[julupani]

Originally Posted by ifly

I have flown this magnificint airplane for over 5 years for 4,000 hours. This airplane does an average speed of 800-900KMPH during cruise and about 250KMPH during take offs and landings. I am considering an average speed of 750KMPH which works out to close to 3 million klicks.

Well, going away from the A320, in your experience, and among your kind who fly around in India what airport is the easiest and most challenging(worst??) from a pilot's point of view.

We have heard of quite a few table top runways like Mangalore, and some airports which have pretty short runways like Patna.

In my rather limited experience, I felt the closest cut experience I have had is at Singerbhill Airport, Agartala. The aircraft touched down pretty much at the start of the landing zone then slowed down really fast and hard, and still it reached almost the end of the runway to come to a stop so as to turn around. I was thinking, "I dont want to fly to this airport ever again".

Also, I want to ask how big of a concern are bird hits in the eyes of pilots. I ask because this is apparently an issue at the airport of my hometown, Bhubaneswar. The airport authorities regularly bring up this issue with city authorities, requesting trees from a nearby forest and plantations to be cut down and other steps to remove the bird menace. Apparently the airport has even hired a couple of people who patrol the region inside the airport to get rid of birds.

I agree bird hits can be dangerous, especially if one goes in your engine. But today's engines are design to handle some amount of damage and not catastrophically fail. It may be a concern to smaller Cessnas etc where a bird could cause fuselage damage. But on large passenger jets like the A320, B737 or even larger wide body aircraft, how much of a concern are birds??

[saket77]

Originally Posted by ifly

@DirectInjection:
Same situation here, there are these things called the JetStreams. Once we enter them, they have a speed of 200 to 500 kmph... And infact when we maintain just 900kmph... The same logic above applies.

That was very well put up ifly. Perfectly get the picture that how the a320 could cruise at those mind boggling speeds!

Originally Posted by ifly

It may come as a pleasant surprise to you, but the Indian skies are the most stringent to fly in, making them perhaps the safest! Much more than even the US.

That is really surprising ifly! I followed the mid air collision of charkhi dadri which irked me thinking us of using obsolete radars & signalling technology as compared to other parts of world. Surely, a lot must have changed since then and you being the 'insider' to the industry, would be able to elaborate much better. Hence, would like to ask you that is there anything worth notable that makes the Indian airspace more safer than even the US?

And thanks for the Airbus-Boeing philosophy. That was served in the perfect flavour!

Thanks a lot for sharing the above with us

Regards,
Saket

[racerdabba]

Originally Posted by ifly

Before I begin, respected mods and admins, if this is not in the taste of the forum please delete this and pardon me for starting a new thread. My sincerent apologies if this is unfit to have been posted here.

Are you kidding me?
This is Awesome. This is my dessert man, after all the Maruti Rice and Hyundai Dal we have been eating here, this comes as a Large Sundae with extra Chocolate sauce.

Originally Posted by DicKy

This is what i love about TeamBHP.
Cars, trucks, buses, even trains.. and now a jumbo jet...
Next a container ship????

Sir, Your wish has been Granted..

Cargo Ship

[nipcarlover]

Bloody hell, that is one unique review!

Loved every bit of it!

What other planes have you piloted?

Thanks!

[ifly]

Originally Posted by DicKy

This is what i love about TeamBHP.
Cars, trucks, buses, even trains.. and now a jumbo jet...
Next a container ship????

BTW, the 12km/l part looks reasonable, given the speed and weight they carry off.

And if security concerns are not there, pics would be very much appreciated..

Haha! A container ship would be interesting!!

Originally Posted by 97_Octane

Interesting thread!
Please share some more details on the aircraft.
Importantly the 0-100 (or should I say 250) timings

The Zero to 100 isn't very impressive... It's a about 40 to 45 seconds. The bigger the get the slower they are to speed up and slow down.

Originally Posted by drmohitg

Excellent thread. Even I thought it was a name you gave to your BMW 3 series and was shocked to see you mention 3 million clicks on it .
Please elaborate more on all the aspects on this brilliant machine. Really interesting stuff.

BTW I have always wondered about this specially whenever my flight encounters bad monsoon weather. How do you deal with lightning? Is the craft capable of withstanding that much force?

Yes they can! But usually there are a lot of static dischargers in the airplane and the airplane can let the lightening pass thru it.

Originally Posted by julupani

Well, going away from the A320, in your experience, and among your kind who fly around in India what airport is the easiest and most challenging(worst??) from a pilot's point of view.

We have heard of quite a few table top runways like Mangalore, and some airports which have pretty short runways like Patna.

In my rather limited experience, I felt the closest cut experience I have had is at Singerbhill Airport, Agartala. The aircraft touched down pretty much at the start of the landing zone then slowed down really fast and hard, and still it reached almost the end of the runway to come to a stop so as to turn around. I was thinking, "I dont want to fly to this airport ever again".

Agartala has a short runway no doubt, sometimes it is necessary to do a rather harsh breaking because of the winds being in the direction of the landing. This increases the speed of the aeroplane. We like to call them tailwinds.

This perticular airplane can actually stop at much shorter distances but a gradual breaking is done for passenger comfort. I personally think Kathmandu is a difficult airport of them all.

I think you shouldn't hesitate to fly into Agartala :)

Originally Posted by nipcarlover

Bloody hell, that is one unique review!

Loved every bit of it!

What other planes have you piloted?

Thanks!

I have just flown small Cessna, Pipers, Beachcrafts, a bell helichopter and the airbus 320

[skanchan95]

Ifly,

As a passenger, I always felt that the A319/320 flys "better" in turbulence than the B737. It seemed to me that the ride is a bit less bumpy on the Airbus and is well behaved in windy conditions. Probably its a misconception of mine, but as a pilot what is your view on this?

