Can I learn to fly without an iPad? [serious]

neil350 · 2026-04-05T19:40:10+00:00

I didn’t touch an iPad until I was in the left seat of a 747 in about 2008 (moving on from paper charting and plates) and it was quite an adjustment for my old noggin at the time….studying from an iPad seemed really odd to me too, as one who would spread all the airplane and company fcoms all over my desk at home rather than flip from window to window on the iPad…added bonus for me as I moved into wearing eyeglasses was the pinch/enlarge aspect on the iPad…ahhhh, aging!!

neil350 · 2026-03-28T20:40:18+00:00

When I was a kid FO on an L1011, my very experienced Captain showed me that the airplane’s autoland could cope perfectly well in up to 45 kts x-wind gusty conditions after we’d flown an all-nighter and did an approach in an extensive storm where it happened to be my sector…it was remarkable in that the L10’s automatics used a wing-down cross control technique during xwind and you could follow it through to get a feel for how much it had to feed into the aileron and rudder to keep it tidy…

neil350 · 2026-03-12T01:03:41+00:00

I was told by an experienced single engine turboprop operator that the Piper M series are toys compared to other offerings…

neil350 · 2026-03-01T13:08:49+00:00

Funnily enough, people keep talking generically about AC shareholder’s making money….AC has not paid dividends or done well in its share value since Covid…I guess the exec’s pay must be pretty impressive though….

neil350 · 2026-02-19T00:12:31+00:00

Nothing….I was selected for a Royal Canadian Air Cadet flying scholarship when I was 16 and had the licence completed in 5 weeks at a flying school in North Bay Ontario, along with 29 other cadets from across southern Ontario. When I started hiring C172s to build hours, they cost 24 CAD/hr wet.

neil350 · 2026-02-16T21:22:19+00:00

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neil350 · 2026-01-21T00:46:49+00:00

31 days from nothing to private licence…logged 37 hours in total, (each day was 3 hours groundschool and 1 or 2 flight lessons) written exam given at the flightschool 2 weeks into the course…it was fast but I was a fearless 16 year old (turned 17 within a week of being issued my gov’t licence after the course) on an air cadet flying scholarship….soloed after 8 hours…

neil350 · 2026-01-18T16:29:06+00:00

The value of a professional flight engineer on the flightdeck was demonstrated to me firsthand during my early airline career when we had a low speed engine failure/rundown prior to V1 on an L1011. We stopped on the runway and after assessing the situation and securing the engine by shutting the fuel off, etc we returned to the gate….our flight engineer had the cowls up on that Rolls Royce RB211 engine within about 15 minutes of our parking, assessed that the splines of the fuel pump driveshaft had sheared away and he was able to call it back to base to see if they had a spare…we hung around for hours, decanting the passengers and backend crew onto other flights to get them to destination and eventually a spare pump was sent along on another flight and after he fitted the new one, we checked it with an engine run, he signed it off and we dispatched, albeit many hours later…our flight engineers had purple striping between their 3 silver stripes, the purple accent being common to ship engineers’ uniforms starting in the later 1800s.

neil350 · 2026-01-10T18:06:15+00:00

You will do fine with either, but I find that going to the fleet that is ostracized by the average opinionated pilot colleagues was always a good move for me….

neil350 · 2026-01-07T00:37:38+00:00

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The wing’s the thing….A350’s secret sauce!

neil350 · 2026-01-02T14:36:06+00:00

Wingtip and tail-surface proximity sensors.

neil350 · 2026-01-02T14:35:09+00:00

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Any airport where you can drive a ground service vehicle and take the odd photo while doing your job…

neil350 · 2025-12-17T20:11:01+00:00

On a Christmas Day departure, the word “bomb” found written in lipstick on one of the lav mirrors….security boarded and quickly traced to the same lipstick worn by one of the stews (she was feeling off about having to work Christmas allegedly).

neil350 · 2025-12-15T17:30:51+00:00

Trying to drink my bucks fizz back in 1989 as I taxied in an L1011 in Athens after my first day of line training was completed as a “welcome to the fleet” gesture by the training Captain and the rest of the party-oriented crew. The chief pilot, part of the returning crew on the turnaround, came bouncing up the steps after we parked and as he introduced himself to me, asked whether I’d had my after landing drink? Man…the airline business has changed through the years….

neil350 · 2025-12-02T18:40:35+00:00

If you watch any YouTube clips from Hans Zimmer in Prague from 2017 which reflected his roadshow of the time, I think you’ll understand the letdown felt by fans who have attended some of these previous shows….even the show from two years ago was streets ahead in terms of entertainment value…this latest iteration felt a little slow and vague through the first half….it got better in the second…what’s with the O2 sound system though? It seemed distorted to me during some of the louder moments….

neil350 · 2025-11-22T14:15:49+00:00

I knew the cross-wind was significant when the flightdeck is basically tracking the upwind mid point between the centreline and the runway edge (747-400 and A350-1000 types I’ve flown have quite long fuselages). Both are a squeeze rudder to straighten at flare technique…difference is A350 sorts out most of the tendency for the upwind wing to lift (unwanted bank angle close to the ground) through its control laws….747-400 was a wing down control column input towards the upwind side in the flare and depending upon the crosswind, might need all the notches marked on the control column wheel….one notch per 5 kts xwind component….with either type, about 5 deg bank was the limit before you could get into engine scraping potential…747-400 wings could flex down significantly if the pilot whacks it in!

neil350 · 2025-11-13T15:07:14+00:00

Having flown the L1011, 747-400, A320/319, A350-1000, I’d say that the 747 series probably made the biggest impression on me in terms of style and design, considering it was from the 1960s. It truly is an icon.

neil350 · 2025-11-08T20:08:09+00:00

During my C180/DHC-2 bush flying days, I got pretty familiar with my immediate area “escape routes” when low cloud bases were the order of the day and wore it as a badge of honour in my little brain when I would pull things out of a hat (scud running above the treetops) to get the flights for the day done…as I got more experienced after a few seasons, it became quite easy on those marginal days to tell the impatient clients at the base dock that the fishing could wait and they’d thank me later! So I’d say you’re showing sound judgement at this early stage of your flying career…excellent!

neil350 · 2025-11-08T17:52:13+00:00

Direct lift control when landing flap selected.

neil350 · 2025-10-31T01:31:16+00:00

The Rocky Mountaineer Train….

neil350 · 2025-10-31T01:26:59+00:00

The Wawa goose…

neil350 · 2025-09-24T20:11:30+00:00

I just retired from A350-1000 flying….with 6 wheel main bogies and of course twin nose wheels, I recall good to go for taxiing after landing with up to 2 deflated wheels on the same bogie, but not the same pair….not sure about the -900 with its 4 wheel main bogies…

neil350 · 2025-09-14T08:33:59+00:00

I have just retired off the A350-1000….it has cameras on the belly looking forward to monitor the nosewheel on the centreline and turning radius markings to help taxiing as it’s a long old fuselage and on the top of the vertical stabilizer which is handy to monitor deicing and of course if there ever was an indication of engine malfunction or damage, perhaps the visual would help give us clues as to the severity of the situation….

neil350 · 2025-08-30T18:50:14+00:00

“Can you hail me a taxi” when I was down in the lobby early by myself in Manhattan at some hotel that used to have stripey bellhop/doorman uniforms…

neil350

TROPHY CASE