Originally Posted by
mrdeux
I thought their effort was even better. The IRUs were aligned on a point thousands of miles away, and they had the maps in plan mode, 'cos that was the only way they could see Sydney....
Mr D; my ribs are hurting from laughing, thanks.
Two "first world airlines" had fun with stuff like that. One lot decided to do an instant align at the holding point, for an aircraft with a TOGA Map updating function, which raised the eyebrows of the FO, the newbie but senior driver having just reached up above his head and cycled the IRS to do the quick align. At which time, ATC gave them an immediate TO clearance. The restrained FO started to say they couldn't accept the TO clearance, but the driver pursued the setting sun, and departed. At rotate, the driver was surprised to have no attitude, and no map. It was a nice day to float around VMC dumping 100T of dino sauce. The other guys got warnings on align, and reinserted the existing position without crosschecking. At liftoff, the map of course was set at the position of the manufacturers factory, some 7000nm away. 50T later the guys got to do it all again from the same place.
The compass/map check on entering or linei up saves some messing about.