Re: Would you board a plane without a pilot? : Mon May 13, 2013 5:59 pm  

El Barbudo wrote:

Watch out for the "Pilot fee", a non-optional extra.

Re: Would you board a plane without a pilot? : Mon May 13, 2013 8:48 pm  

I would. I wouldnt have a problem with it..

Thrillseeker!!!

Re: Would you board a plane without a pilot? : Mon May 13, 2013 10:02 pm  

I should think the travel and liability insurers may take some convincing . . .

Re: Would you board a plane without a pilot? : Tue May 14, 2013 6:12 am  

I can't honestly see myself boarding another plane ever, whether piloted or pilotless. It's not the flying that concerns me, it's all the ballsing about in airports.

Re: Would you board a plane without a pilot? : Tue May 14, 2013 6:59 am  

cod'ead wrote:

I can't honestly see myself boarding another plane ever, whether piloted or pilotless. It's not the flying that concerns me, it's all the ballsing about in airports.

Thats my attitude too although I do still accept the once a year freebie to Portugal (going again in three weeks) but I mitigate that by not taking any luggage and using online check-in so that you don't have to join the endless lines at the baggage check-in counters and can just walk straight through to the security checks.

I'm looking at booking somewhere for September with "her" and have actually got as far as reaching a page on a web site all filled in with flight and hotel choices but I stop at the "Proceed to Book" button when I think of all of the farting around with luggage and what you can take and what you can't take etc etc and then admit that its actually easier to holiday in this country and save a few hundred quid on flights.

Re: Would you board a plane without a pilot? : Tue May 14, 2013 7:57 am  

rover49 wrote:

Not a chance on this planet I would get on a plane without a pilot. I am a bowl of jelly when I go on one WITH two pilots.

I'm with you on this entirely.

I don't particularly mind the actual flying bit, but I absolutely hate, hate, hate take-off. I become an überfatalistic, jangling wreck.

Re: Would you board a plane without a pilot? : Tue May 14, 2013 8:14 am  

Mintball wrote:

I don't particularly mind the actual flying bit, but I absolutely hate, hate, hate take-off. I become an überfatalistic, jangling wreck.

That's the bit of flying that I really enjoy.

Getting an internal flight from San Francisco International is a particular thrill. They have a dual runway and two planes take off side by side. It's like drag racing on a grand scale. If you switch the in-flight entertainment on to the airport channel, you can hear the pilots and tower communicating, the pilots basically race each other, stopping just short of a "Yeeeehaaaaawwww" as they become airborne. The only sobering thought is wondering whether they know which one is supposed to bank left or right.

Re: Would you board a plane without a pilot? : Tue May 14, 2013 11:02 am  

Back in 1985, I think it was, I was on a Boeing 737 going to Madeira.
I had only flown once before and that had been in a little Cessna, from which I had parachuted.
Hence, I had never landed in an aeroplane.

I was a little bit nervous, as a 737 had burned-out on the tarmac at Manchester only a fortnight before.

Madeira airport was like a little deck built over the sea, with just enough deceleration space to to stop the plane and turn it before it flopped over the opposite edge onto the sharp-looking rocks and crashing waves beneath.

The pilot pointed out the island and then the little postage stamp that was the airport and then banked the plane around in a tight 180 degree curve, descending as it went round, lower and lower, seemingly just above the waves ... and, as soon as the wheels were over the lip of the apron the pilot slammed the plane the remaining few feet onto the tarmac and flipped the engines into reverse thrust.

There was a crash and a bang from the wheels, some of the luggage bins burst open (cigarettes everywhere) and an enormous roar from the reverse thrust (I had been unaware that reverse thrust was effected by the engine cowling flipping-up, so when I saw that happen at exactly the time the wheels banged joltingly onto the tarmac, I was convinced the engine had disintegrated and that this was Manchester all over again).
The plane slewed left and right as the pilot braked it and, with what looked to me to be about a couple of millimetres to spare, turned toward the terminal building.

Since then, all landings have seemed like a doddle.

Re: Would you board a plane without a pilot? : Tue May 14, 2013 11:53 am  

Very similar to one of the first flights I took in 1980 on the first version of the 737's, Corfu airport runway is 30% poking out to sea anyway with the town and a BIG hill at the other end so the approach is always from the sea, which can be slightly un-nerving to those virgin flyers, but slightly more so when with the aircraft a few hundred feet above the waves some daft bint jumps up and starts shouting that her seat is on fire.

Yes, the days when they let people smoke on aircraft, incredible as it sounds now, when the "extinguish cigarettes" light had come on this woman had gone to stub hers out and pushed it down between the two seats instead, forgot about it and then only noticed five minutes later when the smoke started to rise from her seat.

Pandemonium ensued, the landing was aborted (why???), engine noise in those early 737's was incredible so you had all of that going on with three stewardess's running from both ends of the plane with fire extinguishers which they sprayed the seats and the daft bint with but as it was powder extinguishers they were using the spray got sucked up into the vents and pumped back out further down the plane at which everyone at the back started to shout that smoke was pouring out of the ceiling vents.

Its a good job that I was already nine parts p1ssed after drinking gin for four hours

Re: Would you board a plane without a pilot? : Tue May 14, 2013 12:15 pm  

A large part of me thinks that flying here and there at (relatively) minimal cost will soon be a thing of the past. The emissions produced by aviation are quite significant and are increasing unsustainably. Something has to give, and most people won't be greatly inconvenienced by being unable to fly off to Benidorm for a couple of weeks every year. There are plenty of nice places to holiday in this country (or in France), so I think this is one area where harmful emissions could easily be scaled back. I'd introduce a massive tax on aviation (with certain exceptions), and plough the money raised back into funding renewable energy research.