in my book.
Funny... for years, some of the best-performing cars in the world have used Macpherson struts, such as Porsche and Audi. But anyway, even better than A-arms is the newer Audi suspension that creates a virtual pivot point directly in the center of the wheel.
And Audi has long had the best solution for power delivery- full-time all-wheel drive. Weight transfer occurs, but the power is not lost. Furthermore, in cornering, it is possible to begin adding power, and more of it, earlier without upsetting the balance of the chassis through the curve. And the foul-weather benefits speak for themselves... Before anyone complains about Audis with five-bangers, too, let me point out that with only 2.1 liters, Audi S1s in the early 80s, stock, were running 300+hp, and putting that power down under Macpherson struts at each corner, and rewrote the rules of rally in a single season...
So what? Where's it going to go? It's solid materials. Crashing jet aircraft go WHOOMF, not BOOM. The fuel burns rapidly, not EXPLOSIVELY. Without the explosive dispersion, all that happens is it burns, and some metals might melt.
Or maybe not. IIRC, spent fuels are stored in a variety of secure, insulated containers, or vitrified. Yes, the supports of the WTC were steel, and they melted through, but remember, the fire there was a slow burn, everything was contained within a relatively small area, and oxygen influx was restricted, and there were many other combustibles for fuel, resulting in a slower, longer fire. Now, do you think the floor a containment building is going to have carpeting, and paint, and wall decorations, and lots of offices with lots and lots of paper? Or will it be relatively spartan, and full of systems designed to suppress fire and radioactive releases?
In contrast,Jet A spread out over a large area, as happens in a crash, tends to burn much more quickly, and the heat is rapidly radiated away from the souce, rather than being trapped in a building.
Hitting the containment building might contaminate the immediate area, but it's not going to spread radioactive material over hundreds of square miles. And since we don't have reactors in heavily populated areas, civilian casualties will be lower.
On a side note, I think dfenstrate's idea of dumping spent fuel into subduction zones is pretty slick... Melting it will disperse the radioactive materials, and it'll be at least several thousand years before they even come close to the surface again. Maybe what we need in this world are fewer rocket scientists, and more nuclear engineers. I know I'd rather run off nuclear power. Hey, how much power does an RTG put out? I could see having one in the basement... I could use the waste heat in the winter!
Find a decent TV at a garage sale? I've looked at perfectly functional 25" TVs for under $100, but couldn't justify that against the cable-ready 19" I bought for $10.
Did you happen to notice the engine "chosen" for this project? A GE J85. A turbojet engine, the same as has powered the T-38 and T-37 trainers. Talking about diesels and diesel fuel and diesel economy is irrelevant, because we are looking at a TURBINE engine here. (and an unspecified "IC" engine/motor for the ground- so that's TWO powerplants on this beast, one being dead weight while the thing is "flying".) Not "turboshaft" but turbine, which brings on a whole different set of operating characteristics. Turbine engines have HUGE fuel requirements, even more so at low altitudes. They spool up and down slowly. Look, the TBA fuel capacity is because they haven't figured out how to attach a tractor trailer tank for the fuel needed. And 350 KTAS?? I'm laughing my ass off.
A T-37 could fly about 390 miles on 457 internal (no drop tanks) gallons of JP-1. That comes to about 230 gallons per engine (two J-85s per Tweet)for less than 400 miles-- 1600lbs of fuel. Putting aside all the actual math, let's assume that this brick is a little more efficient, and it'll fly 600 miles on 200 gallons. The 1200 mile range equals about 400 gallons of fuel. 400 gallons of Jet-A equals about 2800lbs. Empty weight is listed at 2800lbs, max gross at 4000. Empty weight does not include fuel, occupants, or cargo, so you need to add 2800lbs to 2800... oops, we're over gross already. Hmmm... Well, if we offload some fuel... say, 1900lbs (gotta load a pilot and his gear, remember), that gives us 900lbs of fuel, or about 128 gallons, or about a third of the fuel needed for a max range flight. 400 miles... less what's burned to get to the airport, less what would need to be offloaded to carry a passenger, less what's needed for FAA-required fuel reserves (30 min for day VFR, 45 for night), less what's needed for runup and taxi. Not so hot now.
