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You can complain about the expense of Bose all you like. After 3 years I've just snapped the headband on my A20, most likely by sitting on it one too many times lowering myself into the cockpit. I even told them this when enquiring about spares. After one phone call, yesterday Bose sent a courier to my house on the Central Coast NSW to pick it up and take it to their workshops where it will be repaired under the 5 year warranty then delivered by courier back to me. Rumour has it that if it gets repaired under warranty they also install any ANR upgrades which have occurred in the meantime. I've never experienced anything like it!

Malaysia Air 370 Patent Conspiracy Malaysia Airlines MH370: The persistence of conspiracy theories - BBC News and from a patent attorney ("....the theory is completely nonsensical") Patent Attorney here. Some facts about the Freescale Semiconductor patents. • /r/MH370 the men listed don't actually appear on the MH370 passenger manifest. the men listed are not actually the patent holders, but the inventors. The patent holder is actually the company Freescale Semiconductor. It still exists, and it still owns the patent. it's not a given that if patent holders die, the entire wealth generated by the patent goes to any remaining patent holders. the patent does exist, but it is not military in nature. It is for a process improvement and highly unlikely to be worth as much money as the theory suggests.

In the big planes we just call it what it is. "Engine failure at V1". "Engine failure at Vr". "Engine failure between V2 and green dot". "Engine failure in the cruise". "Engine failure on approach". Rather than trying to squish it all into one definition. It's also about the only terminology we don't have a TLA or FLA or SLA for, which is kind of refreshing.

There were a group of 19 artists and calligraphers on board too. Coincidence? I think not. The illuminati trying to shutdown artistic expression? Point being that you can draw a link to whatever you like in whichever way you like then assert that it's not coincidental. This is not the finest logical reasoning from Anonymous.

Correction: In fact both inputs are algebraically added, not "averaged". It does this up to maximum deflection that would be available to a single sidestick. So the effect of one pushing forward and one pulling back is the same - one essentially cancels out the other, or partially cancels it out. Sorry....been a while since I've done the ground school and I had to refresh myself because I couldn't recall the exact details! It's on page 1,371 of our 4,255 page Flight Crew Operating Manual for the Airbus A330, if you must know.... (that's true!) The principle is as I said though. It tells you, and there needs to be clear communication of who is doing what.

Well.....not a "problem" as such. Just pilots fail to have a good knowledge of the system and what it tells you, and discipline in handing over/taking over control like our instructors taught us when we all learned to fly. So the plane has a sidestick controller on each side, obviously one for each pilot. It is totally "fly by wire" so there's no physical link between the two. If simultaneous inputs are made, the computer "averages" them. I guess it was designed that way because if it did anything else, a dual input could lead to pretty extreme movements. If one pilot pulls full back, and the other pilot pushes full forward, nothing happens because the inputs are averaged and cancel out. However the plane will loudly announce "dual input!" at you if both pilots make a control input, as well as illuminating a warning light in front of each pilot. There is a pushbutton on each sidestick which if depressed (whichever one is pressed first) will instantly take priority from the other sidestick and if held long enough, will lock it out all together. This is how you take control if the flying guy is doing something really bad and you don't have time to talk about it. The bottom line is that discipline over who is actually flying the plane is required (which has been the case ever since dual control planes were invented) and positive confirmation or action is required to have one pilot take control if dual input is shouted at you by the computer, but we've seen accidents where this discipline has broken down. AF447 which stalled into the Atlantic had this happen, among many other things. You'll see "dual input" in the CVR transcripts while Bonin was holding his sidestick fully back keeping it in the stall though he didn't understand that he was stalled, while the other guy has tried to push forward. No-one ever really did anything about it. The senior First Officer should've screamed at him "I HAVE CONTROL!" and/or pressed his takeover button. It's just one of these basic principles which tragically broke down. Only one guy flies the plane at a time, and everyone in the cockpit needs to be fully aware of who it is.

