Airline Pilot's Favorite Plane???
da...@teleport.com
Of the major commercial airplanes, which are favorites by airline
pilots and why?
I've heard pilot comments such as "the 757 is a rocket", "nothing has
more feel than a 727", "the hump in a 747 is so that the captain can
sit in his wallet, but it's boring to fly"!
[[[MODERATOR'S NOTE: please relate experiences *you* have had with planes,
and not hearsay (i.e. "my friend Joe says he likes the 727 and he should
know because he's a flight attendant"). Commercial pilots only, please. I
don't want to turn this into a "favourite plane to fly on" thread (there's
already one of those going on on rec.travel.air --HTR]]]
John Knopp
da...@teleport.com (da...@teleport.com) wrote:
>Of the major commercial airplanes, which are favorites by airline
>pilots and why?
Gotta be the DC-9/MD-80 for me (of course,a pilot's favorite airplane
is usually his current one -- makes going to work a little easier!).
Quiet cockpit, extremely stable, easy to land in almost any WX/wind
condition. In short, the airplane makes you look alot better than you
are!
The -9 certainly doesn't have the "gee-whiz" automation of the more
recent aircraft but that's part of the fun -- hand-flying and using
the FMC between your ears!
-J
-
John Knopp
j...@apk.net
Ron Adams
da...@teleport.com wrote:
> Of the major commercial airplanes, which are favorites by airline
> pilots and why?
> more feel than a 727", "the hump in a 747 is so that the captain can
> sit in his wallet, but it's boring to fly"!
> [[[MODERATOR'S NOTE: please relate experiences *you* have had with
> planes, and not hearsay (i.e. "my friend Joe says he likes the 727 and
> he should know because he's a flight attendant"). Commercial pilots
> only, please. I don't want to turn this into a "favourite plane to fly
> on" thread (there's already one of those going on on rec.travel.air
> --HTR]]]
My favorite is the 757 with the other flavors of 767 close behind. Most
guys I know that have flown the 75' seem to feel the same. BTW, a
flight attendant I used to work with a lot said she figured out why ---
"long legs, big boobs!" <VBG!>
Ron Adams
MD-88 (Soon to be B-757/767!) Captain
C. Marin Faure
In article <50n4io$h...@kragar.kei.com>, da...@teleport.com
(da...@teleport.com) wrote:
> Of the major commercial airplanes, which are favorites by airline
> pilots and why?
For what it's worth, most of the flight test and production test pilots
I've talked to here at Boeing like the 757 the most. In fact, when during
the making of a marketing film shortly after the 777's first flight, I
asked John Cashman, the 777 chief pilot, how the 777 handled, he related
most of the 777's flight characteristics as comparisons to the 757. The
757 seems to have become the benchmark for performance, at least with the
Boeing pilots.
C. Marin Faure
author, Flying a Floatplane
Suren
I agree, most pilots' rate their current type as the favorite!
However, I still have a love affair with the Tristar. A better designed
airplane I have not flown. Direct Lift Control alone is enough to bring
tears to my eyes. The 737 was a little gem in it's own way, but crude and
brash, kinda like a "downtown girl".
The Airbus 300 and 310 work fine, but it's hard to love them.
My colleagues speak highly of the DC9/MD80 series, and all the 747 drivers
love to boast about that.
Any slurs on the L-1011 will be met with hate-mail. Be warned!
Ron Adams
Suren wrote:
> I agree, most pilots' rate their current type as the favorite!
> However, I still have a love affair with the Tristar. A better designed
> airplane I have not flown. Direct Lift Control alone is enough to bring
> tears to my eyes.
I agree the Tri-Tanic was a nice flying machine, but the systems! Ground
school was like trying to drink from a fire hose! And the FMS...input
weights in pounds, the box converts to kilograms, does the computations,
reconverts to pounds, displaying a slightly different number than what you
put in! And I'd LOVE to have the franchise on 387 light bulbs.
