Nice story. what a coincidence !

great Holiday for you also

This is a really old story...
Back in the late 60's I was flight engineer on the 707.  We had inflight movies using 16mm film on rather large reels, something in the area of 30 inches in diameter.  We had 3 projectors in the ceiling of each cabin - first, mid and aft.
At the F/E panel I had 3 switches with each switch having a green and amber light.  If all went well, the green light would be on, if something went wrong the amber light would illuminate.

So here we are in cruise and the meal service is complete. The F/A called us on the intercom and asked us to start the movies.  The Captain would make a short announcement about the arrival time and weather and I would start the movies.  All 3 green lights came on so I figured all was well.  After about 10 minutes the F/A called and told me the aft movie was not working.  Funny, since the green lights were all on.  So I asked the Captain if it was alright if I went aft to see what was going on.  Sure he said, make it work.  As I went aft into the cabin, I saw the first and middle movies were looking fine but when I got to the aft cabin I could only see some light but no movie.  I had my tool kit with me that had some tools and a splicing kit in case the movie broke.  When I got to the overhead projector I could hear it making some noise and saw the projector light was on.  I undid the safety catch and opened the door slowly.  All of a sudden hundreds of feet of 16 mm film came shooting out of the ceiling container.  There was a young kid sitting next to where I was standing and he starting laughing at the avalanche of film pouring onto me.  Well, I put him to work helping me gather up all the film and putting it back on the reel.  I gave him my screwdriver to use as a shaft and we re-wound all the loose film without damage.  I took out my splicing kit and was able to join the broken ends.  I then re-threaded the film to the start and was able to show the entire movie to the aft cabin!  Later, I gave the kid a tour of the cockpit as thanks for the help.

So you see, there is a lot more to being a F/E then meets the eye! 

Have fun flying you all!   

Lou

Hi to all you simmers...

This is a bit of a techie story about the Boeing 757 and also the 767. 

Crosswind operations with the Boeing 727 or the 747 requires an almost wings level operation on takeoff and landing so as not to scrape an engine on the 747 or a wing tip leading edge on the 727.  As an instructor on both those planes it was important to explain how to handle these x-wind takeoffs and landings.  It was important to crab to landing in the 727 & 747 so as not to hit anything during touchdown. 

Now we come to the 757 & 767 which has longer landing gear and was much higher off the ground during takeoff and landing.  You could still use the crab into the wind during the landing, but it was much better slip into the wind during the landing and keep the nose aligned with the runway.  In fact the autopilot on the 757 & 767 would transition from a crab to a slip around 500 feet on approach. This made the landing a lot easier since the nose was aligned with the runway so there was less side load on the landing gear and since you would be landing on the up-wind gear the spoilers would react differently during the touchdown.  If you land with wings level the spoilers deploy at the same time on both wings to kill the lift.  But during a side slip landing on just the up-wind gear the spoilers deploy at a slower rate to allow the plane to settle nicer and make a softer landing.

I really enjoyed flying the 757! 

Stay well and enjoy your flying,
Lou

Love the 757 stories Lou, my favorite airliner, especially one in a particular livery, Trump's! -)

Yes I am still around, just not as much lately....hope your 'cruising' is going well!

I may have started it but it's YOU that keeps it going, getting close to 1 MILLION views! Sometime when you are sailing from Ft Laud or Miami, give me a yell and we can grab dinner or lunch.

Stay safe and Happy Turkey Day!

Hello Simmers,

Back before I retired, I was flying a 767 from KJFK to KSFO.  The weather was really nice with cloudless skies as we flew west. The sun had just set in the west and the view was fantastic.

We were at FL-410 and just about ready to start our descent into the Bay area when we saw a really bright light up in the sky and a short trail of white following the bright object.  As you can imagine other pilots saw the same bright light and started talking about it on the ATC frequency.  While we were looking at the bright light we saw another very bright light with a tail of light headed towards the first bright object.  The frequency really came alive with everybody asking ATC what were we seeing?  It looked like the two objects were very close in the sky to our location and as we were watching the event, the two objects collided with a big bright fireball.  Then ATC advised us about what we were looking at. 

It seems that a test rocket was launched from Hawaii and then another rocket was soon after launched from an Air Force base in California to intercept the rocket from Hawaii.  It was part of the "Star Wars" program.  The collision took place over 400 miles up in space, but it looked like it was right in front of us since the sky was so clear. 

Just another day of flying... 

Thanks for reading,
Stay safe and keep flying!
Lou

Something from the past...

Back when the 727 first started flying it had brakes on the nose gear as well as the mains.  There was an anti-skid panel on the overhead that showed the three brake systems, left & right mains and the nose wheel.  You would only get nose wheel breaking under certain heavy breaking.  I don't remember ever using enough breaking to have gotten the nose brakes to work.

Around the early 70's the nose brakes were removed since they were not being used.  That saved a lot of weight and maintenance since we were just carrying the system around.

Have fun flying!

Lou