I am an Airline Pilot flying the A320 across Europe. AMA!

Have you joined the mile high club?

Ayyyyy lmao

Do you like your job?

Whenever we break out through the cloud ceiling and climb away, or conversely when we're in the descent and reach the layer and cloud surf for a bit before dropping through...I can't help but grin. Surfing those clouds at 300 knots is so cool.

Have you ever seen anything strange or unusual while flying at altitude?

Flying over Portugal at night. Hundreds of flashing white lights, spanning miles and miles. It was like being in a stadium with thousands of camera flashes going off. I was completely transfixed, the other guy was completely not bothered.

Turns out Portugal has lots of wind turbines, the tops of which have a flashing white light on them.

Cheers. My dad was a captain on the A320 back in the day for Northwest. How did you get into flying? Former military or civilian trained?

Civilian.

I hope he enjoys his retirement!

The worst flight you've ever flown?

In terms of what, weather, my performance, delays, failures?

The one that scores highest in all of the above. The one that made you think "I want to go home".

The downdraught event in this post.

https://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/6chejy/i_am_an_airline_pilot_flying_the_a320_across/dhundo3/

At the time I was thinking how to safely manage and get out of it.

It was once I parked up on the ground and thought back to it that I thought "shit that could have been really bad."

That must really scary. What do you do in a situation like that? Is it a case of pointing the nose down and gaining speed to generate lift or is there more to it?

It was a case of just keep going until I got past the ridgeline in particular that was generating lots of mechanical turbulence and rotor zones.

Probably lost about 500ft over about two minutes then I got out of it and could climb again.

Will there ever be a point in time where the braking right after touchdown doesn't scare the hell out of me?

I'd recommend watching some cockpit landing footage on youtube so you can get a look at what's going on during the landing roll, it might help with any concerns you have.

Like that one where the exaggerated yoke movements at slow speed make the pilot look like he is calmly wrestling a cobra on PCP? Yeah, that'll help.

But he was calm though

http://imgur.com/BUVNdb3

Regarding post 9/11 security on flights, do you and your co-pilot feel 100% safe when flying?

No one is getting through that door.

In terms of airport security...the UK is probably a world leader. The Department for Transport take these things incredibly deadly seriously.

Could they do more without restricting even more of our liberties? I don't know.

It does make me laugh though that I'M FLYING THE AIRCRAFT and have access to the crash axe etc...but I can't be trusted to bring a Yoghurt through security for breakfast.

Do you think pilot should be able to show kids the inside of the cockpit? Because that is my all time great memory of flying and wish they would bring it back.

Unfortunately we can't do it in the cruise anymore.

I love doing it on the ground.

If we're delayed we like getting all the kids up in a row to come talk to us, their parents love it too as it keeps they busy.

What percentage of the time is the plane on autopilot? Is it different for trans-oceanic flights?

Autopilot is a bad name for it.

What autopilot does it more like cruise control in a car.

It doesn't make decisions. It's not sentient. We give it information and it does what it's told.

Fly this heading, climbing at this rate in feet per minute, to this altitude, at this speed. Feed that information in, and then we monitor it to make sure it is doing what it is told. It doesn't always.

Unless they are complicated and thus busy and thus it would be a dick move by putting more pressure on the other Pilot who is monitoring me, I like to hand fly the departures and arrivals so for me, maybe from 5000ft at departure - 3000ft at the other end.

No.

What do you do when you're cruising on a longer flight?

Are you allowed to listen to music when the plane's on autopilot?

Talk to the other Pilot. Some guys have a newspaper.

No.

How did you get into flying commercially? Did you start in military or privately? And if the latter, how much does that cost? Thank you!

Privately.

A home remortgage and a significant percentage of my hairline.

What's the worst technical detail of the A320 in your opinion? What would you improve in that plane?

It uses bleed air, or air drawn from the engines, for air conditioning/pressurisation.

I occasionally get a whiff of JET A1 fuel when we're starting the engines.

I'd prefer an electric air bleed system like the 787 has.

What is your most awkward experience while flying?

Back in basic training I had an instructor who would eat apples with his headset still on, the microphone of which was 'fully manually squelched' i.e. it was hot-miced, so I heard everything.