Let's approach it from the other direction: Four passengers at about 180 each is 720 pounds, excluding any possible baggage, and the likelihood that some of 'em are chunkier than that. Useful load of 1200lbs, less passengers, is 480lbs, or about 68 gallons of fuel. 68 gallons is about enough to get most light jets from the tie down to 10,000 feet. Remember, fuel usage with a turbine engine can't be directly related to miles; while putting out full power in thick air below 10,000, fuel usage jumps horrendously. That's why airliners fly so high.
Here's another way to look at it: The Cessna T-37 had a cruise fuel consumption of 1700lbs PER HOUR. Not total, but per hour, once it was up at altitude and flying efficiently. That translates to 850pph per J85. So, with a full load of passengers, this hunk has about, oh, 30 minutes of cruise time. Or, with only a pilot, assuming some extra burn for climb, you get about 45 minutes of real range. Assuming you could even get NEAR 350ktas, you're lookin' at less than 200nm, by the time you follow ATC vectors and fly the pattern at your destination. And how much would it cost? About $2 per gallon of Jet-A, so... $284 in fuel costs alone. Compare that to a 152, with a 6gal per hour burn on avgas (36pph)...
Bottom line, this thing is even less realistic than the Molitor. And at least the Aerocar, by Taylor, was really capable of flying and driving. It drives me nuts to see people here discussing the merits of this thing without first checking the basic numbers, or features.
Bull. You don't know what you're talking about. Who modded this as "informative??" DISinformative would be more accurate.
Computers reduce the workload to increase safety. The "computers" (meaning the FMS, autopilot, and FADEC throttles) do what they are commanded to by the pilots- FMSs are programmed to navigate, the autopilot accepts commands from the FMS, and autothrottles are tied in for descents, climbs, and CATIII autoland procedures. It's still pilots evaluating conditions and selecting routings, altitudes, and speeds to respond to environmental conditions and other factors, like traffic and airspace restrictions. Show me the "computer" that can thread it's way through a line of thunderstorms on approach. The truth is, computers suck when the situation goes down the tubes. Show me the computer that can troubleshoot a problem such as loss of power. Sure, the FADEC can shut down the engine, but can it determine what caused the problem? How about the poorly understood phenomena of tailplane icing? Recovery from a stall where tailplane ice is involved is totally different from a normal stall, but the flight regime is nearly identical- low speed, high angle of attack. Heck, even regular icing. The first thing done in icing is to kick off George, because an autopilot will just keep on adding elevator trim and throttle without regard to WHY it needs to change flight control settings, which can lead to a trim stall or prevent recovery from a stall due to aerodynamic forces. Hell, show me the autopilot that can correctly diagnose a microburst situation and recover from it. They can't, because they just follow a formula to produce a desired flight condition. They cannot speculate, theorize, project, or act proactively when conditions suddenly change. Pilots of large aircraft are highly compensated for several reasons:
They are highly trained. ATPs must go through recurrent training and several checkrides each year in the simulator, and must know the emergency procedures without reference materials. In the middle of a crisis. Correctly, the first time. ATPs must also go through a full medical exam every six months.
Salaries are high because over a lifetime, pilots earn about what other professions earn on average. Whoever said that regional pilots earn about $30K a year was highballing it; commuter crews typically start at $15K. That's after spending nearly $30K to get their basic ratings and then spending at least two years or so building enough time to be hired under Part 135 or 121. So think about it: 5 years at $15K, another four or five at $30K to $50K, that's ten years at an average salary of about $25K a year. Try saving for retirement on that. And keep in mind, you HAVE to retire at 60. If you want to keep working after that, kiss that salary goodbye. Not every pilot makes $215K at the majors, either; that's a senior captain flying international routes in the biggest hulls. A better figure is $120-150K on average.
