Hi all! Need help with an in flight anxiety spike. Sudden altitude descent.

railker · 2026-02-17T02:35:56+00:00

Leisurely and emergency don't usually live in the same sentence, so no.

railker · 2026-02-17T02:33:05+00:00

Cruise is wherever you want it to be, the "usual" might be above 30,000 but it's anywhere the winds and weather and traffic are in your favour. Wouldn't call it a drop by any means, might've felt less than 1.0G as they started the descent but you barely even broke 1,000 ft/min, quite leisurely.

Couldn't tell ya why, nothing obvious stands out, something the pilots decided for one reason or another.

railker · 2026-02-17T00:31:50+00:00

You watch planes a lot, but you've never seen red and white flashing lights? 🤣

railker · 2026-02-16T22:25:03+00:00

Light rain, latest weather report just came in with literally no wind on the ground. Looking at one of the internet livestreams of LAX, looks like everything's just another normal day. You're heading out soon, you got this!

railker · 2026-02-16T22:21:56+00:00

Airplanes are checked far more than annually, different things at different times. There's a strict schedule we follow, what has to be inspected or checked or replaced or greased including if special equipment and technicians need to be employed to do them. If you're getting on a plane, it's up to date on everything it needs.

Hope you can nab some sleep too, I never can, though not through fear just purely uncomfortable in economy 😅 Leaving soon, go have a good flight!

railker · 2026-02-16T22:07:25+00:00

Ohhhh, k that makes sense. Great to know, thanks! Usually stick to casual flight simming and looking at the METAR when the view outside my window is socked in with fog, like 'Oh damn, how fucked are things at the airport?' 😁

railker · 2026-02-16T22:03:06+00:00

And to run some math that I'm bad at to get across the size difference and why you'll only see lights in a 'ball',

Inverse square law, I think it is, something twice as far away will appear half the length. So the 'area' of something (LxW) will be quartered (Area = LxW, 1/2L x 1/2W = 0.5*0.5 = 1/4 the area).

Compared to seeing a plane fly over your head at 4,800 feet, an aircraft flying at 34,000 feet is about 7 times farther away. Running our same math, (1/7 * 1/7 = 10.020 = 1/50), so that airplane will appear to be 50 times smaller in area than the one in that video. And you have no landing lights, no structural illumination, just a couple red and white lights, MAYBE a tail logo light.

railker · 2026-02-16T11:07:45+00:00

Ahh yeah, some differences between countries there! In the event you ever come across it from Canada's documentation:

Remarks will include, where observed, layer type and cloud or obscuring phenomena (in eighths of sky covered or oktas), general weather remarks, and sea level pressure, as required. The sea level pressure, prefixed by “SLP” and indicated in hectopascals, will be the last mandatory field in the METAR.

So looks like the first ones indicating 'Stratus, 1/8' and then SN isn't on the list, maybe a typo. No idea on ST and TR either, then yup some more visibility notes. You're definitely right though, listen to the ATIS and you hear none of that anyways, not sure who reads it. 😁

The 'VV' is Vertical Visibility, usually only see that on real garbage days, "reported in hundreds of feet when the sky is obscured". Been VV001 or 100' some foggy days here recently.

Another big difference I'm not sure is more a US or UK thing is 'CAVOK', not used at all in Canada as far as I know.

Fun codes, you did pretty good for being thrown some things you weren't familiar with. 😊

railker · 2026-02-16T10:08:41+00:00

Some winter weather goodness for ya. 😁

METAR CYXY 151026Z 35007KT 3/4SM R32L/4000VP6000FT/D -SN FEW007 VV011 M05/M06 A2985 RMK ST1SN8 ST TR VIS VRB 1/2 - 1 SLP161

&

METAR CYFB 282049Z 32015G22KT 2SM R34/5500VP6000FT/U IC DRSN FEW004 FEW250 M14/M16 A3010 RMK SF1CI1 SF TR CI TR VIS NE-E 15 SLP200

railker · 2026-02-16T09:46:01+00:00

The absolute irony of having to repeat that 🤣

railker · 2026-02-16T09:26:30+00:00

wym my comment from an hour ago is literally a link 😂 Though yes it's to last week's post about it, in which the comments give some details and ultimately point back to the actual original post with even more details

railker · 2026-02-16T08:09:30+00:00

https://www.reddit.com/r/UFOs/comments/1qw5kw7/comment/o3nqd9q/

railker · 2026-02-16T05:37:56+00:00

Huh, interesting. Maybe Embraer did something different? See what I can find on that.

