I have looked and looked at this thread.
-Me and the Captain in question? He's a VERY VERY proficient pilot. And though I've never flown with him, the people that have flown with me and who have flown with him and have talked about him to me have told me that he's very good. Unfortunately, me and him had had some personal differences about 18 months ago. He thinks I'm an assh*le and I think he's a bigotted
pr*ck.
There is more than "stick and rudder" to flying a plane. Nearly everyone reading this is capable of flying that plane. Buy Microsoft's flight simulator and fly the thing all around the world; driving a 928 isn't 181 numbers easier than driving a 747....trust me.
WHAT is difficult, and its' why I have a nice salary...is making decisions. Knowing when to abort the takeoff, when to continue and fly back to the airport after a takeoff....and things such as "where are we going?" Do we have the rights to land there? And things such as the fact that the 747's engines are not started by electric motors like the engine in my 928: they are started by air turbines. That means I need air pressure. I have a turbine engine mounted in the tail to give me that air pressure, but there is NO law that says that it has to work. If I show up for a flight and my flight paperwork shows that this engine is out of service, then it is up to me to make sure that the airport in Gander, New Foundland or Shannon, Ireland has a "huffer", or ground air cart to start the engine.
With big jets, if you are NOT 125 miles ahead of the airplane at all times...you are already behind!
From what I've read online, the crew on this one had an engine "compressor-stalling" or backfiring at a late stage on the runway.
Listen to me- I have a 747 type rating and 1000 hours in the right seat/ 500 hours as Captain, and I can tell y'all one thing about this 747 design: It has WEAK BRAKES!
My first takeoff in this airplane? It scared the hell out of me. A runway nearly 12,000 feet long in Anchorage, and when the training Captain that I was flying with called "V1"...I was like "Oh yeah....RIGHT!" We used up nearly ALL of that runway just to get off the ground. If I had aborted and POUNDED the brake pedals into the floor we still would have gone off the end of runway 32 and into the Knik Arm!
I flew for Kalitta Air for 3 1/2 years. This carrier is safe, and their maintenance is what I would call "decent". The airplanes are not perfect, but if the law had allowed it, I wouldn't have had any qualms putting my family on one of our freight 747's for a flight around the world. Claims that Kalitta Air is "unsafe" are utter horse*****. Hell! I'm typing this to you now after spending 1250 hours flying on their planes!
I still don't know why that plane ran off the end of the runway in Zaventem and broke apart due to the waves in the grass at the end. But I will go ahead and tell you about the Kalitta Air performance system. Every time the airplane takes- off or lands, a piece of paper is given to the Captain and First Officer with a set of speeds. The wing of a 747 is designed for 600 miles per hour. It isn't designed for 170 miles per hour, the speed that an 820,000 pound airplane like N704CK needs to lift off, so the speeds on that card, computed by a simple laptop computed mounted in the airplane, tell the pilot when to take off. Thise speeds are based upon wing flaps extended. Wing flaps add curvature to the wing, and allow it to develop the same amount of lift at 170 mph as it did at 600 mph.
Uhmm...we don't just get screaming down the runway and pull the plane off the ground when we feel like it- we do it at a carefully computed speed, and that speed depends upon atmospheric conditions and WEIGHT. The more you weigh, and the hotter it is, the higher the speed before you "pull back" on the control yoke. But there is another speed: V1. V1 is "takeoff decision speed", and the laptop computes this as well. This speed is pure "accelerative prowess". The long and short: if you have an engine EXPLODE and litterally fall off the wing prior to this speed, then you abort the takeoff, pull the engines to idle, pull up the speed brakes [the "air brake" panels on top of the wing], and POUND the brake pedals into the nose.
-If your weight information is correct....according to Boeing's performance computations....your airplane
will stop before the remaining concrete runs out. You won't go off the end of the runway and try out the 4 x 4 capabilities of an intercontinental heavy jet~
But if you are
beyond V1....you are almost CERTAIN to do that! You cannot stop this airplane beyond V1 speed. V1 and "Vr" or the speed when you actually pull the plane off the ground can occur as much as 10 seconds apart~! There is the trap for the 747 Captain. V1 passes, and then a few seconds later...POW! ka-POW! POW! POW POW POW POW! He hears. What would you do if you suddenly heard several loud backfires from your car? Well, if you are beyond V1 you are supposed to fight your urge to stop the plane and actually take off. This is pure physics- if you do what your reflexes tell you to do,
then you will certainly run the risk of running off the end of the runway.
That airplane, N704CK? It probably has a market value, as equipped, of right around $10 million. I bet that they probably had to sedate Connie Kalitta right after this happened! Oh my god that guy-his temper is enough to cause him to take swings at people when they so much as blow a tire-!
If I were Captain [name deleted]...I would have gone to a different hotel in Brussels on my own nickel just to put off the inevitable meeting with my boss~
N!