LTU Airlines

why red paint?

 

because i don't think it would agree with most people. colors can evoke emotion.. to me it doesn't feel right to fly in a red plane. its like.. DANGER DANGER I'M ABOUT TO EXPLODE in my mind

 

Yeah, I assumed Airbus because it is the only type I've seen in LTU colors (aside from just now looking at their website). I asked about being an Airbus driver because almost nobody outside of the aviation industry knows that the word "heavy" is used after the flight number for radio transmissions.

Most people seem to know (from Hollywood) that the word "wilco" is used on the radio (I doubt many know what it means), but in my case it isn't an aviation reference, it's my name.

 

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Would you prefer...

 

"...colors can evoke emotion.. to me it doesn't feel right to fly in a red plane. its like.. DANGER DANGER I'M ABOUT TO EXPLODE in my mind"

What you say is true, and the airlines spend millions on creating and maintaining a positive perception toward their service (they like to call it "product"), but red has worked for many companies - especially where red is a national color (Air Canada, Swissair, Japan Airlines). Others have clearly chosen red to look bold, like Virgin Express.

 

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Gee, the only LTU airplanes I remember seeing were all Lockheed L-1011 Tristars.

 

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I think it depends on where you live.

L-1011s are becoming a thing of the past - too thirsty. As much as it pains me to say this, Airbus is the future.

 

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Given the prevalence of red sports cars in my neighborhood, an alternate impression might be:

[align=center:e4f3dcf589]The pilot of this plane believes himself to be a sex machine

LTU pilots are probably delighted!

 

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Not to mention, that model appears to have been photographed in an extremely uncomfortable position.

My first thought on viewing it: how cramped is seating on this plane?

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(wilco\";p=\"67285)</div>

First name or last? And if it's last, is your first name Roger? <groan>

Actually I do know what wilco means, since I was a US Army radio op in Viêt Nam. Therefore, I also know some other things that Hollywood seems not to, namely that "roger" and "wilco" are actually never used together since it would be redundant, and that "over" and "out" are never used together because they are contradictory.

To, shall we say, "reinforce" these points, the training sergeants in radio school had a special honor that would be awarded to anyone who made the mistake of using either, or both, of those pairs of no-noes, or saying so much as one more syllable after the word over or out.

This was called the "Sky King" award.* Recipients of the award were soon dismayed to learn that those so honored received no statuette or plaque, but rather was afforded the mandatory opportunity to clean out the training school latrines that evening. Nobody made the mistake twice, once it had been so clearly explained to them.
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*Those of us of a certain age will recall the TV show Sky King, a kids show about a flying (and singing?) cowboy named, what else, Sky King, whose plane, The Songbird, always got him into and out of various scrapes in each episode. His pretty young neice, Penny, was constantly calling him on the radio from the ranch, and at the end of each conversation, she would violate all three procedural rules at once by pertly beaming into the microphone, "Roger wilco, over and out, Uncle Sky!" <ugh!>

 

You need a guy to follow you around with a snare drum if you're going to tell jokes like that :mrgreen:

Ever see the movie Airplane? "We have clearance Clarence. Roger, Roger. What's our Vector Victor?"

To answer your question, it's a shortened version of my last name.

Yeah, I was a flight instructor many moons ago and teaching radio phraseology to some people meant getting them to un-learn their movie radio talk. The words "over" and "out" are never used for civilian ground-air communications, but as you mentioned some students felt compelled to use both (no latrine duty though).

 

Boeing or Airbus really doesnt matter. Whats important s that there is competition to provide better products. Imagine what would happen if there was just Boeing (or Airbus, or Dornier or whoever). We wouldnt want Microsoft to build aircraft nor would we want 1 maker to dominate the aircraft market in the same way.

MS Aircraft dept : "Our aircraft dont fail, it must be pilot error that cause the aircraft to explode and fall out of the sky"

 

Actually, I agree. I wasn't thinking about Airbus vs. Boeing when I said that (should've realized that I would be sparking the debate), I was thinking more in generalities. The old fuel inefficient iron is disappearing, and being replaced by modern (and in my opinion) rather boring aircraft (on both sides of the Atlantic).

Airbus's success is based on the operating and training efficiencies achieved through commonality (I'll leave the subsidies issue out of this). The idea that a four engine jet and a twin could be a common type was pretty forward thinking. Fly-by-wire, sidesticks, - innovative stuff, but dressed up in a plain vanilla wrapper. One of the things I like about the Prius is that it stands out. Toyota didn't try to hide it in a Corolla shell, but designed it to look the part.

Boeing is still building 'future classics', but less so than in the past. The classic '47 and the '57 are works of art in every sense.

Of course, Airbus is also leading the charge to render the pilots obsolete. What is the difference between a new Airbus pilot and a veteran one? The new one says, "what is it doing now?", whereas the veteran says, "Oh yeah, I've seen it do this before".

 

Agreed.


The Microsoft airplane:

- Occasionally, executing a maneuver such as a left turn would cause the airplane to shut down and refuse to restart, in which case you would have to reinstall the engines.

- Only one person at a time could ride in the airplane unless you bought "airplaneNT", but then you would have to buy more seats.

- The landing gear system would ask, "are you sure?" before deploying.

- Every time MS introduced a new airplane, pilots would have to learn to fly all over again because none of the controls would operate in the same manner as the old airplane.

- You'd have to press the "Start" button to turn the engines off.

- Macintosh would make an airplane that was powered by the sun, was reliable, faster, and twice as easy to fly - but would only fly in five percent of the sky.

 

I am familiar with the details of both the Gimli and Azores gliders. I completely agree that both were impressive feats of airmanship. I particularly like the FO's account of the skipper, upon realizing that they were too high on final, putting the '67 into a sideslip to lose altitude (at Gimli). Unlike the Azores incident, the Gimli crew lost comm., nav., and hydraulics and were off radar for the last minutes of the flight, where they flew a daytime visual to Gimli. They landed clean with the nose gear unlocked, yet the aircraft was relatively undamaged.

Conversely, the A330 had comm., (and possibly nav. - not sure), gear, slats, and possibly flaps too, so to support your point, the more modern/automated airplane actually fared a little better with a double flame-out. They were vectored onto final, where the crew executed a 360 and s-turns to lose altitude. The gear and the airframe were damaged and repaired.

Both aircraft are still in service today.

One small point, gliding "without the aid of instruments", isn't 100% correct. Even though both the B767 and A330 are full glass, both have standby analog instruments powered by a ram air turbine and simple pitot/static. Still, that doesn't detract from how amazing the outcomes of both of these incidents were.

You seem to know quite a bit more than the average joe about aviation, are you in the industry? If you are, you must certainly be aware of the ongoing (ad nauseam :roll: ) Boeing vs. Airbus debate. If not, I'll summarize the pilots' argument against overly automated aircraft. If the pilot's job is reduced to merely monitoring systems, his/her skills will deteriorate to the point where they might not sufficiently be there when needed.

I've spent years avoiding this debate, and didn't really mean to fan the flames here.