boeing247 asked: Do most commercial pilots only fly planes by a certain company?

That depends on the airline, and what planes they have. If you work for Southwest it would be Boeing 737.
TWA had several choices of planes to fly. Boeing, Douglass, Convair or Lockheed. Pilots bid on what they wish to fly in seniority order. The most senior pilot gets the first choice and the junior pilot gets what's left over. The way my career worked out I flew Boeing planes. I almost went to school on the Convair 880, but stayed on the 727 since it was more pay and better working conditions. Pay is usually based on gross weight, something left over from the airmail days.

Once you go to school on a certain plane you are usually frozen there for 18 months, unless the company moves you. This is due to the cost of training and until the 757/767 came along each plane was so different that you were normally kept to one plane at a time. Some pilots were dual qualified, but that was a lot of work to keep both planes up to date for books and landings. At one time as an instructor I flew the 727, 707 and the 747...that was a ton of work.

Lou

701151 wrote on May 26^th, 2011 at 1:52am:


pj747

When you have chance would you ask your dad what his impressions of the MD-11 were and what were the general types of route flown?

Thank you
Michael Cubine

DAL191 wrote on May 26^th, 2011 at 6:34am:


Well, I ask him later, he's in Paris right now, flying the 767, but I do know that he said it was a nice plane. He flew into Taipei, Hong Kong-Kai Tak, Japan, Mumbai, and quite a lot more out of Los Angeles, and Portland of course. He said it was a bit sketchy in places like Kai Tak (or anywhere else for that matter) because it had a higher approach speed than 747s, L-1011s, 777s, 767s, most anything.

Cool look at KBOS for just one hour compressed into just over 2 minutes.

Lou

http://www.wimp.com/theairport/

LOU wrote on May 25^th, 2011 at 3:16am:


Man that brought back some memories! Army 66-70

CoolP wrote on May 29^th, 2011 at 5:15pm:

It's like watching ants going into their nest.

Mark

You name it, the current weather seems more like a fun experience since all sim pilots (including me) are really happy about some lightning and heavy clouds while the biggest problem there is to catch that ILS.

I've cranked up some sliders and also enabled random turbulences and stuff, but I still have a relative smooth ride in the worst weather imaginable so far.
The only hazard with those "turbulent" weather settings is a disconnecting AP in cruise since the wind change from one weather cell to the next one isn't always smoothed out then.
If you enable the smoothing there, the ride gets even more boring.
Yes, there are some planes around were e. g. "Windshear!" comes up as a warning, but while the real pilot will go-around then, I'm just going to land.   Not that real, huh? (I sometimes go-around then, using TOGA, just to make it more realistic for me and the ATC guy)

So I'm hoping for some even more advanced weather addons or a completely new system in "Flight", kicking the simmers a.. in some conditions.
This one for example won't be fun for any real pilot, it actually took quite some lives there.

   A BOAC Canadair C-4 (G-ALHE), Kano Airport - 24 June 1956.
   A MALÉV Ilyushin Il-18 (HA-MOC), Copenhagen Airport – 28 August 1971.
   Eastern Air Lines Flight 66 Boeing 727-225(N8845E), John F. Kennedy International Airport – 24 June 1975[8]
   Pan Am Flight 759 Boeing 727-235 (N4737), New Orleans International Airport – 9 July 1982[8]
   Delta Air Lines Flight 191 Lockheed L-1011 TriStar (N726DA), Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport – 2 August 1985[8]
   Martinair Flight 495 McDonnell Douglas DC-10 (PH-MBN), Faro Airport – 21 December 1992[9]
   USAir Flight 1016 Douglas DC-9 (N954VJ), Charlotte/Douglas International Airport – 2 July 1994
   Goodyear Blimp GZ-20A (N1A, "Stars and Stripes"), Coral Springs, Florida – 16 June 2005


How would the plane behave there?
First, it gets sucked in (that should be the stage were plane sensors can spot a fast pressure/direction change and therefore trigger a warning), so maybe it accelerates, then the downforce of the actual airstream should come into play.
So getting out there fast reduces the time it affects you and also enhances the stability of the plane since fast means more stable and also more effective rudder/aileron authority and more available lift from the wings, counteracting the downforce.
But the structural load will increase then since all counteracting will always fight the actual load from the air itself.
If you are in full landing config there, you are not stable, not fast and very vulnerable, right? Also, getting back to "more stable" takes time because of the high drag and all the devices which have to be retracted.

I think that this situation will be another one of those 'this is why they get the big money' things since the right decision and timely operation saves lives there, or takes them if not fulfilled.

Can you spot those things with a modern radar?