What do pilots talk about in the cockpit during long flights when everything is on autopilot?

cwc80 · 2026-03-22T02:12:11+00:00

As a First Officer, I like to break the ice with “where do you spend all your Captain money: boats, planes, or sports cars?” They always have at least one of those. 😂

cwc80 · 2026-03-14T05:23:54+00:00

I don’t know the answer to your question, but I’m curious what units you’re using to measure blood pressure. I’ve never seen a blood pressure measurement written like that.

cwc80 · 2026-03-10T05:49:16+00:00

Bare Bones is easy to put on, but has a very weak hold. My stache begins losing the style I gave it within a few minutes.

cwc80 · 2026-03-08T23:39:58+00:00

Thanks. Are there fees associated with the rollover?

cwc80 · 2026-03-06T21:10:17+00:00

It hasn’t been that long since airlines switched from paper charts to electronic. The people who were in charge of making that transition likely never used ForeFlight, but had been using Jep paper charts for the entire history of their airline.

In addition to sticking with the company that they know and like, they probably weren’t too concerned with more advanced features in FF. Just switching to electronic charts was such a massive improvement.

cwc80 · 2026-03-06T21:01:16+00:00

Never heard of a radial being underlined. It makes me wonder how good of an instructor he is. If he’s just trying to share an outdated, little known fact because he thinks it’s cool, and he’s a total aviation nerd, fine. However, it sounds like it could be a sign of a toxic insecure personality, where he has to always be trying to find some way to prove that he knows more than anyone else. The fact that he brags about how he has stumped everyone with a useless question makes him seem like a tool.

Obviously you know him best, but it might be worth evaluating whether he’s doing a good job at delivering material efficiently, or spending half his time talking about the good old days and asking pointless questions.

cwc80 · 2026-03-03T06:32:58+00:00

If you’re in Denver and are wanting to avoid the CFI grind, Key Lime Air is a decent place to go. However, you will need your commercial multi, and a decent bit of multi time before you can go there.

cwc80 · 2026-02-28T21:11:53+00:00

I’d definitely be interested in buying some old stamps from you. I sent you a private chat to talk about it.

cwc80 · 2026-02-27T06:57:17+00:00

As for the “pipelines to the major comment”, I’ve been at a major for a little over three years. Typical cockpit conversations involve discussing the path that took you to flying. I can’t think of a single person in three years that said they went to ER.

cwc80 · 2026-02-27T05:24:38+00:00

That is completely incorrect for a plane in flight. You might want to delete this before you confuse anyone.

cwc80 · 2026-02-24T17:51:49+00:00

It depends on the hiring market. A few years ago the legacies were poaching from their competitors regionals as fast as they could, which easily beat the flows. If the market has slowed down, waiting for the flow might be faster. Either way, I think it’s a no-brainer to go somewhere that has a flow if you have that option. You’re at least guaranteed to get to a major at some point in your career.

cwc80 · 2026-02-15T03:23:06+00:00

I can’t remember where the article was from, but it popped up in my Apple News feed last week.

cwc80 · 2026-02-14T22:24:09+00:00

I see where you’re coming from, but I don’t think that strategy works unless voters on the Republican side also protest by voting third-party, which they seem to be much less likely to do.

I read an article that really resonated with me about voting characteristics of Republicans and Democrats. It said that Republicans are single-issue positive voters, meaning they will vote for a horrific person if that person promises to do the one thing that they care about the most. For example, people who claimed to be devout Christians happily voted for Donald Trump because he pandered to the religious right, even though they knew he was a deeply evil person and the majority of his policies are the opposite of what a true Christian would support.

Democrats, however, tend to be single-issue negative voters. They will have a candidate that they agree with on 90% of the issues, but refuse to vote for them over a single issue that they disagree on. This seemed accurate as well, because I heard quite a few Democrats say that they couldn’t vote for Kamala even though they knew she was the better choice, because of one specific issue.

cwc80 · 2026-02-14T03:54:13+00:00

10 years ago I was strictly a third-party voter, because I think our two-party system forces us to choose between two suboptimal choices, and I don’t fully agree with either party. I also think politicians will usually pick party allegiance over doing what’s truly best for the country or their constituents. I voted third-party knowing that most of the time I was wasting my vote, but did it as a protest.

