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Cathay pilot 'sacked for Top Gun stunt'

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Cathay pilot 'sacked for Top Gun stunt'

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Old 25th Feb 2008, 10:27
  #41 (permalink)  
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Flap5, will you allow me to repeat my previous post? How do you know it was not authorised.
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Old 25th Feb 2008, 10:43
  #42 (permalink)  
 
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Frankly Hotdog whether it was actually authorised or not is not really the point. The captain takes ulitmate responsibilty. Management are always going to cover themselves. They are unlikely to admit to it being authorised and therefore if they don't admit to it then it wasn't, unless the captain has it in writing.

With the public having just seen a 777 crashing in the undershoot at Heathrow it was very tactless to do a low pass which would be photographed. With the Heathrow accident it would also be very likely that management would deny any authorisation having been granted, especially after the video was posted on youtube (now removed - probably because of public perception after the Heathrow accident).
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Old 25th Feb 2008, 10:51
  #43 (permalink)  
 
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Unfortunately the words "flying" and "fun" do not go together anymore in our continued nanny like existence.

A perfectly safe maneuver by an experienced pilot.

What a shame.
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Old 25th Feb 2008, 10:57
  #44 (permalink)  
 
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in our continued nanny like existence.
Now some call it "Professionalism".

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Old 25th Feb 2008, 11:26
  #45 (permalink)  
 
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thousands around the world study hard to become professionals,thousands every day follow all rules to mantain aviation safe and clean..it was spectacular no doubt but do we want this attitude being praised in order to achieve the near perfection that our daily ops around the world strive for?imo..
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Old 25th Feb 2008, 11:35
  #46 (permalink)  
 
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One report doing the rounds.

His first officer on the flight Ray Middleton (who got suspended for six months) said the company officials toasted the flight with Wilkinson later and he believes nothing would have come of the whole thing if the video hadn't made it to YouTube. Airline officials said low fly-bys are allowed, but only if the crew asks first, which apparently didn't happen in this case.
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Old 25th Feb 2008, 11:58
  #47 (permalink)  
 
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HotDog

Re your post (#40)

anotherthing, what a pathetic reply, I have flown with Ian Wilkinson for many years. A better and safer operator would be hard to find these days. There was nothing unsafe or unusual about this manouver. I find your comments difficult to believe for an F111 test pilot, as you claim to be.
Best get your eyes or your typing skills tested... Since when have I ever claimed to be a pilot, let alone an F111 pilot, let alone a test pilot?

If you are going to try to rebutt a comment, at least get your facts correct.

The fact you have 'flown with Ian Wilkinson and that he is a great pilot' means little if, as seems here his ability to make decisions IAW SOPs is suspect.

What was pathetic about my post? The fact that I thought it remiss for someone to do what the wish without the proper permission/authorisation of the owner of said piece of multi million dollar hardware?
Or the fact that I thought that the aforementioned owners had a right to admonish someone who did the above?

Help me here please, I am struggling to understand.
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Old 25th Feb 2008, 12:26
  #48 (permalink)  
 
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I have had the pleasure of training many of CX's Captains.

There is not one Captain that I have had experience with in CX that couldn't have conducted this flyby without the most reasonable margins of safety. If he wasn't able to accomplish that, you can rest most assuredly that he would not be in a Command position in CX.

The actual manoeuvre of flying down a runway straight and level at 10, 20, 30 or 50 feet doesn't take some sort of aerobatic guru. But it does take an experienced Captain to safely assess, determine safety margins and execute such a manoeuvre with the foresight and skill required.

If any of the many twerps commenting on this thread had any idea of the exceptional skills required to operate an airliner with 400 pax safely in typhoon conditions and in other extremely difficult situations confronting CX pilots on a daily basis, they would bow their heads and walk away with their tails between their legs. A freakin' flyby is a complete doddle in comparison.

Don't go thinking that I have some bias towards this particular Captain. The more experienced ppruners will know from my many previous posts that I am most assuredly not a CX management sycophant.

Not approved? Get real! Capt IW was the Chief Pilot of the 777 Fleet! You want a higher level of approval? Try the Director of Flight Operations? What would be the point?

The Director of Flight Operations was trained as a Zoologist and has absolutely zero background in the actual flying part of Flight Operations...So I guess he gets to pick up the salary and someone else picks up the responsibility? But, all with HK CAD Approval of the person holding the position of DFO of course...

Last edited by FlexibleResponse; 25th Feb 2008 at 12:50.
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Old 25th Feb 2008, 12:39
  #49 (permalink)  

 
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Does anyone know where the figure of 28ft (above the runway) came from? I have made some careful measurements on the pictures where the aircraft is above the runway, and I can't make the height any less than 47ft.

