The Learning Never Stops!
Aviation is complicated business, and it can be deadly if not undertaken with the right mindset. Our goal here at Code 7700 is to prepare you to avoid the day you will need to Squawk 7700, but if that day ever comes, to prepare you to deal with it competently.
Our Latest Update
A captain returning from a six year absence was only too happy to cede his authority to a first officer who was happy to take it. Another crew willing to takeoff below minimums because tower called the mins lower than they were. A tower controller who decided he didn't need to warn the airplane on takeoff roll that there was another airplane lost on a runway. In the words on an NTSB investigator: "There are really just no heroes in this."
Case Study: Northwest 1482 and 299
Our Previous Update:
When you graduated from small airplanes to large, you also graduated from low inertia to high. What? Larger mass means once things start going in a certain direction and speed, it is harder to change that. In small aircraft you could easily overcome a bit of wind gust with a lot of throttle. In larger airplanes, you need to add to your approach speed because the relative impact of throttle becomes smaller as the aircraft becomes larger. (Plus we also have spool up time, etc.) We are often told that on approach we are flying at 1.3 times the stall speed, so the margins are "huge." Not really.
Approach Speed Additives
An Index of Previous Updates
If you remember seeing something on "Homeplate" in the last two years, you will find it here, in a list of recent lead stories. Lead Stories . . .