Trying to fly the aircraft properly while listening to what sounded like Orcs feasting on the flesh of the innocent took a lot of self discipline.

Was the instructor intentionally eating an apple in order to create a tense atmosphere as part of your training? Or did he just happen to have an apple with him that day?

Nah he was just an oddball.

Why are you always asking me to "confirm RADAR-contact/identified" when checking in if I only answer with "BAW-XXX, Good morning"?

I ask because your initial "Identified/RADAR-contact" is valid, and transferred across ATC-units, until someone explicitly states "Identification/radar lost/terminated"... :-).

Cheers
ATC-DUDE.

when checking in if I only answer with "BAW-XXX, Good morning"?

Not me.

Sounds like Nigel being awkward.

Thanks for the all the direct Tos and CPDLC instructions. We love it.

You planning on doing a display flight in your 320 any time soon?! Think you mean CAP413, I should know, I just read it for lack of anything better to do in the cruise...

Would definitely second the thanks for ATC, although I'd love CPDLC and I can't imagine my fleet's going to get it any time soon!

That's the bugger.

Remember 698 from ATPLs? Urgh.

Hopefully one day they will upgrade the dash to have working oleo struts!

Hey! Thanks for doing this. I'm an instrument pilot myself working on a commercial license. Sometimes after a long day of training I feel like I never want to get in a plane again. What did you do throughout training to keep pushing yourself through?

Join us over at /r/flying if you haven't already.

I know the feeling chief.

I would be so down when I messed a lesson up. Pilots are predominately Type A personalities (So I'm told!) and we are ambitious, time pressured, tenancy for high blood pressure. We don't like messing stuff up. So when we inevitably do it sucks and we get annoyed with ourselves and hate flying.

There was a great bit of advice from PM/EMPANNAGE a few years ago on /r/flying to a student about hating flying and planes when you had a bad day. It happens to everyone.

Don't compare yourself to other people. We're all learning.

You just have to keep going. When the examiner said I'd passed the CPL the first thing I said to him was "Really?! Are you serious!!?" without any kind of mental filter being able to stop me. The relief is amazing.

And it's a feeling you'll be enjoying really soon. Just keep going and give that little bit more.

Is it true that the pilot and the copilot eat different meals before their flight? And is their something you will not eat because it gives you the swoons?

Can't eat the same meal for food poisoning mitigation.

Me personally? I can't stand deep fried batter, like you'd get on fish in a fish and chip shop in the UK. It gives me a headache.

What has been your scariest experience?

Getting caught in a downdraught on the downwind side of a Mountain in a light aircraft while in basic training. Full power, pitched up 10 degrees and still sinking. Not nice!

Learnt a good lesson that day about route planning and weather hazard avoidance, specifically this -

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foehn_wind

Are you flying right now? And if so, how's the wifi?

No. My airline doesn't have it :(

A lot of people don't realise that the antennae and stuff that have to be installed on the fuselage to accommodate passenger wifi and SATCOM phone calls and stuff have an aerodynamic drag penalty. Airliners with on-board wifi burn more fuel. Drag penalty plus the weight of the equipment installed inside the aircraft.

The smallest thing can cause a drag increase. We have a document called a CDL or configuration deviation list that specifies the drag and fuel penalty that we have to take into account should there be small components like rubber seals and stuff that are damaged or missing off the aircraft surface. It's surprising how much of an effect a small component actually has.

Have you ever encountered any inexplicable unidentified flying objects?

Afraid not sorry.

How much sex is involved in your profession?

Allegedly a lot.

Aviation is a tiny industry and everyone knows each other. I have to be careful with my magnum dong.

Is it at all possible to come up and chill with the pilots mid flight anymore? If so, what's the best way to do it?

Unfortunately not.

How often does FiFi do something completely unexpected - and "rebooting" the computer is the only way to fix it?

The A320 is 30 years old. Hundreds of millions of flight hours. God knows how many thousands of pages of computer/electronics certification requirements it had to meet when it was designed.

The computers behind the scenes sometimes do play up and crap out. Not all the time. Not exceedingly rarely. I'll probably see something small and insignificant crap out in 1 in 30 flights?

