UK, Northern Europe No Fly Zone

[HunterICX]

Always nice of some fokes to show their nonexistent intelligence or brain function.

HunterICX

[GoldenRivet]

hey thats nothing.

One day, i had just parked and walked into the airport in full uniform.

headed down the terminal passing gate after gate to get to the crew room and sign in for my trip that was scheduled to leave in about an hour.

out of nowhere some hoity toity business suit walks up.

"I just want you to know you are a piece of fu**ing sh*t and you should be ashamed of yourself."



he walked off before i could formulate a thought as to what had just happened.

i can only guess his flight got canceled and it was somehow my fault - even though i had just got to the airport and wasnt even on duty for another 15 minutes.

[Oberon]

*resists urge to make Northerner comment*

You've got a point SW, but it wouldn't be so dramatic or in our faces as it is now. It would most likely have been a paragraph or two in a newspaper or a brief mention on the evening radio bulletin sixty or so years ago, now days in the era of rolling news broadcasts, things are a) made to sound more dramatic [to ensure viewing] and b) everything is breaking news, much more attention grabbing than a newspaper article or radio section.

[GoldenRivet]

flights cancel... flights get delayed - nature of the beast.

The hardest cancellations for people to accept are weather related delays or cancellations.

they look outside and see clear blue skies. Often the limit of their knowlege of meteorology is related to what they see out the window.

what they dont know is that 150 miles East of us there is a Squall line of thunderstorms extending from the great lakes region all the way down to San Antonio... and we arent going through that!

some of the strangest delay / cancellations

1. During my preflight inspection i noticed that all of the placards were missing from our Refuel Defuel panel. These "stickers" tell the fuelers what kind of fuel to put into the airplane, and include various limitations for pressure fueling PSI etc. By regulation the sticker has to be there. Maintenance didnt have any in stock and they had to be flown in from another location. Delay: 3 hours

2. Elderly woman evacuates bowels in forward galley upon deplaning. Regulation and company policy requires this be treated as a Hazmat / biohazard situation. Delay about 2 hours

3. Crew timeout is a big one! As flight crew, you are limited to 8 hours flying in a day. Even though this is the case, the company can have you "on duty" for upwards of 14 hours in a day. you can fly past the 8 hours... but you're wheels have to leave the ground before the 8th hour is reached.

occasionally, you might push back from the gate with 4 minutes to spare to this "time out" scenario... if you dont reach the runway in 3:59 you're done - thats it... go back to the gate or lose your license for breaking a Federal Law. this really pisses people off when you explain over the PA system "We have to go back because one or both of the pilots timed out"

4. Destination airport closing - usually a one runway airport. disabled aircraft on the runway or something.

5. once while taxiing out in rain we had the windshield wipers on. My windshield wiper stops mid whipe half way up the windscreen. This was not addressed in the manual... but there is a limitation of 140(ish) knots max speed with whipers un-stowed. so we had to taxi back and get it fixed... delay of a few hours.

[Jimbuna]

Originally Posted by HunterICX

Always nice of some fokes to show their nonexistent intelligence or brain function.

HunterICX

Somebody should have asked that Jock where he thought Iceland was located then we could have all had a laugh looking at the puzzled frown on his ugly mug

[August]

Originally Posted by Lionclaw

In the -80's a British Airways Boeing 747 flew through a volcanic ash cloud causing all 4 engines to fail. They managed to restart the engines at lower altitude.

And clean the crap out of their drawers once they landed i'll bet!

[Oberon]

Originally Posted by jimbuna

Somebody should have asked that Jock where he thought Iceland was located then we could have all had a laugh looking at the puzzled frown on his ugly mug

Down the high street ain't it Jim?

[Jimbuna]

Originally Posted by Oberon

Down the high street ain't it Jim?

Yeah....but that's probably an English outlet......if it had been a Scottish one the windows would probably have been boarded up

[mako88sb]

Originally Posted by GoldenRivet

Volcanic ash is some serious ****

Yeah, this is a great Mayday episode. The crew did an outstanding job but I sure get a kick out of the cabin steward. The whole time this is going on, he constantly reassures everybody that there's no cause for concern and that everything will be all right. I'm sure everybody looking out the windows and seeing the 40 ft flames coming out the back of the engines must of thought he was bonkers. Not to mention the ash floating around inside the 747 that looked like smoke, the engines all cutting out and the oxygen masks deploying at one point. Oh yeah, no reason to worry. I think the only time he actually acknowledges that there is a problem is when he uses the bullhorn to announce that the public addressing system is not working.

I wish they would re-publish the book that one of the passengers, Betty Tootell wrote:

http://www.amazon.com/Engines-failed...1350116&sr=1-2

There are occasional used copies that come up for sale but a bit out of my price range.

Rob

[TLAM Strike]

Is anyone else worried that with all air traffic grounded in Northern Europe that a cargo ship is going to pull in to Faxafloi Bay and start disgorging Russian Naval Infantry as part of Operation Red Storm?

[GoldenRivet]

Originally Posted by TLAM Strike

Is anyone else worried that with all air traffic grounded in Northern Europe that a cargo ship is going to pull in to Faxafloi Bay and start disgorging Russian Naval Infantry as part of Operation Red Storm?

no

[Oberon]

The luck that Iceland is having, that would quite frankly not surprise me!

It doesn't half seem weird, going outside and not seeing any contrails in the sky, we're on one of the main flight paths out of Stansted and London here, so there's a plane going over every couple of minutes really. I bet it's even weirder in London.

[GoldenRivet]

Kinda like september 11th in the states.

The only contrails were all big arcing U-turns.

The loacl airport had to close an entire runway just so that it could be utilized for aircraft parking. (as many airports did the same thing)

Then came the gas runs.

every gas station in town had a line of cars a half mile down the road.

histaria, paranoi, all the usual group psychology issues.

Similar experience right here at home the day Columbia broke up over East Texas.

Air traffic controllers were broadcasting on local frequencies that all aircraft are requested to land due to the risk of showering debris.

its very eerie when the sky is devoid of aircraft.

[Raptor1]

Originally Posted by TLAM Strike

Is anyone else worried that with all air traffic grounded in Northern Europe that a cargo ship is going to pull in to Faxafloi Bay and start disgorging Russian Naval Infantry as part of Operation Red Storm?

At least the Backfires aren't going to be a problem until this mess clears up...

[papa_smurf]

No flights to and from the UK till 7:00am tomorrow, unless its still bad..

Least we now know what it was like before we had aircraft - been nice and quiet where I am.