The exciting opportunity of being furloughed at any time. You don't earn that high salary when you're not working. The furlough situation makes for a tough decision: If you quit to work somewher else, you give up whatever seniority you have, and go to the bottom of the pile elsewhere, which makes you even more vulnerable to a later furlough.
Keeping your nose squeaky clean. A single DUI can result in suspension (or revocation!) of your licenses, and is a black mark that will almost guarantee you won't get hired by any major again, ever.
So yeah, becoming a pilot in the majors is super-great! Being a pilot is as easy as driving a car. It's so easy, Zebu the monkey could do it. Heck, it can't be any harder than typing out mindless replies on Slashdot...
Great, so the Bar is concerned with events that are at least 100 years off... My question is: If they're so damned smart, why the hell didn't they do a mock trial for copyright vs filesharing five years ago, when Metallica was foaming at the mouth over Napster? If lawyers ever wonder why they are held in such low regard, perhaps it is because too often we see them failing to solve the basic problems that we NEED lawyers for.
More important than this first (non-test) use of the BRS system, what about the months-old crash where the pilot did NOT deploy the BRS after losing control of the acft? THAT seems like a more newsworthy item... a system working as it's designed to shouldn't be news. This smells like a PR effort, or the excrement of a marketing department.
The glaring drawback to the BRS system is that, once deployed, the acft is almost gauranteed to be damaged in the crash-landing, so pilots are reluctant to give up control.. it goes against the lessons pounded into them by (competent) instructors. The BRS system is a waste of money and weight if pilots aren't trained to utilize it properly.
Slashdot Mirror
"Over the coming weeks, Ars Technica will be taking a look at Mono, including a basic introduction to Mono,...
At first read, I thought you meant you'd found a girl who would kiss geeks and nerds!
Oh well.
"Pph" means pounds per hour. A gallon is a volumetric measurement, and for purposes of calculating weight and balance, it's converted to pounds, usually with assumed standard temp and pressure. Six pounds per gallon for avgas, approximately 6.7lbs per gal for Jet-A.
.5 mach.That's because they use the energy released differently. Jets and props both generate thrust, but the thrust generated by a prop is low-speed, high-mass, and they are much more efficient in thicker atmospheres. You aren't depending on accelerating small quantities of air to high speeds. This works better the higher you go, because jets run in a perpetually lean conditions. Stoichiometric values are about 14 parts air to each part gas, but jets run in the hundreds of parts of air to each part of fuel.
:)
Turboprops ARE more efficient,achieving a propulsive efficiency of over 80% versus about 60% for a high-bypass turbofan, but that efficiency fall precipitously above
The Dash 8 is powered by various Pratt & Whitney Canada turboprops, from 2,000 to 5,000 shaft horsepower, and is considered an exceptional plane. However, it's speed is limited by the fact that props can only operate efficiently at lower speeds. I haven't been able to find specific fuel consumption figures yet, but I discovered that the PW100 series engines have twin radial flow (like a turbocharger), rather than axial flow, compressors, and that acutally surprises me- I'd thought the application of radial-flow compressors was limited to engines of less than 1500 horsepower, due to flow inefficiencies. I DO know that the Honeywells on a Rockwell Turbo Commander are much more efficient than similarly powerful PT-6s for several reasons. The Honeywells are gear-driven- if you turn the prop, you can look in the intake and see the compressor turning. But the PW100 has a free turbine to drive the blades, meaning that the prop is driven by a second set of turbine blades that are not mechanically connected to the turbine and the compressor of the core engine. All the jet engine does, in this case, is generate a flow of high-temp, high-velocity air to drive the free turbine.
As for jets flying short commuter hops like the one you mentioned, it'll never happen. Jets, even turboprops, burn way too much fuel at low level to ever achieve cost parity with piston engines. Besides, the difference in speed over 50 miles is negligible when you factor in the time spent getting to, and through, the airport. On the flight you took, I do find it odd that the pilot stayed low. How long was the flight? It might be that it was more efficient in terms of time to stay low than to climb up, then descend. A short flight makes climbing into the flight levels less useful. Flights on smaller airlines are generally more because the majors have hundreds of seats per flight to spread fixed costs across, and they get much better fuel prices, since they buy hundreds of thousands of gallons at a time... All in all, I'd rather fly slow, low, and see what's going on outside.
