Dakota Kid

"The oil and gas rush has led to a jobs boom. North Dakota has the nation's lowest jobless rate, at 3.5%, and the state now has some 200 rigs pumping 440,000 barrels of oil a day, four times the amount in 2006. The state reports more than 16,000 current job openings, and places like Williston have become meccas for workers seeking jobs that often pay more than $100,000 a year. "

brakechatter

While I agree that there is money in freight, a valid comparison between Delta and FedEX/UPS consists of the fact that we move similar metal back and forth safely. Fed Ex and UPS make their money in overnight small packages, and have mostly the corner on that market--with the associated infrastructure--a huge infrastructure. While they are getting into the bulk freight business at an increasing rate, their bread and butter is essentially an overnight mail service. We can't do that without enormous capital outlay.

Now if we are talking dedicated freighters and belly freight, yeah, I'll buy that argument--although there are a lot of dedicated freight haulers out there.

Carl Spackler

Yeah, he told me to have a nice trip. Y Zass.

Carl

Carl Spackler

In my 747-200 days, we had both passenger versions and all cargo versions of the aircraft. We referred to the trips as either "cargo trips" or "cargo appreciation trips".

Carl

acl65pilot

Very True. Just had one of the INS on the JS last week and he said the same thing. The 744's have to stop in ANC for gas. The 777 does not have to. With the cargo weights they are carrying the 777 makes sense because it can go nonstop. It does allow them to leave three or four hours later, and arrive in MEM for the sort. It literally allows same day service from Asia.

I had this happen with my ipad. It went Fedex to MEM and was at my door step at 430 that afternoon. Same day it left China. No kidding.

iaflyer

Oops... from AVHerald Accident: LOT B763 at Warsaw on Nov 1st 2011, forced gear up landing

Accident: LOT B763 at Warsaw on Nov 1st 2011, forced gear up landing
By Simon Hradecky, created Thursday, Dec 1st 2011 11:44Z, last updated Thursday, Dec 1st 2011 11:54Z

The Polish Panstwowa Komisja Badania Wypadkow Lotniczych (Polish State Commission for Aircraft Accident Investigation, PKBWL) released their preliminary report reporting that the aircraft suffered a hydraulic leak shortly after takeoff from Newark's runway 04L, when the gear and flaps were retracted. The center hydraulic system's (System "C") pressure dropped as a result. Just after the flaps had fully retracted the crew received a low pressure message on the Engine Indication and Crew Alerting System (EICAS), the hydraulic quantity indication reduced from 105.1% to 10.6% in 2 minutes, the aircraft was climbing through 3850 feet MSL at that point. The crew actioned the relevant checklists and consulted with the airline's operations center resulting in the decision to continue the flight.

While on approach to Warsaw the crew performed the alternate gear extension procedure however the gear did not extend. While in a holding military aircraft were dispatched to visually check the aircraft and reported the gear was still in the up position. The crew attempted another gravity extension which still did not extend the gear.

About 72 minutes after aborting the first approach to Warsaw, in view of the failed attempts to lower the gear and the fuel reserves depleting the crew decided to commence a belly landing. After the aircraft came to a stop an evacuation commenced through all doors except for the right hand overwing exits, the evacuation was completed in about 90 seconds.

About 15-20 minutes after the end of the evacuation the first members of PKBWL arrived at the scene and found the "C829 BAT BUS DISTR" circuit breaker on the P6 panel was in the popped position, the "C4248 LANDING GEAR - ALTN EXT MOTOR" circuit breaker was in the closed position. The recordings of cockpit voice recorder and flight data recorder were secured.

Circuit breaker C829 protects a number of systems including the alternate landing gear extension system. It's position was not recorded or indicated by any aircraft system.

After the aircraft was lifted off the runway, the circuit breaker C829 was closed, then the alternate landing gear extension was activated and successfully extended the landing gear, so that the aircraft could be towed to the airline's maintenance hangar.

On Nov 2nd the location of the hydraulic leak was identified in a damaged hose belonging to the center hydraulic system. The hose was disassembled and sent to the NTSB for further analysis.

The captain held an ATPL and accumulated 15,980 hours total flying time (thereof 14,007 hours in command) and 13,307 hours on type. The first officer (ATPL) accumulated 9,431 hours total flying time, thereof 1,981 hours on type.

The open circuit breaker (Photo: PKBWL):



The damaged hydraulic hose (Photo: PKBWL):

johnso29

Never mind..........

Pancake

Dumb question, but does the checklist include a step checking the circuit breaker?

iaflyer

No, usually the checklist doesn't have you check CBs, it's assumed you checked those before you ran the checklist.

Bucking Bar

Something that the QRH should direct pilots to ... check the CB panels. We've had several events here and there where checking the panel, calling maintenance, resetting if appropriate, then writing up, would have saved a lot of time and forehead slapping after the fact.

My most amusing mechanical malady in commercial service was at a regional airline. As I greeted passengers aboard a lady pointed at the flight deck and said "is your airplane on fire?" ... "Why, yes it is. Lets go back up to the terminal ..." (The silly Brazillians put the Generator Control Units beside the First Officer's seat. The phenolic block which held the induction coil for the Ammeter melted and made lots of smoke, but no real harm at the gate.)