I used the fuselage length of 242ft 4ins as a comparison, and I measured to the lowest part of the aircraft. That is where the bottom of the fuselage starts to slope up, round about the same frame as the furthest aft window.

airsound
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Old 25th Feb 2008, 13:29
  #50 (permalink)  
 
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What I have observed with a good number of these posts is that a fair number of fellow professionals consider that this was a dangerous manouver Everyday pilots of all skill levels are required to use those skills to extricate themselves and the paying public from far more hazardous situations. Get real people, this was a relatively easy flypast no aeros no danger, just once again someone in an office thinking that this was an opportunity to once again have a go at an overpaid underworked prima donna pilot
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Old 25th Feb 2008, 14:07
  #51 (permalink)  
 
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We are operating 40 something 737 NG in Europe, all of those have been picked up within the last ten years. The only one that didnīt do a fly by at arrival were the ones where wx was bad.
I donīt get the problem at all, if the fleet boss wants to come around once more, who the hell is having a problem with that? Maybe the real problem is lying somewhere totally different, more in the company culture region..

Decide yourself.

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Old 25th Feb 2008, 14:17
  #52 (permalink)  
 
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repulo,

The difference with "on arrival" and "on departure" is the fuel load, the 777 could very well have been above the MLW at the time.

How many of those were conducted with passengers onboard ?

How many of those pilots pulled circuit breakers in the cockpit so they could go lower ?

It was poor judgment from a pilot that spends more time flying a desk than an aircraft.

FlexibleResponse,

You would know the manuals as good as anyone, any person would need to get permission from the GMO/DFO, even the 777 CP.
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Old 25th Feb 2008, 14:22
  #53 (permalink)  

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Hop it, son

Anotherthing, kindly stop writing about things of which you clearly know so little. As you wrote, you are not a pilot. Your reference to authorisation makes no sense to me , and I DO understand what authorisation means in the field of professional aviation. It does not mean regulation, just as a clue.
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Old 25th Feb 2008, 14:42
  #54 (permalink)  
 
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Hands up everyone, who has made a lowish pass like that? Even in a liddle puddle jumper!

Thought so. Now be good boys and go and hand in your licences.

I'm firing up the shredder now for mine!

Thank goodness for safety conscious management like they have at Cathay.

I'll bet if he had thought it was about to end his career. It would have been a lot lower than that
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Old 25th Feb 2008, 15:20
  #55 (permalink)  
 
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I just wonder why somebody gets so uppity and says IN VERY BIG LETTERS:

"Please do not hotlink my images! URL's were created for a reason..."

I have been running websites for some ten years now and have not the slightest problem if someone links directly to one of my images. It seems an eminently sensible thing to do as it avoids the user wasting a lot of time going through garbage on the way to get to the important bit that really matters.

This "don't hotlink" business before and the wittering on about bandwidth, etc, crops up occasionally. It always strikes me a case of self-importance.

Jack Harrison
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Old 25th Feb 2008, 15:57
  #56 (permalink)  
 
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One way to make damn sure the fuel doesn't freeze?

Maybe this is a new cold weather altitude limitation for the 777?
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Old 25th Feb 2008, 15:57
  #57 (permalink)  
 
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I think all he was trying to do was a FT check of the GPWS prior to flying back to home base.
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Old 25th Feb 2008, 16:03
  #58 (permalink)  
 
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.... or maybe he was doing an in-flight test since some 777's are encountering problems in regards to engine cut-outs.... and since he's in Boeing-Paine Field already, if any problems do occur he could ask for a refund....
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Old 25th Feb 2008, 16:18
  #59 (permalink)  
 
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Angry

"I just wonder why somebody gets so uppity and says IN VERY BIG LETTERS:

"Please do not hotlink my images! URL's were created for a reason..."

I have been running websites for some ten years now and have not the slightest problem if someone links directly to one of my images. It seems an eminently sensible thing to do as it avoids the user wasting a lot of time going through garbage on the way to get to the important bit that really matters.

This "don't hotlink" business before and the wittering on about bandwidth, etc, crops up occasionally. It always strikes me a case of self-importance.

Jack Harrison"

Please feel free to hotlink my images when you start paying for the bandwidth. Due to you and others hotlinking the images instead of using the URL link for the thread, I used up a whole months worth of bandwidth in one day.

Please send me the URLs to a whole pile of your images and I'll gladly hotlink them on heavy traffic sites all over the web and we'll see how long it before you change your "I've not the slightest problem with people hotlinking my images" statement.



Rob

Last edited by Selcalweb.co.uk; 25th Feb 2008 at 16:48.
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Old 25th Feb 2008, 16:28
  #60 (permalink)  
 
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well, having read some of the comments by a poster called " the management"
in the FH forum I'm not surprised at all by this this fella obviously hates pilots---and if he's really " the management" well

and what a about a twr flyby to confirm the ldg is down in an emergency---he had lots of 'zoom' and plenty of space so????
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