I've heard the Free Flight theories... I know NASA's been pouring money into it.
It's a waste. As someone in the aviation industry, I'll tell you it's a crock and a waste of taxpayer and corporate R&D dollars, though it doesn't have to be. Light jets... does anyone KNOW what the cost of maintaining an aircraft, let alone a TURBINE aircraft is? You can't just get parts at AutoZone and let some yokel install them. And turbines ain't cheap!! A Cessna 172 burns about 9 gallons of fuel per hour (gph), or 54 pph. A light jet engine powering an aircraft that could carry a similar load would burn at least to 150-200pph. (20-25 gph, a figure quoted for a proposed jet using the Williams International FJX-2). Furthermore, that's at altitude-- tubines are very inefficient at altitudes below 29,000 feet. And if you're making small hops, you spend a lot of time dinking around below FL290.
Secondly, consider why the cost of general aviation has skyrocketed after September 11, 2001. Fuel doesn't cost much more, nor do aircraft, nor hangars nor landing fees. Insurance is the cause of the rise. And insurance for TURBINE aircraft is higher, much higher. Insurance for single-pilot turbine ops is insanely high, because turbine acft are both complex and very fast. Complexity and speed mean you can get behind the aircraft much, much more easily. Having an autopilot doesn't mean a thing, because what kills people now is getting behind on the damn button-pushing and forgetting to FLY the aircraft. Pilots spend too much time head-down, programming, and not paying attention to where they are and what the plane is doing.
I haven't heard ANYONE credible address how the insurance companies will treat a new generation of unproven light jets that fly random courses across the country, landing at small airports, and that are designed to be flown by ordinary owner-operators instead of professional pilots.
Third, where will we fly these things? We're currently revamping airspace above FL290 to increase the capacity of the system, and this requires a LOT of new (read: expensive) equipment for DRVSM. Oh, and one other thing: You can't just hop in a jet and fly away- you MUST have a type rating, and those generally cost about $10,000 and require more smarts than driving your Lexus to Starbucks for coffee. New transportation scheme? Only for the insanely rich. Free Flight is a lame duck in my book.
Funny... for years, some of the best-performing cars in the world have used Macpherson struts, such as Porsche and Audi. But anyway, even better than A-arms is the newer Audi suspension that creates a virtual pivot point directly in the center of the wheel.
And Audi has long had the best solution for power delivery- full-time all-wheel drive. Weight transfer occurs, but the power is not lost. Furthermore, in cornering, it is possible to begin adding power, and more of it, earlier without upsetting the balance of the chassis through the curve. And the foul-weather benefits speak for themselves... Before anyone complains about Audis with five-bangers, too, let me point out that with only 2.1 liters, Audi S1s in the early 80s, stock, were running 300+hp, and putting that power down under Macpherson struts at each corner, and rewrote the rules of rally in a single season...
And Wilfred Q. Hijacker is not in control when the captain puts a .357 diameter hole in his chest. End of story.
So what? Where's it going to go? It's solid materials. Crashing jet aircraft go WHOOMF, not BOOM. The fuel burns rapidly, not EXPLOSIVELY. Without the explosive dispersion, all that happens is it burns, and some metals might melt.
Or maybe not. IIRC, spent fuels are stored in a variety of secure, insulated containers, or vitrified. Yes, the supports of the WTC were steel, and they melted through, but remember, the fire there was a slow burn, everything was contained within a relatively small area, and oxygen influx was restricted, and there were many other combustibles for fuel, resulting in a slower, longer fire. Now, do you think the floor a containment building is going to have carpeting, and paint, and wall decorations, and lots of offices with lots and lots of paper? Or will it be relatively spartan, and full of systems designed to suppress fire and radioactive releases?