Sometimes it fixes itself and the caution message disappears after a few seconds. Sometimes it requires us to do the full failure management procedure and get the QRH (quick reference handbook) out to see which circuit breaker needs to be reset. Other times it's a case of spending hours in the cruise looking in the complicated tech manuals for system architecture drawings and descriptions and trying to figure out what the hell a particular obscure caution message actually means.

But the crucial thing is, there are back up systems and computers. There's no single point of failure. It is so so safe and so well designed.

I assume it's likely a requirement to have paper manuals on board because paper doesn't fail but do they provide electronic manuals loaded on a tablet so you can search for errors / messages quicker and easier? It seems silly to be flipping through pages looking for something rather than typing it into a search box.

Yeah it's electronic. Search function works really well, I was impressed with it.

I've flown on the jump-seat a lot, and one time the autopilot-thingy stopped working (737). The guy in the right seat was NOT AMUSED as he had to hand-fly the full departure and arrival (he navigated after the horisontal/vertical lines in the artificial horizon-screen(?).... Worked enroute though, so it wasn't more than 15-20 minutes of extra work :-)

Sounds like he was following the flight directors. Not exactly difficult. If he was having to fly raw data with radials and DME distances from navigation beacons and stuff then yeah fair enough, that's very hard work when you're flying as fast an an airliner.

I was very disappointing

Dumbass.

*I was very disappointed!

At what level of turbulence is a little nervousness justified?

I've flown a lot, but since a couple of particularly bumpy flights I've found myself pumping with adrenaline and paying attention to every tiny bump and noise.

I stare at the altitude display and direction and monitor every adjustment, if the pilot suddenly raises or lowers the altitude I start to think something must be bad enough to warrant it. I know I'm being a dumb dumb, but it doesn't stop my heart racing and the feelings of dread.

So, next time when I feel the bumps, hear the seatbelt sign bing, notice the changes of course or altitude changes, what do I need to know?

/u/lazlokovax said what I was going to.

What is your favourite plane to fly?

Of the ones I've flown, the A320. I can fly 6 miles above the surface of the Earth at 600mph. Sick.

I'd love to fly a Tornado or Typhoon though.

What sort of additional training would you have to do (if any) to fly newer gen aircraft like the A350 for example?

Airbus have this design philosophy where the cockpit and systems design is very similar across the fleet. No new type rating for every new model.

It would take about three weeks at most for me to get typed on the A350.

What's your take on the United Airline situation? I have heard media coverage and everyone with a Facebook account, but I've not heard directly from a pilot. Why does stuff like that happen?

Airlines overbook seats because it's rare for everyone who's booked a ticket to actually show up.

We have to a procedure to recalculate the mass and balance and take off performance of the aircraft when the dispatcher gives us the final loadsheet after the gate closes...because pretty much every flight people don't turn up for whatever reason.

So airlines make more money by overbooking, banking on the statistical probabilities that they'll get away with it.

What happened to Dr Dao was extremely unacceptable. But you must understand that tickets and stuff are issues that have very little to do with the Pilots. On the ground it is the dispatcher and gate agent who run all these things. I read some criticism of the Captain of that flight and I couldn't understand it. Were people expecting him to go back and be a conflict resolution advisor? He would have been sat in the cockpit calculating take off performance and running through various procedures. It's not like he was sat watching down the aisle with Popcorn.

Did you see the 2012 movie "Flight"? Any grain of truth in that movie?

It made me laugh, particularly the dramatic sound effect of the engines spooling up when it nose dived towards the ground...after we see a shot of Denzel pulling the thrust levers to idle.

The drugs thing. No fucking way.

Is being a pilot and knowing how things actually work make it frustrating to watch movies or shows that involve unrealistic plane scenes? For example what did you think of the movie flight with Denzel Washington? Edit: a word

Haha God yes.

It made me laugh.

Do you fly a specific plane? Or just what happens to be free when you get to work? if specific, whats the flight number, id like to track you on flight tracker :D

Airlines like mine that have large fleets tailor certain aircraft, with certain seating configurations and equipment, to certain routes. It's all quite intricate and clever.

