Yep we know it...It seems a novel idea to these guys that one can actually hold heading and altitude in a Jet ::gasp::

One tried telling me that we can't hand-fly because these things were made to fly on Automation. My reply was that the only aircraft "made" for automation were those dang UAV's LoL

It's not po-dunk until you have to buzz the runway to scare the pigs off.

i say again....you don't know the meaning of "po dunk"
--mexico may be the only exception.....

Even pigs wouldn't deign to be seen at KMFE.

Try some of the carribbean islands that you probably have never heard of. Sand runways 90 degrees to the trade winds because that is the only place on the island "flat" enough for a "runway"

podunk......lol.....isnt that the 3000' foot clay strip in honduras ..... or maybe it was that 38' wide road in Jordan....... :)

Hey, I spent the best 4.5 years of my life flying out of KUNV. Its centainly not po-dunk, even by airline standards. Ever been to KBFD? We went into some pretty po-dunk places when I drove the King Air out of State College. Even had one just down south of Hartford, 3000' strip that looked like they had never seen a turbine engine before.

At the risk of angering the AA mainliners...
 

As my feeble memory recalls, all the RJ fun started when AA didn't want them because they were too "small" to be flown by the big boys. They hated the F-100 (aka Barbie Jet), so the RJ's stood no chance. That got the camel's nose under the tent. Since the majors love to shuffle flying around to the lowest regional bidder, and RJ's have been growing exponentially ever since, good luck stopping that slide.

The only thing I see slowing the growth is the saturation at the hubs of RJ's forcing the majors to start going bigger again.

There is no doubt that it is a bottom line issue at the majors. There is no doubt that ALPA has been way too slow to react to what they need to do to salvage the pilot profession (salaries), and that is get regional salaries up to the point where it will be more cost effective for the majors to grow the big jets over RJ's, so that they can then start getting that 2% from the bigger salaries again, and stop the plague that is the RJ at regional airlines.

The irony is the excitement I've seen from various regional pilots over getting bigger RJ's. Apparantly, many miss the fact that when you grow an RJ or two, especially the new 100 seaters, it will be that much longer before a regular jet is needed at a major and the average pilot salary will stay lower just that much longer. Since RJ's take growth away from the mainlines.

I'm not bashing the regional gang, but the situation is what it is, and until they are willing to find a way to price themselves out of their own jobs, they'll find it longer and longer until they can move up to the majors. The majors, read as ALPA, need to figure out that the best way to improve the quality of life for all pilots is to work from the bottom up, not the top down...

While I've managed to have my career slowed by every other managment "innovation" in this business over the last 20 years, at least I escaped the RJ...

Cheers

Where do you fly?? 90% of approaches are visual approaches and half of them are at out stations where most of the time there is an ILS to back you up but a lot of times there isn't. I guess the folks in ROA didn't get the memo cause we landed on RWY 24 Tuesday night with no instrument guidance at all, nothing to guide us in but the old eyeballs with all that big scary terrain around. Lucky we survived. :rolleyes:

Well, I have flown NDB and VOR and ILS/LDA procedure turns into Ketchikan, Sitka, Juneau, Petersburg, Wrangell, Yakutat, Cordova, Deadhorse, Bethel, Nome, Kodiak, Kotzebue, Fairbanks, and Anchorage in the B-727, B-737, and even the MD-80 to some of them. The procedure is the same, and it is no trick for a show dog, is it, Showdogs? Works the same for a prop or a jet, turns to a heading and timing and descent rates.

24 years for Alaska Airlines, and management still has no respect.