United In flight entertainment
 

Just flew UA LHR-IAD on a B777.

Part of the IFE now is the option to listen to flight deck-ATC communications, its pretty neat and especially if you know anything about ATC communications keeps you informed of the flights progress especially in landing phase when on glide slope and localiser etc.

Anu other airlines do this?

United has been providing that facility for a very long time - is it still on Ch 9 audio? Frightened us to death when we flew out of Heathrow as they were discussing a technical problem at the holding point! The whole cabin stayed very quiet for a long time!!

My first time on united and yes still on channel 9. Noticed that the pilots were saying start up clearance via data link or something, what does that mean? Never heard it before.

Instead of controllers reading out ATC clearances to departing aircraft, I believe it is now passed by datalink.

The use of the r/t channel is the only great thing about UAL. Do remember though that it is at the Captain's discretion and not a passenger right. If, however, you find it "off" ask the CC to check with the Captain if this intentional or not, as sometimes it isn't.

Our enroute centre also uses datalink with several operators.

.

I always thought the use of headsets during take-off and landing was not allowed!

Remember coming back from Dulles to Heathrow on United one night and we were off the east coast near the Canadian border and the channel had been quiet for about twenty minutes. The silence was eventually broken by a plaintive call from our flightdeck "United 123, is there anybody out there?"

ATC came back immediately "Yeah, we're still down here".:ok:

Wouldn't agree that Ch 9 is the only good thing about UAL! We haven't done too much flying but would rate them very highly. Last time we flew from Heathrow to Los Angeles, half way through the afternoon the crew came round with boxes of Magnum ice creams! We have never experienced that anywhere else.. The flight crew on that trip included a check captain who had us rolling about with his mickey-taking of the flying captain about his likeness to Steve Martin and his commentary during the flare-out!! Flying from LA to Hawaii with UAL they had a sweepstake to see who got the closest time to "half-way point". The winner in each cabin got a bottle of champers. Don't actually recall BA ever doing such things.