Speak up?
As a non commercial pilot and as someone who makes a living filming from helicopters I occasionally see something odd that is hard to ignore when travelling as a passenger on a commercial flight.
Should I say something to the crew?
One example on a transatlantic flight into Gatwick, seated next to the wing I noticed that a sound I identified with the flaps being lowered, was continous and did not stop when the flaps (that I could see on my side) had stopped moving.
Should I have drawn, what I thought was an obvious noise, to the attention of the cabin crew? I wondered if the motors could overheat.
Ten minutes later I kicked myself when we did a go around due to what the pilot later described as a faulty "warning light". (I assume they didn't have electronic confirmation that flaps were down) Engines spooled up around 500 meters from threshold. Didn't see any flight crew in the passenger cabin making any visual checks. If I had said something would it have avoided a go-around?
The next time I saw something odd was on a City Airport to Nice flight when manovering at around 5000ft I saw two black blurrs whizz past under the wing around 20 seconds apart, we either had a near miss with two very large birds or something had been ejected from the engine. When we landed I spoke to the pilot who was very grateful and mentioned that large flakes of paint were know to peel off the engines and he would check it out anyway.
When filming, with appropriate permissions, departures at dawn at Gatwick on a frosty morning I noted a vapour trail from a single point at the tail the of a 737. Hadn't seen such an effect before so I called the tower who suspected it was excess de-icing being illuminated by the early morning light, non the less they relayed the message to the pilot which I thought was a sensible action.
When working rigging helicopters there is never been any problem with pointing out the obvoius bits and pieces don't look quite right (lots of them on an average light utility helicopter!) to a pilot or engineer.
After reading this thread, next time I hear the flap motors not stopping I'll speak-up, if nothing but in hope to get home 10 minutes earlier.
Mickjoebill