In contrast,Jet A spread out over a large area, as happens in a crash, tends to burn much more quickly, and the heat is rapidly radiated away from the souce, rather than being trapped in a building.
Hitting the containment building might contaminate the immediate area, but it's not going to spread radioactive material over hundreds of square miles. And since we don't have reactors in heavily populated areas, civilian casualties will be lower.
On a side note, I think dfenstrate's idea of dumping spent fuel into subduction zones is pretty slick... Melting it will disperse the radioactive materials, and it'll be at least several thousand years before they even come close to the surface again. Maybe what we need in this world are fewer rocket scientists, and more nuclear engineers. I know I'd rather run off nuclear power. Hey, how much power does an RTG put out? I could see having one in the basement... I could use the waste heat in the winter!
Find a decent TV at a garage sale? I've looked at perfectly functional 25" TVs for under $100, but couldn't justify that against the cable-ready 19" I bought for $10.
Did you happen to notice the engine "chosen" for this project? A GE J85. A turbojet engine, the same as has powered the T-38 and T-37 trainers. Talking about diesels and diesel fuel and diesel economy is irrelevant, because we are looking at a TURBINE engine here. (and an unspecified "IC" engine/motor for the ground- so that's TWO powerplants on this beast, one being dead weight while the thing is "flying".) Not "turboshaft" but turbine, which brings on a whole different set of operating characteristics. Turbine engines have HUGE fuel requirements, even more so at low altitudes. They spool up and down slowly. Look, the TBA fuel capacity is because they haven't figured out how to attach a tractor trailer tank for the fuel needed. And 350 KTAS?? I'm laughing my ass off.
A T-37 could fly about 390 miles on 457 internal (no drop tanks) gallons of JP-1. That comes to about 230 gallons per engine (two J-85s per Tweet)for less than 400 miles-- 1600lbs of fuel. Putting aside all the actual math, let's assume that this brick is a little more efficient, and it'll fly 600 miles on 200 gallons. The 1200 mile range equals about 400 gallons of fuel. 400 gallons of Jet-A equals about 2800lbs. Empty weight is listed at 2800lbs, max gross at 4000. Empty weight does not include fuel, occupants, or cargo, so you need to add 2800lbs to 2800... oops, we're over gross already. Hmmm... Well, if we offload some fuel... say, 1900lbs (gotta load a pilot and his gear, remember), that gives us 900lbs of fuel, or about 128 gallons, or about a third of the fuel needed for a max range flight. 400 miles... less what's burned to get to the airport, less what would need to be offloaded to carry a passenger, less what's needed for FAA-required fuel reserves (30 min for day VFR, 45 for night), less what's needed for runup and taxi. Not so hot now.
Let's approach it from the other direction: Four passengers at about 180 each is 720 pounds, excluding any possible baggage, and the likelihood that some of 'em are chunkier than that. Useful load of 1200lbs, less passengers, is 480lbs, or about 68 gallons of fuel. 68 gallons is about enough to get most light jets from the tie down to 10,000 feet. Remember, fuel usage with a turbine engine can't be directly related to miles; while putting out full power in thick air below 10,000, fuel usage jumps horrendously. That's why airliners fly so high.
Here's another way to look at it: The Cessna T-37 had a cruise fuel consumption of 1700lbs PER HOUR. Not total, but per hour, once it was up at altitude and flying efficiently. That translates to 850pph per J85. So, with a full load of passengers, this hunk has about, oh, 30 minutes of cruise time. Or, with only a pilot, assuming some extra burn for climb, you get about 45 minutes of real range. Assuming you could even get NEAR 350ktas, you're lookin' at less than 200nm, by the time you follow ATC vectors and fly the pattern at your destination. And how much would it cost? About $2 per gallon of Jet-A, so... $284 in fuel costs alone. Compare that to a 152, with a 6gal per hour burn on avgas (36pph)... Bottom line, this thing is even less realistic than the Molitor. And at least the Aerocar, by Taylor, was really capable of flying and driving. It drives me nuts to see people here discussing the merits of this thing without first checking the basic numbers, or features.
