In its purest definition, commercial aviation is any form of flying that is done for hire or compensation. This includes a broad array of flying jobs, including passenger/cargo transportation, firefighting, racing, cropdusting, etc. It is the form of flying the world is most familiar with. Many people will simply never step foot in something smaller than a Dash-800.
A Dash-800, before you ask.
This post is pretty near and dear to my heart, because, like most, I was shot into the sky in aisle "F" of a Boeing 757 long before I got my first joyride in a lil' Cessna. Furthermore, the vast majority of questions I get are based around flying in huge jets at busy airports. For anti-rant sake, I'll structure this as a FAQ.
Q: Why are airlines always getting delays?
A. It's true, the aviation business sector is notorious for delays. I don't know one person who doesn't have some delayed-in-xxx-for-20-hours nightmare tale. So why is this?
The problem is that, unlike many other services you can purchase, a successful and on-time flight is highly contingent on a huge variety of factors, such as...
1. Weather: The uneven heating of the earth's surface creates an ever-changing set of weather systems. Things such as winds, icing, thunderstorms, sandstorms, and low visibility can all have serious impacts on the safety of a flight. For a commercial aircraft to take off, it must meet the legal requirements of both the FAA (Federal Aviation Administration) and the airline's operating code. Even then, the Captain can personally cancel or delay the flight if he feels it necessary.
2. Air Traffic: Every airport has an operating capacity. As the average traffic flow of an airfield increases, the management will add runways, taxiways, new terminals, and air traffic control towers to maintain efficiency. Even then, there are some places where it's never enough. Airline Hubs such as JFK or LAX handle hundreds of flights a day. If even a dozen of those are individually delayed, it can seriously backlog everything.
3. Maintenance/Safety: While a delay/cancellation may cost the airlines thousands, a FAA violation or crash/forced landing will cost tenfold that. On aircraft has literally hundreds, if not thousands of systems, including navigational, electrical, hydraulic, pneumatic, etc. Once your in the air, a relatively small problem can have major consequences. A pebble-sized dent on a wing's leading edge would be enough to delay a flight for hours (or, situation permitting, an aircraft switch).
So....if just one of these things doesn't go perfectly, a delay occurs. It's unfortunate that people are so quick to throw verbal daggers at airlines for their alleged incompetency, when they are the last ones to blame most of the time.
Q: I hate turbulence. But is it actually dangerous?
A: This is a difficult question because, like many things in life, there is no straight answer. Over the past 100 years, standardized aviation safety regulations imposed by organizations such as the FAA and ICAO (International Civil Aviation Organization) have made it very difficult for one thing to crash a plane. Take the recent crash of the Air France Airbus off the Brazilian coast for example: It took a faulty instrument, mismatching speed reports, bad weather and reduced night time visibility to bring the jet down.
In relation to the original question, I have never heard of turbulence alone taking down a plane. That being said, if an amateur pilot allows a bad situation to spiral out of control, turbulence could seriously worsen things. Imagine, for example, if a student pilot with 40 hours flew into dense fog in a mountainous area. Ok, that's already pretty bad. If there was also turbulence, the jolting and constant control-inputs needed to stabilize the aircraft could prevent him or her from making the necessary decisions and actions to get out of the fog.
That example uses a student pilot, and it would be INCREDIBLY unlikely for a crew of professional pilots to get into a comparable situation. That being said, wind shear IS real threat to large aircraft. Wind shear is defined as a sudden change in velocity or direction of the wind. The most violent forms of it are found in microbursts and downdrafts produced in and around stratocumulous clouds (thunderstorms). To a meteorologist, wind shear and turbulence are two different things. To a passenger, well, they both feel like a bumpy ride. The difference is that microbursts and downdrafts have downed entire airliners, flown by highly competent pilots.