You stick the thrust levers into the TOGA detent (ie, firewall them) on an Airbus and, as Benny said, you'll get full thrust no matter what "mode" (technically they're called "phases" on the Airbus) the FMC is in. Full forward means only one thing to the engine computers (FADECs). "Gimme all you've got!" Even if it failed to sequence the computers from the "approach" phase into the "go around" phase, you'll still end up with maximum thrust and if you're hand flying, you just pull back on the stick to the correct pitch attitude and away you go. It's no different in principle to if you were flying a Bonanza. At worst, if it was still in the approach phase, the flight directors would give you dud info, thinking you still want to descend on your approach path to touchdown. But if you have full thrust you just manually do that pilot stuff and pitch it up to 15 degrees and get the other pilot to turn them off if need be. Also if you don't get the thrust levers fully forward and instead leave them in the climb detent with autothrust engaged, that's going to ruin your day too, because you're just telling the autothrust system it's "business as usual" and it thinks you're still on approach and want to land, so all it wants to do is maintain your approach speed. The Airbus thrust levers normally stay in the climb detent from after takeoff until landing when you pull them to idle. When they're in that climb detent, the autothrust engages and what that does is driven by what modes you're using with the auto flight system, and which phase of flight you're in (or rather the computers think you're in!). However on an Airbus, ask for TOGA thrust and TOGA thrust you shall receive, always. If you don't ask, you don't get. It's only two "clicks" (detents), but there's a chasm of difference with how the plane and its systems behave, between having the thrust levers in the climb detent and having them in the TOGA detent. You have to know this stuff if you're an Airbus pilot.

Yeah the A300 was a bit of a different beast. However the subsequent Airbus models (320,330,340,380) are all remarkably similar in the way they work. That's an intentional philosophy from Airbus. On the Airbus these days we are often told to think of the thrust levers/throttles themselves as "switches". There are a number of detents in the throttle quadrant and depending which one you advance them to, the engines and aircraft will do various different things. The "TOGA detent" on the throttle quadrant in an Airbus has much the same effect as pressing the "TOGA switch" on a Boeing, but through a slightly different mechanism. It commands full thrust and activates the flight director pitch and roll modes into their respective "go-around" functions. If the autopilot happens to be engaged when you do that, the plane will do it all automatically. If you're manually flying at the time you'll still get the commands but you have to do some of that pilot stuff to follow them. The Airbus which sort of pancaked into the trees was the age-old screwup: Pilot has idle power set, descending for show-off low pass. Pilot suddenly realises his flight path is not looking good and wants much more power. Engines can't respond quick enough. Pilot crashes plane.

Cuttings corners is par for the course in the modern commercial world FH. The airline industry is no exception. The institutional investors and the accountant managers of modern day airlines have the mentality that as long as money is being made and hulls are not being lost, everything is absolutely fine and dandy. They don't particularly care what risks are taken, as long as we don't crash. Even then I heard several years ago that a manager of a certain low-cost carrier said "off the record" (as if there's any such thing) to a colleague "yeah we've factored in a total hull loss and the death of everyone on board, and we still reckon we can be profitable as long as we don't have another", or words to that effect. Fortunately here in Oz (some other countries have it too) we have a regulatory framework which gives substantial protections to the PIC for ensuring the safe operation of the aircraft, and I've certainly seen it used on many occasions.

Not quite sure of the way HK civil regs work but in QF at least we never used to have S/Os with a "cruise relief pilot" rating as such. They simply held a "copilot" instrument rating. When I joined they could be in the seat not below 5000' though that was a company SOP and was regularly flouted with them getting out of the seat fairly late. I recall an uncomfortable rushed seat change on final approach, which was a bit ordinary and definitely not the way it should be done. Now it's 20,000 ft before they can hop in or have to jump out and that's enforced fairly rigorously. First Officers here hold a full command instrument rating on type and are trained to the exact same flying standards as the Captains. This is because if the Captain is in the bunk and the S/O is in his seat, the F/O is actually deputised "in command" of the aircraft. The only exception is that F/Os don't do low visibility approaches, i.e. your Cat 3 ILS approaches down to 50 ft or less with automatic landing. That's "Captain-only" business, although there is no technical reason the F/O can't conduct one from the right seat if the Captain decided to keel over in flight and the weather was that bad. The controls and button pushing are all the same from either seat.

