Nope.. not that at all. hockey came on here and proudly proclaimed that an FO at SWA makes a ton more money than he does here and that he is thinking about leaving for there. Good for him. I don't care. I'm not gonna get on my knees and beg him to stay. Hence my response to him to not let the door hit him on the a$$. You can call it tired moronic etc etc etc, but then again, so is talking smack about leaving because the money is better elsewhere. You don;t like it here.. leave. period. And it has nothing to do with working for change. I'll wager that if he DOES go there, in a few years he will regret that decision. JMHO, YMMV

 

Yup......... 1+1<2 in the merger world.

 

You cannot base your career progression expectations solely on retirements. It is a cyclical industry. Consolidation was/is occurring, and there will be more growth. When the politicos stop monkeying with the economy with their inane policies, and let business do business, there will be a big growth spurt. I have seen this movie, and I have the t-shirt. I was hired at the end of the big hiring boom of the middle/late 80s/early 90s, and at one point I thought I would be a 727 FE for 10 years.. based on retirements. Then there was a growth spurt in the mid 90s, and I moved up fairly rapidly. It happened before, it will happen again. Those of you that are shaking the SWA pom poms, better go into that knowing full well that they are at an end of their growth spurt due to both the merger and more importantly, the morphing of their business model. And make no mistake about that.. they ARE changing the way they do business. IF they don't get rid of the 717s, and correspondingly furlough over there, those guys are not gonna move with any rapidity for awhile. And.. as an added bonus, with a second aircraft type, their costs increase.. hence more and more like a legacy every day. Hubbin and spokin out of LGA and ATL... hehehehehehe

 

I am a little puzzled as to why this LOT 767 aircraft ended up landing with the gear up. I am not second guessing the Captain, but I am confused as to what actually happened. I’ve posted the following on a few sites but I haven’t heard anything back.

“Reports have the cause as a center hydraulic system failure. If that was the only failure, then the landing gear should have been extended using the Alternate Gear Extension System. The 767 center hydraulic system has two independent AC electrical pumps, an air driven demand pump (ADP), and an emergency Ram Air Turbine (RAT) to power the center system components. The system also incorporates a standpipe in the hydraulic fluid reservoir at 17% to prevent a complete loss of fluid in the event of a component leak. Inoperative items with a complete loss of the center hydraulic system include center auto pilot (A/P), right A/P stab trim, some spoilers, ½ stab trim, NORMAL flap and gear operation, and auto speedbrake system. Alternate gear extension is fully functional unless this hydraulic failure is accompanied with or caused by a total electrical failure. With a total electrical failure including the depletion of all battery power, a specific hydraulic shuttle valve that is held open electrically will then close and not allow the gear or flaps to be lowered normally or even by using alternate extension methods. A total electrical failure is extremely remote, especially for the 767ER which has an additional hydraulically driven generator (HDG) electrical power source. An electrical failure is not mentioned as a cause, and certainly does not appear to be the case here because the flaps were down. Any single jammed gear or gear door would not prevent the other two from extending. If this less than desirable landing scenario was caused by the failure of the center hydraulic system, then I believe there must have been an electrical failure in the hydraulic shuttle valve as well. In other words, a dual system failure. As unlikely as that may be, it is possible I suppose. Any other 767 drivers have any ideas? Am I missing something? BTW: The 757 hydraulic systems were designed differently to avoid this scenario altogether.”

It makes me wonder if the crew overlooked something as simple as the alternate gear extension. Heros to dirtbags in 60 seconds. LOL I hope not. What say you.

 

You're not the only one.

Exactly what happened to their systems is going to be very interesting.

 

I hate to say it outloud, but I think they may have "screwed the pooch." Lets hope not for their sake. Other than a total electrical failure causing the shuttle valve to close, I cannot think of a logical single failure for their scenario. A ctr hyd system failure by itself just won't inhibit the landing gear extension.

 

I remember the shuttle valve with the gear uplock, but I didn't remember that was the case with the flaps.

The only thing I could think of was loss of the center system combined with the depletion of the battery (a la AA 757)... but if the shuttle valve had to do with the flaps as well, my theory is flawed.

 

$245M and you'd stay in FLL?

 

Tim refers to the contractual gains we got via the merger as "significant." If he and his administration are applying this same definition to C2012 (which I highly suspect they are), we are SCREWED.

 

Clamp,

Your theory is not flawed, I just didn't say it quite right. Quoting our training manual, "With the loss of both AC busses, flight beyond 30 minutes may result in complete loss of electrical power and the inability to extend the gear and flaps." The gear won't extend because of the closed shuttle valve and the flaps may not extend because of the loss of the center hydraulic system pumps and no electrical power to lower them with the alternate electrically driven system. Apparently the ADP isn't sufficient to power the flaps down by itself. From the pictures, it looks like all the flaps were down. From the reports I've read, they don't mention any electrical problems. Additionally, a catastophic electrical failure would certainly be cause for an immediate diversion. For these three reasons, I don't think they had an electrical problem, but if not, then why did they land gear up? If they did have one, then why didn't they mention it and why did they continue to destination? It doesn't make sense to me. If they had a system leak, I wonder where that fluid was going? Around some hot pumps perhaps. One thing they did have going for them if their aircraft was using Skydrol instead of Mil-H-5606. There are conditions under which Skydrol will burn, but Skydrol fluids are "fire resistant." Traditionally the term "fire resistant" has been used to describe phosphate esters, as opposed to mineral oil based hydraulic fluids, because they are very difficult to ignite at room temperature. In standardized testing, a fine mist spray of Skydrol cannot be ignited with an oxyacetylene torch. The same fine mist spray of a mineral oil hydraulic fluid, such as MIL-H-5606 or MIL-PRF-83282, produces a large fireball when touched by the torch. I nearly had to eject due to a hydraulic pump meltdown with MIL-H-5606.



P.S. Remember, the 757 doesn't have this problem. There should never be a scenario in the 757 in which all the gear fail to extend.