But it flys nice. :>
matt weber
In article <5197r6$7...@kragar.kei.com>, fau...@halcyon.com says...
My gut feel is the love of the 757 is more related to performance
issues. A lot of airline pilots are in fact former military pilots who
miss flying their high performance jet aircraft. As a result, any aircraft
that performs very well tends to be liked a great deal. The 757 has a very
high thrust to weight ratio, which makes it at least seem very agile. In
fact most current twins have fairly high thrust to weight ratio's, however
757 was designed for more short haul operation than 767, so it had more
performance built in from the start.
The other aircraft that is truly amazing are the QANTAS 747-SP's. These
(and only these two aircraft) have the big Rolls Royce D4 engines, and at
low takeoff weight, and high thrust operation (not a likely pairing in
normal operation), these aircraft have a thrust to weight ratio comparable
to the F4 Phantom II fighter. In fact these aircraft can out climb the
ability of the cabin pressurization controllers and post takeoff checklist
completion at low operating weight. Because of the high thrust capability
of the D4's (about 52,000 pounds), there are some holes in the flight
envelope due to insufficient rudder authority, and these aircraft lost
their US Airworthiness Certificates when they were re-engine'ed with the
big Rollers. They are not supposed to be operated at maximum performance
to avoid the holes in the envelope, and I have only seen it done once.
[[[MODERATOR'S NOTE: a thrust-to-weight argument has been hashed out
before on sci.aeronautics.airliners. See the s.a.a archives at
http://www.chicago.com/airliners/ --HTR]]]
mi...@epix.net
Ron Adams <rona...@randomc.com> wrote:
>da...@teleport.com wrote:
>> Of the major commercial airplanes, which are favorites by airline
>> pilots and why?
>> I've heard pilot comments such as "the 757 is a rocket", "nothing has
>> more feel than a 727", "the hump in a 747 is so that the captain can
>> sit in his wallet, but it's boring to fly"!
>> [[[MODERATOR'S NOTE: please relate experiences *you* have had with
>> planes, and not hearsay (i.e. "my friend Joe says he likes the 727 and
>> he should know because he's a flight attendant"). Commercial pilots
>> only, please. I don't want to turn this into a "favourite plane to fly
>> on" thread (there's already one of those going on on rec.travel.air
>> --HTR]]]
>My favorite is the 757 with the other flavors of 767 close behind. Most
>guys I know that have flown the 75' seem to feel the same. BTW, a flight
>attendant I used to work with a lot said she figured out why --- "long
>legs, big boobs!" <VBG!>
My friend (Cptn. Karl Stahl) is a captain of several 727-200s for Kiwi
int. he says its a fairly easy plane to fly. he also used to fly a
(lockeed) L1011 for Eastern and says its a great plane to fly.
Neil D Robertson
I have 9 500 hours on Boeing 707, 727, DC8 and L1011. All have their
plusses and minuses. The 707 is a real lady but can be very fickle in
crosswing landings. The 727 is a real sportscar - for African operations,
the tail mounted engines, airstairs and apu make for the perferct self
running aircraft; the 'Diesel 8' is everything the 70' isn't and more (you
can't drop a 70' in from 250 feet without bending it - you can with the
Eight!) and in terms of sheer flying pleasure/working environment nothing
beats the 1011 except possibly the L100 which has a flight deck big
ebnough to party in and a view that is the closest I've ever come to a
flying carpet!
HEADCAP18
Having flown DC-9, B-737(200-300-400), B757, B767, FK 100(Instructor), My
chioce of best overall would be the B-767. Great control feel, easiest big
airplane to grease on landings...
B-737, all models great at low altitudes, traffic pattern speeds( Almost a
straight wing) good x-wind airplane.
B-757, good airplane but a little weak at heavy wts, and high altitudes.
Loved the DC- 9 as a first generation jet transport. Simple, and
reliable. But a bit tricky to get consistantly good landings...
FK100, high tech DC-9 with Rolls engines. Too many complicated steps to
use FMS compared to other aircraft FMS procedures.