Similar principle. Standard go-around for a B767 (which would be almost the same for a B777 except the "go-around switch" is called a "TOGA switch") First: Then:

It's possible that that something resembling that actually happened, but maybe not exactly in that order. The TOGA switches are inhibited below 2 ft radar altitude. It is a B777 SOP that if a go-around is initiated after touchdown, the thrust levers must be physically pushed forward. In any case, if the aircraft bounced more than 2 ft in the air, which seems likely, the TOGA switches would not have stayed inhibited. So how did it get to 175ft with thrust not applied? There's something just not quite right with some bits of his theory. I think saying it was "inevitable" is a bit over the top. I disagree with that. The Airbus (any model) does not have TOGA switches. Boeing does. So it's not true to say "modern jets have TOGA switches". On the Airbus the thrust levers must actually be physically pushed to the TOGA detent (full forward) to get the plane into "go around mode". That's one of many things he would/should glance at but the non flying pilot actually has a lot of other stuff to do in a go-around.

No (assuming you're talking about hijacking from outside the cockpit rather than from within). However there was no-one on the passenger list who aroused any suspicion at all and no group ever claimed responsibility, so it seems unlikely.

I guess what I'm saying is that 6 inches would be a safe height under normal circumstances. With a speed above Vr (rotate speed for the uninitiated) and TOGA (takeoff/go around thrust setting, or basically flat strap for the uninitiated) and 15 degrees nose up, there's no chance of settling back onto the runway in any of these modern jets today. They all have so much excess power. To settle back onto the runway, you have to screw something up (as likely happened) or get a very sudden and incredibly severe windshear. All that's needed is to establish that you are in fact climbing, hence the "positive climb" call.

The only problem is creating a hard and meaningful definition of "safe height" which is not open to interpretation - bearing in mind that the gear needs to come up fairly quickly after a takeoff or go-around for performance reasons. It's a generally accepted rule that once the radar altitude and altimeter are increasing, the height is safe given that you're already supposed to be established in the manoeuvre (full thrust and pitching to around 15 degrees nose up).

Spool up time from flight idle to 95% takeoff thrust is 5 seconds or less. That's regulated by the FAA. The engines remain in flight idle (a higher thrust than ground idle) for a period after touchdown to allow for this.

Another interesting facet I discussed with a colleague recently was the possibility of a mixup with the TOGA switches. I remember coming from the B747 onto the B767 where the TOGA switches and autothrottle disconnect switches were in different positions which could cause confusion, leading to several inadvertent activations of go-around mode (ie full thrust and pitch up) in the simulator when all I wanted to do was disconnect the autothrottle and land! I wonder if the scenario could be reversed. Wanted to activate go-around mode but disconnected the authothrottle instead? This could lead to a lot of confusion at a critical time.

It's rare. Sometimes a super-smooth landing can do it. Not enough weight on wheels to immediately activate the spoilers and it skips off the runway a bit before settling. Alternatively, if you hit the runway hard enough the slight delay in the spoilers being activated allows the plane to get airborne again and they immediately retract, possibly exacerbating the bounce. It's not common, and you're right about them being important. They have a huge effect on braking action. It's funny that when there's a failure of the automatic system the touchdown is often beautifully smooth....until you pull the lever up manually and it thuds down onto the runway! This is the effect of a smooth touchdown on the rear bogies (front bogies if it's a B767 as they tilt the other way) then manual activation is never as smooth as the automatic system so it dumps all the lift quickly and you can thump down on the front bogies as the weight forces the tilt out of them. Though on the Airbus even the automatic system causes this if you don't promptly lower the nose! It's an interesting interaction between all the landing forces and the automatic systems on modern jets. Usually works well though.