Computers reduce the workload to increase safety. The "computers" (meaning the FMS, autopilot, and FADEC throttles) do what they are commanded to by the pilots- FMSs are programmed to navigate, the autopilot accepts commands from the FMS, and autothrottles are tied in for descents, climbs, and CATIII autoland procedures. It's still pilots evaluating conditions and selecting routings, altitudes, and speeds to respond to environmental conditions and other factors, like traffic and airspace restrictions. Show me the "computer" that can thread it's way through a line of thunderstorms on approach. The truth is, computers suck when the situation goes down the tubes. Show me the computer that can troubleshoot a problem such as loss of power. Sure, the FADEC can shut down the engine, but can it determine what caused the problem? How about the poorly understood phenomena of tailplane icing? Recovery from a stall where tailplane ice is involved is totally different from a normal stall, but the flight regime is nearly identical- low speed, high angle of attack. Heck, even regular icing. The first thing done in icing is to kick off George, because an autopilot will just keep on adding elevator trim and throttle without regard to WHY it needs to change flight control settings, which can lead to a trim stall or prevent recovery from a stall due to aerodynamic forces. Hell, show me the autopilot that can correctly diagnose a microburst situation and recover from it. They can't, because they just follow a formula to produce a desired flight condition. They cannot speculate, theorize, project, or act proactively when conditions suddenly change.
Pilots of large aircraft are highly compensated for several reasons:
- They are highly trained. ATPs must go through recurrent training and several checkrides each year in the simulator, and must know the emergency procedures without reference materials. In the middle of a crisis. Correctly, the first time. ATPs must also go through a full medical exam every six months.
- Salaries are high because over a lifetime, pilots earn about what other professions earn on average. Whoever said that regional pilots earn about $30K a year was highballing it; commuter crews typically start at $15K. That's after spending nearly $30K to get their basic ratings and then spending at least two years or so building enough time to be hired under Part 135 or 121. So think about it: 5 years at $15K, another four or five at $30K to $50K, that's ten years at an average salary of about $25K a year. Try saving for retirement on that. And keep in mind, you HAVE to retire at 60. If you want to keep working after that, kiss that salary goodbye. Not every pilot makes $215K at the majors, either; that's a senior captain flying international routes in the biggest hulls. A better figure is $120-150K on average.
- The exciting opportunity of being furloughed at any time. You don't earn that high salary when you're not working. The furlough situation makes for a tough decision: If you quit to work somewher else, you give up whatever seniority you have, and go to the bottom of the pile elsewhere, which makes you even more vulnerable to a later furlough.
- Keeping your nose squeaky clean. A single DUI can result in suspension (or revocation!) of your licenses, and is a black mark that will almost guarantee you won't get hired by any major again, ever.
So yeah, becoming a pilot in the majors is super-great! Being a pilot is as easy as driving a car. It's so easy, Zebu the monkey could do it.Heck, it can't be any harder than typing out mindless replies on Slashdot...
Great, so the Bar is concerned with events that are at least 100 years off...
My question is: If they're so damned smart, why the hell didn't they do a mock trial for copyright vs filesharing five years ago, when Metallica was foaming at the mouth over Napster? If lawyers ever wonder why they are held in such low regard, perhaps it is because too often we see them failing to solve the basic problems that we NEED lawyers for.
More important than this first (non-test) use of the BRS system, what about the months-old crash where the pilot did NOT deploy the BRS after losing control of the acft? THAT seems like a more newsworthy item... a system working as it's designed to shouldn't be news. This smells like a PR effort, or the excrement of a marketing department.
The glaring drawback to the BRS system is that, once deployed, the acft is almost gauranteed to be damaged in the crash-landing, so pilots are reluctant to give up control.. it goes against the lessons pounded into them by (competent) instructors. The BRS system is a waste of money and weight if pilots aren't trained to utilize it properly.