Originally Posted by
oldmako
Second trip off IOE flying from DEN to OAK. BIGGG C Captain asks me if I've done a Flap 15 Improved departure yet. NOPE. He winks at the Engineer and up come the numbers. It was hot as hell.
Pretty sure that the mains cleared the localizer antenna by no more than 100 feet at the wrong end of a 10,000 foot runway. Vertical speed was abysmal but man, we were hauling ass. At least, that's how I remember it. I probably have most of it wrong except the last part.
On IOE...the Captain used to ask ATC for Direct to XYX when it was 500 miles away.
ATC - "Uh, sure....proceed direct".
Him...."OK, thanks. Got a heading for us? It's not coming in yet"
Departing ORD on 32L from T10. At V1, there was barely enough runway left to yell "Oh Shi_!".
LGA to 4. Turning off prior to 31 or whatever that runway is. Or the Expressway Visual to 31 and turning off before 4/22.
I could go on, but I won't.
Good times.
James,
Fast forward 25 years. We now do those same departures every day, but usually at reduced power. We have "normalized" using all of the available runway, in the name of saving gas and maintenance costs.
Take off in a Guppy NG at severely reduced power on a 12k foot runway, lumber into the air 10k feet down, cross the threshold lights at 50 ft, then you get a big increase in power to throttle up to climb power.