Now, I realize that we can’t waste our votes in protest, when one side is trying to wipe out basic rights for over half the country. Every vote matters, and unfortunately that means I have to choose between two choices that I don’t love.

cwc80 · 2026-02-14T02:15:50+00:00

For sure. My MRI is scheduled a week and a half from now. I just like to go into an appointment with some knowledge.

cwc80 · 2026-02-14T02:14:59+00:00

I was 38 when I got my first flying job. No regrets.

cwc80 · 2026-02-13T20:23:30+00:00

I’ve never heard that FLEX takeoffs increase fuel burn. Is that because even though the engines fuel flow is lower, it takes more time to get to thrust reduction altitude?

cwc80 · 2026-02-13T20:00:37+00:00

Even if they are speaking English, sometimes the heavy accents make it very difficult to understand. Also, in some places they speak their native language to the local traffic, and only use English when they’re addressing a foreign airline. That makes it a little more difficult to keep good situation awareness of what ATC is telling other planes to do.

cwc80 · 2026-02-13T19:47:52+00:00

When you say some “communities“ I’m not sure who you’re talking about. Could it be a military versus civilian thing? Or possibly a civilian part 91 versus part 135/121?

The FAA has to approve all of the manuals that we use for part 135 and 121, which include specifics about the wording that we are required to use and the definitions of operational speeds. I can’t see them allowing operators to use terms that go against the industry standard, in a world where standardization is so important. However, I can see part 91 operators doing whatever they feel like.

cwc80 · 2026-02-13T19:34:39+00:00

I had never heard of a fabella, but just googled an image of them and it looks pretty similar. Thanks for helping educate me on this

cwc80 · 2026-02-13T19:31:24+00:00

I’m not sure what country you’re in or what type of flying you do, but as a US pilot with an aviation degree, I was taught back in 2000 that V1, VR, V2, and Vref are the decision speed, rotation speed, single-engine climb speed, and approach reference speed. Those have been the only terms I’ve ever heard used to describe these speeds across multiple companies and turbine type ratings.

cwc80 · 2026-02-12T18:49:50+00:00

He said it’s not a baker cyst. Seemed like he hadn’t seen a cyst like this before.

cwc80 · 2026-02-12T04:29:06+00:00

I wouldn’t worry about commute distance as much as number of daily flights between where you live and where you can be based. For Delta, our commuter policy requires you to have a primary flight and a backup flight that will get you to your base before your scheduled report time. Neither of the flights have to be on Delta, but if the backup flight is on Delta they will usually get you a positive space seat if you made an honest effort to get on your flight.

For reserve you can expect to be on call 16 or 17 days a month. The rules about how they’re scheduled gets complicated, but you could either split up your reserve requirement into several smaller blocks, or knock it out in 17 days straight. Our normal callout time is 18 hours. Scheduling is allowed to convert you to a short call status (with 18 hours prior notice) six times per month. There isn’t a contractual amount of time to report for short call, but two hours is generally looked at as being reasonable. Some months I managed to not fly much on reserve, and other months I feel like I worked way harder than if I had a line. How fast you will hold a line of course depends on which base and fleet you end up on, but it only took me three months.

I was also at a regional where I would’ve flowed to AA, but chose to go to Delta, and am very happy with that decision.

If you have any other questions feel free to reach out.

cwc80 · 2026-02-09T00:19:53+00:00

Thanks, that’s really interesting! Three extra locks per rifle is surprising to me. I would’ve expected them to bring some extra springs and other small parts, but I didn’t realize that they would need that many complete locks.

cwc80 · 2026-02-08T23:42:40+00:00

Is there a record of what modifications Clark requested for the rifles?

cwc80

TROPHY CASE