In summary, a turbulence is only dangerous if you're being flown by an amateur pilot who "falls behind the aircraft" (a term for when pilots are no longer able to anticipate things, and are barely flying the aircraft). Furthermore, the vast majority of professional pilots are smart enough to stay well clear of anything that could produce significant wind shear. So no, turbulence probably won't kill you. But still, fasten your seat belt.
Q: Many captains have been flying for decades....why do they still struggle with making a soft landing?
A: Oh boy. I love this one.
What we deem a hard or soft landing is the result of a controlled impact of the aircraft's rear tires hitting the ground. The mathematical version of impact force is best measured in Feet Per Minute, or FPM. In other words, the faster the aircraft is falling (more FPM), the harder the impact. If pilots are to make soft landinga, they must minimize the rates at which the aircraft are descending. Simple, right? Well, there's a hitch.
If you are descending slower, that means you are spending more time in the air, and less on the ground. When an aircraft is on the ground, it is less prone to wind shear, and slows down exponentially quicker. When you are close to the ground, wind shear can be highly fatal: a crosswind at high velocities could send an airliner's wing into the ground, followed by the rest of it. More time in the air = more time you could get hit by wind shear. When an aircraft is the in the air, it slows down by maintaining idle (0%) thrust, and using flaps + minimal speed brakes (flaps on TOP of the wings). Once you're on the ground, however, you can use reverse thrust, fully deploy the speedbrakes/spoilers, and most importantly, kick in the powerful wheel brakes.
Furthermore, landing too softly can result in skidding, which can lead to excessive wear on the tires, and even gear fires.
So like many things, there is a yin-yang-esque balance. If you land too hard, it can discomfort the passengers, and even damage the aircraft. But landing softly has its own myriad of problems. Pilot's generally shoot for something between 250-300 FPM when they touch down.
One other thing: The final touchdown is probably the most over-valued thing in passenger's minds. The vast majority of a pilot's training and focus is spent on pre-flight planning, the takeoff, and the approach. I'm not saying touching down is easy....but just because it was a hard landing, doesn't mean you had a bad pilot.
Q: How much do pilot's get paid?
A: It varies greatly by job and rank. A copilot (officer) for a minor cargo company flying a small turboprop would get around $20,000 a year. A senior captain for a large airline can make up to $300,000 a year.
Q: When I look inside airliner cockpits, I see a bazillion knobs and switches. How the heck does anyone remember what they all do?
A: Every aircraft's cockpit is divided into several sections, and within those, subsections. Generally speaking, the vast majority of knobs and switches in a modern airliner can be found above the pilot's heads, in the "overhead panel" (wonder where they got the name...). Overhead panels usually control the navigation systems, fuel flow, hydraulics, electrical systems, air conditioning, lights, cockpit recorders, and passenger signs. The panel is divided into subsections for each of these systems, and every section and individual switch is appropriately named. Furthermore, the vast majority of these switches are set once at the beginning of the flight, then left untouched until shutdown at the destination.
In other words, yes, there are a hell of a lot of buttons. But when you spend hundreds of hours training in that aircraft, and there's a logical division of systems, it becomes completely feasible to learn.
Q: How do pilots fly and land in bad weather, when you can barely see 2 feet outside of the window?
A: Aircraft navigation these days is based around a combination of radios and GPS. Radio waves can do a lot more than play music: certain instruments can tell how far or close they are from a certain frequency, thus allowing pilots to follow invisible radio pathways. GPS works in a similar way, but it's all done from space (how often can you say that casually?). Oftentime, modern airliners will fly a route that is a quilt work of radio and GPS routes. When landing, pilot's the Instrument Landing System, or ILS. A radio beacon is placed at the beginning of the active runway. The beacon sends out a glidepath, which can show the ILS receiver in the aircraft how high or low, and left or right it is of the "glideslope" (landing path). That being said, pilot's are required to have a visual of the runway within a certain altitude, otherwise they must go around.
There's so much more I could write here, but this post is already getting pretty long. I hope it was an informative, fun read, as I certainly had a blast writing it.
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