Yes the speedbrake lever would be in the "armed" position for landing in which case with "on ground" logic (no gear tilt) and the thrust levers at idle, the speedbrake lever gets automatically driven up and ground spoilers will deploy. If those conditions cease to be met they'll retract again. You can recover from a small bounce by just holding the attitude and adding a little brief burst of power, just like any other plane. A high bounce demands an immediate go-round, again just like any other plane. If you go around after touchdown the speedbrakes retract and the autobrakes disarm. Flaps are retracted to 20 and the non flying pilot calls "positive climb" (radar and pressure altimeters increasing) then the flying pilot calls "gear up". Happens pretty quick. We practice go-arounds a lot in the sim (though normally not after touchdown) and they're pretty strict on getting everything done in the right order, for obvious reasons! There's a lot of potential to screw things up in various ways during a poorly executed and coordinated go around, especially when the element of surprise is thrown in.

I believe the Captain was the flying pilot and was a local Emirates native. The F/O as we know was the Aussie. I'd suggest that no matter what occurred, the F/O's time is up and he'll never work for Emirates again. Personally I actually hope he gets out of the country sooner rather than later, in his own best interests. I also believe the Captain, as he was a local, will continue on to have an illustrious career with them despite being the one flying the plane at the time and calling the shots. I realise it's somewhat speculative (though not uninformed) but I wouldn't be surprised if after a heavy landing and bounce, only "half" a go-round was performed (that being the first stage flap retraction and raising the gear) with disastrous results. Cynical yes, but that's the way things work there.

I didn't say you don't follow the rules. I was trying to explain why the developing rules on transponders are beneficial, not detrimental. I think you're confusing Mode S with ADSB-out. They're not the same thing, although you need one before you can equip for the other. The flight tracking applications can only pick you up if you have ADSB. Not simply because you have a mode s transponder. Mode s transponders offer other technical benefits to ATC systems.

The rules are the way they are for general aviation safety. ATC couldn't care less who you are or why you're there when you're VFR. They have far, far better things to do with their time behind the radar screen. But they will start caring if you're about to fly into an army live firing range, or cause a major traffic conflict, or fly into a busy airport flight path, or issue a distress call because you have a problem. Also other aircraft with TCAS can get traffic advisories from it and it enhances the situational awareness of these pilots and crews. This is why we operate with our transponders on. To help others, and to allow others to help us.

The aircraft was landing and so it would've been a relatively light weight. It was hot, but a light weight B777 with both its engines working has an absolute abundance of power. Bucketloads of it. It should've been able to accomplish a go-round in that heat and cope with wind changes pretty easily. I've heard on the RPT grapevine that the aircraft was witnessed by a crew on the ground to hit the runway very hard and get airborne again before it crashed. The big question is what happened after it bounced, and why? I'm currently betting that this ultimately wasn't the aeroplane's or the weather's fault.

Don't sell yourself short Phil. With deft instruction & assistance from the ground you probably could do it on autopilot. In the absence of that yeah you'd probably be screwed. The advantage (don't underestimate it) you have is that having flown a real aircraft, albeit a very small one, you know what it's like getting bumped around & turning this way and that. That often freaks people out who've never flown a real one before.

PPrune has been around as a bulletin board for a long time. In PPrune's earlier days in the 90s and early 00s when its founder Danny ran the whole show, it wasn't so bad. I used to be a regular but I haven't posted on there for quite some years (unless it was in a red wine induced haze perhaps). In the last 6 or 7 years I reckon I've looked at it twice. That was all a consequence of concluding there was little intelligent life to be found among an increasing infestation of people who had no clue what they were talking about on any topic at all let alone aviation. I'm not talking about differences of opinion (even strong ones) like we get here. I'm talking about posters who were just obviously twits and trolls, and trying to talk any sort of sense into them was a fruitless endeavour. I do know the media peruse it quite a bit. Also some company management do too, but that's par for the course these days. When I left it I reckon less than half the comments on it about RPT were from anyone who actually flew RPT. I honestly believe everyone is entitled to express their opinion, but pretending they have expertise on a topic when they obviously don't is the bit which is either amusing or irritating. Flight Sim: Funny true story. At a dinner party with my wife's medical colleagues a few years back. A specialist doctor told me he'd have no problems landing a B737 by himself if the pilots died, because he'd done it in MS flight sim. One of those awkward social moments where you politely nod, sip some more wine, and try to change the topic.