Originally Posted by
Ollie Onion
At the end of the day Keg is using a situation that may or may not have been a violation of an aircraft limit with a foreign crew from an airline that has a pretty good safety record as evidence that Aussie pilots are not pedantic to the extreme. Perhaps not pedantic but certainly judgemental.
What the crew actually landed with is kind of irrelevant given that they’d previously advised ATC three times they were prepared to accept more than their certified limit. As I’ve previously stated I can only surmise and infer from the following interactions about what actually happened but that changes nothing about the mindset and declared intention of the crew.
So perhaps they didn’t break the law but they advertised their intentions they were happy to. It staggers me that so many seem to miss this point? Or doesn’t it matter because hey, we can’t prove they actually did.
Now maybe they are one of the 5% that SlipperPete refers to. I’m certainly not suggesting that all BA crew are like that though I was certainly shocked when I heard it- and grieved a little that an airline I’d previously held in such high esteem had at least two crew so prepared to ignore limits. Perhaps some of my colleagues are equally cavalier but I’ve never heard them publicise their idiocy over the VHF.
Anyway, I’m sorry I ever mentioned BA. Perhaps I should have just said it was ‘a major overseas carrier’ though given there are only 3-4 permitted to land in the curfew shoulder it still may have been obvious.
AQIS Burgu, if the tailwind was close to the limits I’d have already tee’d up with ATC for a wind approaching the threshold- as in when I’m at about 50’, not when I’m on a long final. If they said it was within limits at that point I’d land..... as long as it was within cooee of what my instruments were and presuming theirs nothing identifiably wrong with them.
As for the TOW question. What was my planned ramp weight? What was my planned taxi fuel? Have I burned my planned taxi fuel? The A330 GW can increase if I’ve turned sharply onto the runway and then stopped. Is the 500.2 (obviously not a 330) as a result of that or was it previously reading 500.0 (or less) then increased as a result of a turn?
Maybe you think asking such questions makes me an Austronaut. I just think it’s being professional. If it’s the former again I ask how much over a certified limit is acceptable? 500.3? 500.4? 500.5? Where are you drawing the line?