My base has about 30 A320s based here. The one I get allocated to for the day is random but sometimes dependent on the route. I don't know for sure but the aircraft are allocated weeks in advance, it's all done by the operations/rostering department. Really complicated. The software they use to manage it all is really niche and probably cost millions.

For example we fly to Charles De Gaulle and are always busy on that route so it's always an A320 with a denser seating configuration (i.e. more seats)

I'd rather not disclose my Airline sorry :( I'm sure they'd feel the same way haha.

The one I get allocated to for the day is random but sometimes dependent on the route.

But do you always make it back home in the evening or could you find out in the morning that you'll be spending the night in Paris, Frankfurt or Milan?

I know what I'm doing weeks in advance when the roster for the next month is published. There are/should be no on the day surprises.

My dad wants to know: what happens to compass on the plane when you fly over Ecuador?

Silly question. I know.

We don't use compasses.

Our navigation equipment uses really complicated gyroscopes that have frigging lasers in them (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ring_laser_gyroscope)

to detect and display pitch/roll/attitude/heading.

The aircraft corrects for magnetic variation and consequently nothing unusual happens.

The A320 does have an old school compass in it though as a last resort...good question.

The errors compasses are subject to would reverse as they act in the opposite direction in the southern hemisphere.

https://www.decodedscience.org/aircraft-acceleration-errors-the-magnetic-compass/4696

I would like to know the current rules, after the Germanwings Flight 9525 Suicide.

Does your Airline enforce the 2 people cockpit rule? Because i read that "Lufthansa" wont enforce it anymore.

Yes.

The thing about the 2 person cockpit rule is you now have a scenario where somebody who may have just recently passed cabin crew training is now present in the flight deck with 1 Pilot.

Becoming an airline Pilot takes years.

Becoming a member of the cabin crew, and with all due respect because they work really hard and are there for your safety, they are really well trained and take it incredibly seriously, takes a few months.

Is this safer than leaving the lone Pilot?

That's the position of some of my colleagues. Are we introducing a less safe environment by allowing the cabin crew member onto the flight deck with one Pilot?

If you were to introduce one thing to make your job easier, what would it be?

That's a good question.

I'm not really sure to be honest.

A 3G connection so we can get weather and loadsheets and stuff on our tablet devices would be great.

What's the best airline food you've eaten so far and what's the worst?

Emirates in economy. Morrocan Tagine chicken or something. Holy shit was delicious.

I had an egg salad sandwich once that I suspect dissolved most of my tastebuds. It was like eating vinegar from Brian Blessed's fupa.

I'm flying for the first time in my life on Wednesday in an A320.

I'm slightly nervous about it... Should I be? :)

Absolutely not.

It's incredibly reliable. Over engineered. Safe.

What made you want to be a pilot?

My local airport when I was a kid had a car park right by the boundary fence, right next to the runway threshold. I used to go and watch airliners land when I was about 4. I guess it just stuck with me, I've always wanted to do it.

During training, how did you feel about flying a plane for the first time ? And what's the hardest thing about flying ?

Flying a light aircraft for the first time?

Exhilarated. Vindicated after spending so long studying and wanting to do it.

There are a lot of unusual pressures and stressors being an Airline Pilot. Fatigue. Having the threat of losing your medical hanging over you until you get closer to the end of your working life and you are financially secure.

Flying in Europe can be difficult. Somewhere very busy like Charles De Gaulle. Mixture of French and English on the radio is terrible for situational awareness. They bring you in high and fast above what your ideal descent profile would actually be. On a bad day it takes a fair amount of mental exertion to stay in the loop. And we have always got to stay in the loop.

Don't get me wrong, it's not dangerous or anything. But on a busy day with poor weather it can be a good mental work out.

If you weren't a pilot, what would you want to be doing with your life?

Emergency medicine.

Ok my question - Is it possible for a Commercial Pilot to forget to extend flaps before takeoff? For some reason I'm always worried someone will forget and I'll die! Can someone explain if this is possible ? Warning lights or audible reminder etc?

No.

Flaps are in the checklists several times.

The A320 has a take off configuration warning that is loud and angry as fuck if the flaps and slats aren't set when take off thrust is applied.