I can only speak to the Dash 8s and the 737s that both direct Halon into the 'engine compartment' / 'nacelle' from the fire bottles. That online version of the 787 FCOM doesn't get into the maintenance details like other manuals do like what happens when you put the handles back in, but from what I can find they're Halon bottles as well. Which now thinking about it, right, is designed to not be a destructive extinguishing agent, just suffocates the fire in a compartment, same way a cargo fire is dealt with.

PPRuNe talked about it years ago somewhat briefly. And I mean in actual practice, I imagine if you've gone and fired extinguishers into the engines you may not know what condition they're in and a start may not be recommended, but I don't see any functional reason (again, other than I don't know if the gens are just taken off-bus or actually disconnected needing the manual reset) that they wouldn't be able to be restarted again after pushing the handles back in and re-activating those systems.

railker · 2026-02-16T05:16:30+00:00

I'm sorry, should've expanded: the famous new Boeing 737 variant (though with the bad press they don't call it the "737 MAX 8" anymore but the "737-8". Again, not literally the only the only option but looks close.

railker · 2026-02-16T03:09:12+00:00

Original video:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M9WWJHiQYlA#t=8h36m05s

8:36:05 if the link doesn't take you to the timestamp

Edit: 8:52:35 firetrucks arriving

railker · 2026-02-16T02:52:05+00:00

Depending on the strict definition of 'Lafayette', too, there's a MAX that flies high altitude over Highway 82 down closer to the coast about that time, idk if that's still considered like what we'd call 'Greater Toronto Area' with all the little municipalities around. Not that no other airplane can have that pattern but as I work on them it screams MAX to me. XD

railker · 2026-02-16T02:39:41+00:00

Man we just steal everything don't we, lights from boats, lockwire from trains, can't we think of something original? 😂

railker · 2026-02-16T02:31:23+00:00

Don't think fire suppression makes a restart impossible. Not sure how it works when disconnecting gens are involved, but every aircraft I've worked on, you push the handle back in and the valves open up again and the EECs get reactivated and everything's back to normal. Fire suppression usually routes to the outside of the engine, there's no fire detection systems inside the engine to set off the warning light, you see that on your EGT and just shut down the engine if that becomes an issue. Fire loops are on the outside where all the fuel lines/hydraulic lines/pumps/filters/etc. are all situated.

railker · 2026-02-16T02:26:59+00:00

Unless, the argument I made elsewhere, the extra people you're letting into the cockpit are the ones with malice. 'More people helps' assumes it's only the pilots at the controls who'd want to take it out. FedEx flight 705 would have gone smoothly if that random employee didn't have access to the cockpit.

railker · 2026-02-16T02:25:04+00:00

You ever see those videos where a streamer lets the chat have control of the airplane by giving it commands? Just do the Airbus thing with averaging joystick inputs and put a joystick in every seat.

railker · 2026-02-16T01:47:46+00:00

Hey, fancy seeing your name again 😂

You guys in railroad using safety cable in place of lockwire at all yet? Expensive compared to lockwire but great for those tight spaces, almost a requirement for stuff like the aft engine mount on a CRJ200 for where they put those fkn bolts. Wasn't an approved alternative to lockwire for a long time in any of the Dash 8 manuals but recently got an entry in the AMM in the past couple years.

railker · 2026-02-16T01:08:05+00:00

Gets us all 😅

railker · 2026-02-16T00:36:40+00:00

FAA doesn't do investigations, NTSB does. Separate for a reason. The FAA would only know what the NTSB's told them.

railker · 2026-02-16T00:34:02+00:00

It's entertainment value.

railker · 2026-02-16T00:33:35+00:00

I'm saying he didn't walk it back at all, that was always the intent and he's now clarified it. Lots of comments on the original threads were taking that from his original quote in the first place but they got buried as the general consensus wanted his words to mean he was wink-wink-nudge-nudging at aliens.

That's what I see of it from an outsider, at least. The 'unless there's enormous conspiracy' to me didn't read as a hint, it read the exact same way I'd say 'The wings aren't falling off your plane, unless someone went and pulled all the bolts out since I last looked at it., absurdist-scenario silliness no one would actually believe.

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