I think he meant additions on top of Hong Kong since that was specifically mentioned by him earlier in the article. United just announced Chengdu China out of SFO, wonder if something like that or Singapore is in mind. Or maybe something that connects via Narita turning into a nonstop from the US...

 

The E120 reminded me of the hot chick that you could not believe was chasing you around, until you suddenly realized she was a co-dependent schizophrenic bunny boiling nut-job. The MD88 is the chain smoking, three time divorced aunt, who kept the house from her first husband. The E120 used to live with that aunt ... .

The E120 was really cool the first time you got her in the sack. Looks good. Bigger breasted than the 757 and faster than a 727 flown by Bill Panke on his way to a date, if you stay low. Handles nice. But with every electrical fire, every ECU fault that makes the engine go nuts to the point the prop auto feathers, each hydraulic failure you think, wow, that Canadian across the ramp is looking better every day.

One of my favorite E120 stories ... we are boarding, an older lady asks, "Son, is your airplane on fire." I look in the direction she's looking and see smoke wisping up from the Generator Control Units which were mounted beside the FO ... "Yes Mam, it appears we are on fire. Let me help you back down the stairs ...."

The avionics bay door was on the top of the nose. Water would run along the seam, drip down at the back on to the avionics rack which would short out. On IOE my (FO's) shorted out and started smoking while shooting an ILS into 8L. The displays made all kinds of wild patterns. As a noob, I stated "we have had an avionics failure, you have good screens and standbys are on your side, your airplane." Captain replied, "well just look over here then, I'm going to go get my camera ... never seen it make that pattern before." The IOE guys were comically calm ... "oh, that's just a fire ... so you going to get a Hot Dog in Augusta?"

Then there was the APU. The batteries and cables were insufficient to start the APU unless they were in pristine condition. Rather than get stuck, someone figure out cycling the APU switch would confuse the ECU apparatus so that it would dump fuel and then energize the ignitor. (This was so poorly thought out that at my airline the cables were run outside the fuselage to the tail, then Embraer put a cover over the exposed wires) A good FO knew to anticipate the BAMKAWHOOT 15 foot fireball which signalled the Captain's technique on the switch ... it helped illuminate the ramp during the walk around ... "hey, but I thought the battery needed (was it 19, I forgot) volts ... nevermind"

This did teach a valuable lesson for 121 flying. Learning to ignore malfunctions until they fix themselves. Most airplanes are self repairing ....

You military guys must have something similar ... airplanes that were more hostile to your career and your longevity than an enemy AA battery manned by overly ambitious staff officers.

 

[QUOTE=
You military guys must have something similar ... airplanes that were more hostile to your career and your longevity than an enemy AA battery manned by overly ambitious staff officers.[/QUOTE]

Buck,
Some great stories from the E120.
I'd say with Navy transports at least, the biggest difference is your QRH is just for handling the emergencies, then it's most pilots goals to have diagnosed the actual problem through pulling and reseting circuit breakers inflight prior to giving the plane back to maint.
Navy maint folks cycle through often, so you don't have the level of expertise there and if you turned in a plane and said AOA out of service, they'd have it down for 24 hours of diagnostics and a FCF required to test their best guess of a repair. If you wrote up, #1 AOA gage heater inop, then they'd fix that right away.
Also, for a long time, the Navy treats every aircraft tire as if it's next landing is onboard a carrier. I literally pressed my thumbnail on the side of a DC9 tire one time and the crew chief thought it was a sidewall cut and therefore tire is no good. ANY cord showing, tire is considered out of service. Now of course location can have an effect on tire condition, IE tires always good enough for Afghanistan takeoff. I have NEVER heard of a Navy transport having a blown tire on a normal landing unless the aircraft had another issue first.

 

Thanks, I like these stories. In contrast, the Air Force must have been trying to save tires. Dad saw cord on a walk around. Crew Chief had a grease pencil. He scribbled on the tire and said. "there, now you don't see cord."

My business partner has some good F4 stories. Taking off with one in burner and trying to get an air start on the other side. Diverting and having the flight lead blow a tire on landing. He was denied approach clearance due to men and equipment on the runway. Reply "No fuel, need an immediate vector for an eject." Ended up well with a trap on the cable on a closed runway. Air Force went nuts ... Marines were kinda pleased their F4 wasn't a smoking hole somewhere around Mobile, AL.

Our flying today is very antiseptic compared to the generations who came before us.

 

Bar,



Hilarious man.

I forgot about the fireballs out the back end. I remember looking at the gauges on the APU, analyzing it and then saying "this one is going to be bad" and then BOOM.

I also loved on the step downs on the ILS in to IAH that we figured out instead of trimming an airplane whose trim wheel doesn't move well, how about we just keep the right engine at cruise power and pull the left one to idle. That way it stayed trim in the descent and level off and then the next descent and so on.

Of course I'm also still laughing at Deadheads MD88 analogy too.

 

Sorry, nothing is faster than Bill Panke on his way to a date.

 

He wasn't related to a certain doughnut salesman was he?

 

I was flying with Bill once and this FA comes up to the cockpit to mention she is jumpseating. Bill says to her "spin around" so he can give her the once over...only hanky Panke could get away with that stuff.

He was telling me this story of how he set up this water balloon launcher on his deck, but he used it to launch potatoes at his neighbors house.

Nobody could keep you laughing harder and longer than him on a transcon.

 

Winner winner chicken dinner, I called this 7 months ago. Alaska is going down.

 

The prediction I made a while back was that this is all designed to drive down Alaska's stock price until Delta can afford to buy them.

...or it could be that we've decided that DOJ won't let us buy them and we just have to do the feed ourselves.

So, does Compass have a west coast base, or have they announced plans to open one? Anybody know what routes the E175's are being pulled from to do this new flying?