Question For Pilots

[Dantilla]

Yes, extra help into the wind helps:

Float plane takes off from truck trailer - Look, ma! No landing gear! - YouTube

[Joeaksa]

Michael,

The new routes are planned on a 3 degree (or 3.5 degree) descent profile. The airlines want to hit TOD, pull the throttles to idle and head down, never adjusting anything until they get to the pattern. Evidently they have figured out that this saves them millions of gallons of fuel, so this is the new plan.

We have flown a couple of the proposed routes that bring us into PHX using the ABQ center and so far they look promising.

[ted]

Originally Posted by Embraer

Well, since I'm fairly versed in this....haha...

There are two main traffic flows coming in and out of Vegas. The arrivals coming from LA fly north of the departures from LAS going to SoCal. If you vectored to the east, you'd be going right through all of the departures coming out of Vegas. We vector you to the north, so as not to have conflict with Vegas departures.

FYI...if you fly on Jetblue, you will cruise at 24,000 feet from Vegas to LA. Any other airline, you can count on 28K'. Traffic flow is determined by LAX's arrival rate. If the weather is crap, or construction is going on, they will drop the arrival rate (meaning, no shortcuts for you). Generally, you can count on flying out of Vegas, talking to me out of 18,000'. I send you direct GRAMM intersection on the RIIVR2 arrival, or I'll just keep you over HEC vortac. I'll descend you down to SoCal Tracon, and hand off for final vectors. The tricky thing is that R2501 (Twenty Nine Palms) is right in the middle of your arrival into LAX. If the airspace is hot, plan on flying on course over HEC. If it's released 27K' and above, I can shortcut you right over the top.

I'm impressed!
Years ago on a cockpit fam ride in a new Southwest 737-?00 on a short ride to Vegas.
SAN to LAS we climbed to just over FL400.
Leveled out for all of 5 miles and then started the decent into Vegas.
Not sure what the best fuel saving altitude steps would be...
But it climbed like a rocket and then a space shuttle approach.

[Embraer]

Yes, lots of initiatives being put into place in the name of fuel conservation. New arrivals, departures, airspace redesigns, etc. Whenever it's possible, I always give discretionary descents to the pilots, or I'll wait for a pilot to ask for lower. (I always hated being slam dunked when I was flying...but the mentality on this seems to have changed).

The airpace system is an amazingly complex entity. Sequencing airplanes, can in fact, start across the other side of the country. We get directives pretty much everyday that state that EWR and JFK arrivals are not allowed short cuts...must stay on course...etc.

Coming from a flying background, I have a hard time explaining to my non-pilot coworkers that direct is not always best. ..for many reasons. winds, fuel, getting someplace early, and still having to hold or be spun, etc.

oh, and Ted....SWA does a good job of climbing for us. On several occasions, I've cleared a SWA out of LAS to SNA to FL400. HA!

[john70t]

Originally Posted by Joeaksa

The new routes are planned on a 3 degree (or 3.5 degree) descent profile. The airlines want to hit TOD, pull the throttles to idle and head down, never adjusting anything until they get to the pattern.

Several decades ago, when things were different, buddy and I went to McClellen(sp) AFB on the NW of Vegas, and parked on a side road perpendicular to the strip. He walked right up to the fence against my strong recommendations of getting kilt instantly but I stayed with the car on the road.

F-15 and F-16s would descend right along our dirt side road at closed throttle, pull a very hard 90 deg a few hundred feet overhead, and touch down perfectly seconds later.

Absolutely fascinating, but not recommended these days.

[ted]

Originally Posted by Embraer

(I always hated being slam dunked when I was flying...but the mentality on this seems to have changed).

have you dumped a fighter jet at work?
They like it right?

[Embraer]

Originally Posted by ted

have you dumped a fighter jet at work?
They like it right?

haha! love working with the fighters heading down to miramar. usually they're so fast that they end up not being traffic with my arrival flows...but yes, i've had them XXX on my display, and report level after a 4000 feet altitude change, before they are finished reading back my initial descent (or climb) clearance. AWESOME.