Good job! Only took a week..

Thanks for sharing that Lou.. everytime I watch a video like that I flash back to sitting next to the ramp at Augusta Maine watching Northeast DC3's takeoff and land with my dad. Seeing American icons like TWA, Braniff, Allegheny , Piedmont, PanAm  etc dissapear simply  is beyond belief. I actually saw a USAir plane the other day with an Allegheny tail, I couldnt believe my eyes!

I envy you your career. Do you belong to this group?..
http://www.twaseniorsclub.org/

Did we see you here, Lou?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xQac9s-tyXk

Hey, I heard Howard Hughes hired you!??  

Btw, great video above!! Spent almost the entire flight to ATH in the 747 upstairs F/CL lounge on that TWA/cruise trip.

Bruce

Some of you pilots like to fly into KLAX. There are 4 parallel runways and they use them all at once. The big jets usually have a long final where we would intercept the LOC 30 miles from the airport and do a step down arrival while the tower would feed smaller planes into the ILS when there was space. Here is a look at what it would be like to be in the cockpit of a commuter plane, or maybe a DC-9/MD-80 flying into KLAX after sunset. Watch for the traffic on the other runways. If you connection is fast, run it at HD 720-P and turn up the sound!

This is the SADDE 6 Arrival into KLAX from the north. In the video you can follow the arrival using this chart.



Here is the approach plate for runway 24R - the one used in this video. Remember there are three other runways, all in use!
The yellow is the path the video plane took, and the red dashed line is the ILS RW 24R. The video is speed-ed up, but you can still get a good idea how it looks.



Enjoy,
Lou

http://www.flixxy.com/twilight-landing-los-angeles-airport-cockpit-view.htm

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CoolP, KORD by far the one with the most traffic, maybe a close second would be KATL & KLAX areas as they get a big mix of traffic. The New York area did not seem as bad as Chicago.

As for language, Some times the French ATC areas of Europe would mix English and French, but I speak French so it was not a mystery. Once you get south of the Med, the communications can be iffy! Poor English and poor radios.

The procedure for close parallel approaches was to silence the TCAS and just use the TCAS display and visual - out the window. KSFO was one of the closest parallel approaches in the system. They would always stagger the planes so you would have a bit more room.

Lou

One of the things that makes understanding some the radio chatter is anticipation and common phrases.

The pilot or controller are used to a certain flow of the message along with standard phraseology.

ATC: American 1062 Chicago, fly heading 220, climb and maintain one zero thousand.
PILOT: American 1062, 220, maintain ten.

ATC: Air France 862, traffic eleven o'clock, five miles, British 747, follow him, intercept RW 22R LOC, descend to five.
PILOT: Air France 862, roger, follow 747, intercept 22R LOC, leaving 7 for 5.

These are fairly standard interactions between ATC & Pilot. As long as the communications stays in the area of common phrases the information seems to work. It's when either side leaves the area of standard and anticipated communications that the understanding begins to fall apart. One of the videos of the landing on the Hudson by Captain Sully has an actual recording of the communications between the USAir flight and LGA departure. As long as the communications stays in the area of what is anticipated it works just fine. As soon as Sully starts to talk about hitting birds and engine failures you can hear the breakdown of the understood message. This is an area as an instructor that we spent a lot of time with crews to obtain this common and precise communication so that the message sent is the message received.

Here is and example of message SENT but information not received.

In the cockpit the pilot monitors several channels of communication. For instance, at the gate when getting ready to push and start the pilots would have to be listening to at least three different channels. ATC, ground & cabin inter-phone.

Here is the set-up. ATC calls with a push back clearance. At the same time the cabin announcement is being made about all passengers seated etc. Since the ATC call is something the pilot has to listen to and really understand, some times the pilot will either turn down or turn off the cabin announcement as the ATC clearance is given. Then the pilot has to communicate with the ground push back crew and relay the ATC instructions for the push back. While this is going on a fire starts in the cabin and the F/A dings the pilot and says "we have a fire should we evacuate?" The pilot who did not hear the message since he either turned down the volume or turned off the cabin inter-phone during the push back clearance only heard the ding of the cabin call. The pilot picks up the inter-phone handset pushes the PTT button and says... "Go Ahead."

So you think the message SENT was the message RECEIVED?

This actually happened just as I described and the F/A's opened all the doors and initiated an evacuation while the plane was being pushed back. People were injured since the plane was moving and damage to the plane was sustained. Only when the push crew saw the slides being deployed was the cockpit crew informed and the plane stopped. The fire was nothing more than heavy condensation from the air conditioner because of very high humidity.

This is why it is so important to communicate clearly. This is why ATC demands a read back of ALL hold short instructions. They need to have that feed-back loop of communications.

We all must eschew obfuscation! 

"Please correct me, Lou, but I'd say that even the most experienced pilot will get lets call it nervous when he gets forced to choose a landing spot within some seconds and then has to perform a real water landing, not a simulated one."

I'm sure Lou will weigh in, but from my few (thank god) limited times I have had to make decisions about 'unscheduled' off airport landings, there aint no time to get nervous, thats comes after the fact. It's not nervous after either, it's either "WHEW, we made it" or OH SH**, no in between

Your training kicks in and you are far too busy at the time to have any emotion's other than 'where am I going to put it and whats the best way to get it there.