What is your 'at home schedule ' like? Do you feel like it's easy to get back into a sense of routine or are you back in the air too quickly to even bother worrying about it? I imagine long haul pilots just sleep for days when the get home.

I'm short haul.

I might do 4 days on, 3 days off.

I'm young and don't have kids yet so I lounge about all day watching Silicon Valley.

It suits me. I'd hate a rigid 9 to 5.

As a Gate Agent for multiple european airlines here in the US, I have 2 questions.

1) In Europe, are you allowed to board passengers while fuelers are hooked up or no? Each captain i get give me different answers on the legality of it and we differ to them.

2) What was your worst experience with a Pax gate crew?

Yes.

With very strict procedures. Aircraft doors open. Line of sight with the refueller. Ryanair, I think, make the F/O stand by the nose gear wheel well connected to the interphone with the ground handlers heatset to monitor the fuelling directly.

Not had much go wrong yet. Fingers crossed.

Are you the King of the Netherlands?

Don't tell anyone.

Do people flying with you clap when landed? If so, can you hear it in the cabin?

I can't hear stuff from the cabin due to the thick door/headset.

No idea!

Do you eat airline food?

Yes.

It's not that bad. I have my favourites. Moussaka awwww yisssss.

What are some memorable times where your experience as a pilot have come in handy outside a flying environment?

Tinder haha.

Hey, how old is your A320? I build galleys for these things, wondering if some part of your plane isn't made by me? I wouldn't fly in that shit hahah

Earliest MSN is around the year 2002 I think. Newborns compared to some airlines.

What's your feelings and thoughts about MH17?

I don't know what happened.

We never will until they find it and the report is finalised.

I can't 'monday morning quarterback' and pass comment on things I don't know...because I wasn't there. I wish the press would follow the same thought process instead of character assassinating the Captain about a week after it crashed. We have no idea what happened.

What is something about pilots that most people think wrongly about?

The aircraft flies itself. Nah.

This bizarre notion that we're all alcoholics. Nah.

My favourite one is cartoons and movies that depict us sitting in the cockpit flying the aircraft still wearing the jacket, with our headsets perched above our uniform hats - https://youtu.be/1sfMTdJCZW0?t=3

how often do you train in the simulator,

is it fun sleeping in new hotel rooms?

how much do you make...

We're back in the sim a few times a year for license renewal.

I quite like it. Not as much as the suites British Airways Captains would get to themselves back in the day though....

A first year captain at my airline could be on over £100,000 gross.

A training captain at my airline could be on £160,000 gross.

It's not so good at First Officer level but it steps up every year.

The A321 is much better for passengers. Is there much difference for the pilots?

Bigger. Heavier. More inertia. Tailstrike threat as it is basically a flying pencil.

How do you rate Sully Sullenberger's 'Miracle on the Hudson'?

Not bad.

The NTSB aren't that evil in reality. Accident investigations are deliberately designed to find blame or a fall guy.

They got a few technical details wrong but on the whole the only aviation movie I've ever seen with decent accuracy. I love travel montages in movies when the character takes off in a twin engine 737 or something and the next shot is of a landing quad engine 747, or if they're doing an intra-USA domestic flight and the aircraft footage the editor has decided to use is of an Air France A380 or something. Fucking come on.

Could someone please direct me towards the fake pilot thread? Sounds like interesting reading.

He is a real Pilot but is an instructor flying light aircraft at a training school, he was trying to pass himself off as an Airline Pilot and said some stupid insulting things about us all being alcoholics. Silly overexcited kid.

Do you use trim on approach?

Pitch control on the A320 is done via load factor demand, it trims the THS itself when flying in normal law.

How often do you fly? Do you ever have long stops in other countries, if so, which was your favourite country to visit?

Maybe 15-20 days a month.

I'm short haul flying across Europe, we don't do many layovers unfortunately.

I'd love to stop over in Switzerland though. I like the whole alpine Village lit up at night with a cup of hot chocolate thing.

We hear about the extensive use of simulators in pilot training. Just how good are modern simulators? Do they really feel like "the real thing"?

They aren't very good on the ground. Taxxing in a sim makes everyone inside mega nauseous.

The flight dynamics are pretty good.

You really feel it if you bang it in on the landing in the sim. As in my arse actually hurts.