[ifly]

Originally Posted by julupani

I agree bird hits can be dangerous, especially if one goes in your engine. But today's engines are design to handle some amount of damage and not catastrophically fail. It may be a concern to smaller Cessnas etc where a bird could cause fuselage damage. But on large passenger jets like the A320, B737 or even larger wide body aircraft, how much of a concern are birds??

Cactus is the callsign. I work for indigo... on the radio my callsign is iFly

Thus the name

Have a look at the video below.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tE_5eiYn0D0

PS: On a sidenote, some interesting callsigns. British Airways call themselves SpeedBird except for on Christmas... When they use the callsign "Santa"

[chinkara]

Great thread.

Echoing Julupani's question about worst airports to land in.

Also, which is the best airplane (maybe in your experience) in terms of:
1. Acceleration
2. Handling rough weather (suspension?)
3. Maneuverability (steering)?

[raj_5004]

Hi, I am glad I am talking to a commercial pilot.

Can you give us an unbiased view on the safety standards maintained by the Indian Aviation Industry? Also, maybe a view on how good (or how bad) is Air India in this regards, with respect to the other private operators?

Also, with regards to the Airbus v/s Boeing discussion, I have a friend who mentions that many pilots prefer Boeing over Airbus as Airbus has computer controlled/electronically operated control stalks (I guess for the elevators, ailerons and rudder) whereas the Boeing has manual (hydraulic) ones which gives the pilot a better "feel" of flying the airplane. The Airbus feels like a joystick in comparison, something similar to a hydraulic steering and a electric steering in a car. Is that true? Sorry for my noob question, I am a newbie who is just curious!

P.S.: I have flown in Indigo a couple of times and actually prefer it over others as they offer the best service and timely departures.

[directinjection]

Originally Posted by ifly

@DirectInjection: Very good observation!! Well... There's a little bit more to it than what I had written. I mentioned air being like water, and infact for a lot of experiments one could assume air to have all the characteristics of water. Both of them are a perfect mixture.

Now, say for instance you're going in a river that is flowing from A to B at a speed of 20 kmph. You're now on a boat that has a maximum speed of say 30 kmph, because of its design, engines, etc.

You're infact maintaining 30kmph but since the river is flowing along in your direction, your relative speed becomes 50kmph. Which is extremely fast for a boat.

Same situation here, there are these things called the JetStreams. Once we enter them, they have a speed of 200 to 500 kmph... And infact when we maintain just 900kmph... The same logic above applies.

I hope I was able to explain to some extent as to what you had asked
I'm usually not too good at it

Thanks a lot ifly for making things clearer!
However, some questions remain unanswered:

1. At what altitude did you touch the effective speed of 1225 KMPH?
2. What's the usual speed of sound at that altitude?
3. Is the sonic boom caused by aircraft speed (alone) crossing the speed of sound or the aircraft speed as assisted by jet stream crossing it?
4. Can a plane like A320 withstand a sonic boom?
5. Also, I'd like to know how a plane like A320 reverses on the airport tarmac. Can it move in the reverse direction on its own?

[saket77]

Originally Posted by chinkara

Echoing Julupani's question about worst airports to land in.

Last year, I was in Bhutan. I saw the Paro airport which looked not only difficult, but dangerous too. On 3 sides, it was locked with mountains as high as 15-16K feet! It had a single air corridor for landing & take off and the short runway meant that there were no more than 1 approach allowed, if you want to stay alive! (as the mountains made sure that you cannot abort the landing and attempt later again).
Would love to hear what ifly as to share on it. Also, I was told (& read later) that only a few pilots trained in the world are allowed to fly into Paro!

Regards,
Saket

[NPV]

Awesome thread Captain iFly (super handle this!), thanks for sharing

Great to see an 'ownership' thread for an aircraft Look forward to more interesting threads/posts from you sir.

[esma1981]

Originally Posted by ifly

I personally like the airbus too but could be I'm biased. Although my next dream airplane would be the 777

As a passanger, my favourite aircraft was always the EK 777-300ER which I think had one of the best business class. Now I have changed my allegiance to EK A380-800. Their business seats are almost as good as first on the 777. I can only imagine how it would be like the fly the gargantuan. How different would it be from an A320?

[StarScream]

Originally Posted by skanchan95

Ifly,

As a passenger, I always felt that the A319/320 flys "better" in turbulence than the B737. It seemed to me that the ride is a bit less bumpy on the Airbus and is well behaved in windy conditions. Probably its a misconception of mine, but as a pilot what is your view on this?

I completely agree. Not only flies better but lands smoother. Now that may have to do with the airline but those that fly A320s almost always give less of a thump on landing compared with the B737. But then most of my travel on the 737 has been with Jet Airways - I haven't flown the 737 with many other airlines.

Great thread by the way. For a minute I thought Vijay Mallya has joined team-bhp. He is one of the people who has has an ACJ A319 with that many miles on it.

[carzone]

Superb Thread!
One of ownership reviews that would be unique to the experiences of only one.

You did answer the queries of Kitna Deti Hai, but how much is the fuel tank capacity of and a320 and also, do you guys always fly on full tanks? I have been following Air Crash Investigation on nat-geo, where they normally calculate the fuel according to the distance. Just curious here.

Also, have you ever had a chance to be in an emergency? If no, I hope you never have such a chance.

I have heard that many airlines slip in access baggage then the ones allowed per passenger, how do you manage to calculate the weight of the pane and hence the Take off speed? Do you have some sensors that gauge the actual weight of the loaded plane or is it just the old school estimation techniques?

Sorry, but too many questions seeing the Air Crash series have been developed.

Thanks for starting this and sharing your experiences. We want more! We want more!