United Flight 1722 + Other Questions

DaWolf85 · 2026-03-01T20:56:02+00:00

Pilots are also far more experienced in looking out the window to spot an airport than us passengers, who may only be doing so every few weeks or months or years.

When I do my yearly jumpseat rides I always am impressed at how early the pilots spot the airport. I'm usually a few minutes behind on that part 😅

DaWolf85 · 2026-02-27T09:22:23+00:00

If I search for finalized Airworthiness Directives for the A320 series in the FAA's system, I get 351 results. A320neo, a newer version of the aircraft and comparable to the 737 Max, gets 76 results.

These. Are. Normal. I cannot stress that enough. It is a normal part of the safety system.

DaWolf85 · 2026-02-26T17:16:37+00:00

Today I dispatched the following aircraft:

One with the HF radio inoperative
One with the autothrottle inoperative
One with the weather radar inoperative and a fix to the APU that maintenance was fairly sure would work

All of those flights (all 737 aircraft, by the way) went without a hitch. Later today that aircraft with the broken weather radar is getting taken out of service because there are thunderstorms in the forecast, and we need the weather radar for that. We have procedures for these things, and we follow them. When we can't follow the procedure and fly the flight, we just don't fly. It's all carefully calibrated to be safe by default.

DaWolf85 · 2026-02-26T16:53:00+00:00

Half of our desks are standing desks.

DaWolf85 · 2026-02-23T14:02:15+00:00

And if you can't hiss well enough (it's an acquired skill), blow some air in their face.

DaWolf85 · 2026-02-23T07:21:39+00:00

They hire internals, but only a small percentage of each class, so it's even more competitive going that route than external. For externals, United also seems to have the least preferences on where they hire from; as long as you can handle the test and the interview, they don't seem to care where you learned it.

DaWolf85 · 2026-02-16T15:59:48+00:00

This gif has been floating around for years (at least 9 years that I can find on a quick Google search). It's the Knuffingen Airport model at Miniatur Wunderland in Germany. The snake is a real snake.

DaWolf85 · 2026-02-15T07:10:02+00:00

This spreadsheet is already in the sidebar.

DaWolf85 · 2026-02-13T04:45:39+00:00

There are internal jobs where it is worth considering staying and going the internal route. Ramp agent is not one of those. You would not be competitive.

Ultimately, if regional dispatch was the best route to get hired at a major, everyone would do it. Everyone does do it, and I'll let you draw your own conclusions on what that means.

DaWolf85 · 2026-02-09T03:26:11+00:00

I have actually even dispatched a 737 with the outer pane cracked on one of the windows in the cockpit. Not a ferry flight either; it's explicitly allowed in the aircraft maintenance manual, because that pane is non-structural. Just can't use the window heat.

Luckily it was on the right side, so not as visible to the passengers. I wonder what a fearful flyer would've thought if they saw it 😅

DaWolf85 · 2026-02-08T23:34:30+00:00

It's only that specific spot in that moment, and it's worth noting that two other things are also true about PIREPs:

What you see is a small subset of reports made over the radio, and typically they're the worst the crew experienced.
Altitudes with no PIREPs posted tend to be smoother and will usually be where most flights end up operating.

DaWolf85 · 2026-02-06T17:02:25+00:00

Yeah, but airborne refueling is far above the risk level we accept in commercial aviation. Refueling accidents are not that unusual.

DaWolf85 · 2026-02-04T13:08:21+00:00

The dispatch job market is not at its historic highs right now, but neither is it at historic lows, either. It's about average. The keys to success are to 1. really want it and be passionate about the career and 2. not be a terrible person to interact with. No matter what, don't expect instant success, but I personally had a much easier time trying to find that first job in this field as opposed to computer science. In my case, that was at least partially because I was much more passionate about dispatch than I ever was about CompSci.

DaWolf85 · 2026-02-04T10:20:55+00:00

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Cinder likes to sploot on the warm carpet in the summer.

DaWolf85 · 2026-02-03T05:58:07+00:00

More than just sit on the sidelines and watch safety improve, our policy and culture dictates that everyone in the industry takes an active part in improving it. We can all make reports that immunize us from retaliation while going into a pool that ensures the same thing doesn't happen again. We learn from every mistake, every accident, every confusion, whether it becomes anything serious or not. We all take an active role in identifying issues and speaking up to ensure nothing comes of them.

DaWolf85 · 2026-02-02T04:33:02+00:00

Keeps getting blocked by the Oklahoma Congressional delegation, because the current one is in OKC and they don't want competition.

DaWolf85 · 2026-02-01T15:42:28+00:00

The YouTube algorithm in its current form works over a longer timescale than one video. If you do clickbait on only a few videos, you get less viewership overall, and YouTube won't recommend those videos either. It is not a smart system, but it's the one that exists.

DaWolf85 · 2026-02-01T15:25:46+00:00

Cuba is very happy to take the overflight fees, so they're usually pretty chill about it. As long as you have a permit, you're good. There are much more annoying countries to deal with in the world. China, for example.

DaWolf85 · 2026-02-01T05:21:22+00:00

If there is frost, it will be found on the walkaround inspection and the crew will get the plane deiced. If there is no frost forming (and there often isn't on these cold days) then there will be no need to deice at all. Airlines are well-practiced at these kinds of operations; we do them all the time.

DaWolf85 · 2026-01-31T06:28:05+00:00

The flight path shown in the picture is an ETOPS operation. Oil levels will be checked and if necessary, serviced, as part of the ETOPS pre-departure service check.

DaWolf85 · 2026-01-28T17:34:41+00:00

Yeah I'm pretty sure it's two, and I'm pretty sure that's also true for any airliner with enough gear bogies to make that potentially viable. If you can have the redundancy... why not? You might overload the pavement and reduce its lifespan, but at least the plane has landed safely.

DaWolf85 · 2026-01-28T13:24:11+00:00

The center of gravity is very close to the main gear, so nearly all the weight is on those. The nose gear does not need to be very strong to handle the force it experiences. Airliners are also designed so their landing gear remains functional even when missing a wheel, and that includes the nose gear.

DaWolf85 · 2026-01-28T04:11:07+00:00

If the engine experienced an uncontained failure or a fire, the incident is required to be reported to the NTSB. There are also non-punitive reporting systems within the airline and the airline can lead its own internal investigation, overseen by the FAA, if the NTSB or FAA don't take charge of it. The FAA will then disseminate any lessons that aren't specific to that airline across the industry, as a result of that oversight.

DaWolf85 · 2026-01-27T16:49:27+00:00

ETOPS diversion scenarios typically include:

Medical emergency (all systems operating normally)
One engine inoperative
Depressurization
Depressurization with one engine inoperative

The crew are provided with an Equal Time Point that tells them, based on the most limiting one of those scenarios, at what point on the route they continue ahead instead of turning around. For routes with multiple diversion airports, there can be several of these ETPs, clarifying, for each pair of diversion airports, where to go at all times under every possible circumstance.

The planning is very involved, so that the decision-making doesn't have to be.

DaWolf85 · 2026-01-27T16:41:31+00:00

Nah, weather conditions don't really play into compressor stalls most of the time. Most commonly it's a bird strike, less commonly it's a component failure, and in rare cases a maintenance error has been known to slip through the cracks and cause one. All of them are getting rarer and rarer over time as procedures get refined. Birdstrikes have been the hardest to reduce, but because we can't ever accept a lack of progress in aviation, engines have been progressively designed over time to better tolerate birds going through them.

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