So AA has pilots that are being harassed by management? Perhaps those being harassed need to speak with this lady:

Debra S. Katz, Partner - Employment Discrimination, Civil Rights, and Whistleblower Protection — Katz, Marshall & Banks, LLP

 

Hey guys thanks a bunch for all the answers. I will print this after a few more days to get as many replies to share with others at work. As far as for the "operational necessity" I never considered second stage climb, not really many obstacles out there but I know not everything always makes sense haha. As far as the taxi speed stuff, sounds to me like most AAL pilots do not mind others passing them on other taxiways which makes me feel better about doing it. I completely understand the reasoning behind it! Thanks again yall!

 

SF,

Thanks for pointing out the Boeing taxi speeds again. They are exactly what is in the SWA FOM. While this thread was started to gather information, this subject always seems to turn into bashing SWA. I first heard it from a Captain (1989) at Pan Am as we were descending into MSY. He went off on a rant against SWA that seemed endless. When I cut his dialogue off and informed him about how much better SWA was in every category compared to Pan Am he shrunk down into his seat and never said a word about SWA again. I also mentioned that I had one foot out the door waiting on SWA to call with a class date. BTW I was just the flight engineer and was still on probation. Even on probation you don't have to listen to stupidity.

It is inevitable that this subject always brings out the "I was almost run over by a reindeer" crowd who may or may have not experienced an "incident." Even with pilots the difference in perception about an impending collision with a SWA "cowboy" is questionable. I believe there might be some bias that would lead them to possibly embellish their stories. There certainly was some bias with the Captain I dressed down. It turned out he, as many would, was disappointed how his career was going and needed to vent. He just picked the wrong guy to express his frustrations.

The Oscar

 

While it looks like this was answered for the most part I thought I'd go ahead and throw an example in with some numbers.

ALB has runway 1/19. I forget which runway it is but one of them has obstacles that put a significant hit on my max t/o weight. For easy math lets say that t/o weight for 1 is 50,000 and for 19 is 45,000 (ALB does have a few thousand lbs diff). I'm allowed to take off with up to 10 kts of tailwind. I have to take a hit for each kt of tailwind..for easy math lets say 200 lbs per kt. So for a 10 kts tailwind I have to take a 2000 lb hit so subtract 2000 from 50,000 and I can take off runway 1 with 48,000lbs compared to 45,000lbs on 19 so in order to take the extra bags or people we will takeoff with the tailwind. We do get a "credit" for headwind, but it usually is only a handful of pounds per kt and usually doesn't do much good, unless its pretty windy.

 

Great post aa73,
They also tell us at recurrent that Foqua records our taxi speeds. They ussually give a few examples like 60 knots on a parallel taxi outbound for departure. In the classroom, we're all thinking No way who was that?
I posted last spring I was FO to CDG and the CA who hates our union taxi'd out at 48 knots in a heavy 767-300ER. Both the FB and I asked what the hurry was.
For me all of 2009 has been:
ATC: asking can we do 180 to marker.
The CA says Yes.
I say "I don't think I can do that."
CA say's "Yes, you can"
I say "I shouldn't"
CA says "Here' i'll show you how"
I tell him I won't be able to get flaps to 30 by 1,000 agl
He says "Yes, you will, here's how"
Fuqua is recorded. Next trip.
I ask, "did you get a call from Fuqua?"
CA says "Yes"
Same trip CA does not get flaps to 30 by 1,000 agl.
I've been on the 757 and 767 since 2000. I have 4,300+ hrs. on the 75 and 767.

ATC is great, you guys are underappreciated. If we refuse the 180 or even 170 to marker in a 757 it's to keep us from being reported. When i was younger and a hotdog, and before Fuqua No problem. But i'm older and well older. My attitude is pretty close to "if you're gonna tell me how to fly, then you just fly, i'll work the radio."
Fuqua reports flap overspeeds also. Our company is all over us for flap speed compliance.

For those that cannot understand a flap overspeed example 757 flap 30 speed is 162. Say you are high at the marker by holding 180 knots. You now may have 4.6 miles to touchdown. At the marker you are 180, throttles to idle. Briefly arrest the rate of descent, wait, wait, wait for the airspeed below 162 call flaps 30. This causes balloon effect, you push over, say you catch a little turb or thermal push over a little more. Bam, 163 knots. You just exceeded a flap limit. Aircraft out of service for a 4 hour flap check by maintainence . And you were fast (unstable) at 1,000 agl.

ATC is just doing their best, but I hope this explains why i'm struggling with the 180 to the marker.

Great thread!

 

PLEASE DO NOT DO OFFER YOUR JUMPSEAT TO A CONTROLLER.

PLEASE. Save their job, if they are too stupid to know that since Sep 11, 2001, controllers have not been privy to non-rev or jumpseat status (actually, they were never privy to non-rev).

There has been at least one controller who was fired for this. There have been others who haven't been caught. No matter what it may say in your SOP / FOM, the FAA does not give approval to controllers to do this.


Tony Williams
FAA ATC, 1988-2007
former NATCA facility rep

 

Not opposite direction, but a time when we might make a strange request:

At on several long runways, our accelleration altitude is LOWER for an intersection T/O than for full length, so we often ask for the intersection just to have a bit more wiggle room.

 

One thing that is missed here regarding the AA taxi speeds, it is not all about "job action". It has been discussed many times on other forums: AA has been accused of being very captain oriented and as such the procedures tend to require a lot of work on the captains part during the taxi, stuff the F/O tends to do on a lot of other airlines. As a result of the workload on the captains part, they tend to taxi slower.

 

Anyone who believes this, I have some swampland in FL. CHEAP!!

 

Not trying to bashing SWA but they had almost hitted my airplane twice in their rush to get to the gate. And I have to totally agree; they are an accident awaiting to happen.

I dont know what happened with the "never taxi faster than a brisk walk"
from elementary school