Pilot-
Can you read clouds?
Can you look down and tell me what city you are flying over without your GPS?
Why did you want to be a pilot?
Do you have flight routes similar to bus routes?
How many flights do you do per day?
Where is the best place to fly into?
These are the questions which enter my mind as I sit waiting for my flights.
I finish up my 2012-13 school year flights today. DFW to GRR. I came to Dallas for the second time this year to attend a conference speaking on how to better serve our dual language learners. I was the only person out of district, so obviously I was a little bit out of my comfort zone. However my seat partner adopted me and brought me out to a delicious lunch with her pals. Do you know how often that has happened to me in the past year at other conferences? None. Zero. Those sweet Texans :)
Sky over Mount Pleasant, TX
It was a toasty 95 degrees...whew. These feet are eager to get home!
1 comment:
Hi Laura, late on this comment, but hopefully it answers your questions. I'm not an airline pilot, but I am a rated Commercial pilot and know the industry
Yes, clouds do tell us a lot about current conditions, if there's convective activity (thunderstorms & airplanes don't get along) and what weather we can expect in the next few hours.
Yes, we can tell you what city we're over...more or less. Even without GPS, we have paper charts that geo-reference rivers, towers, railroad tracks, and yep, you guessed it, towns!
I first realized something cool about flying airplanes when I took a trip back when I was 13 or so (So Jenison years!) It was on United and United has this cool audio feature called "From the Flight Deck" where the radio calls from your flight are piped in to that audio channel. (It's channel 9 if you're curious). Listening to all this stuff happening regarding our flight was mind blowing! Before that I had never really though about how airplanes get from one airport to another, but I guess I thought it was once you take off, you did what you wanted. Not so much. Now I'm hearing vectors, climb and maintain certain altitudes. And what the heck is a Flight Level?! I got intrigued and researched it more. I did an intro flight in a little two seat Cessna my Senior year of high school and was hooked.
Airline routes are similar in the fact that they are scheduled in advance. Different carriers have different networks. There's the hub and spoke network where the legacy airlines (Delta, United, American, etc) bring passengers in from smaller cities using smaller jets (or turboprops) to their "hubs." Cities like Chicago, Dallas, New York, & Los Angeles are all hubs. From there they connect to other major destinations, or back to smaller cities. For example, someone flying from Kansas City to Grand Rapids, MI on United would probably connect in Chicago. Southwest Airlines has the point to point route, allowing for a lot more connections and flexibility.
Typically airline pilots will do 3 to 5 "legs" or actual flights a day.
I'm sure every pilot has their own opinion of this. When I was doing my training in Arizona, I got to fly into Sedona quite a few times. It's a small'ish field right in the middle of the scenic red rocks, on top of a mesa. It basically feels like you're landing on an aircraft carrier. It's very scenic as well.
I hope I answered (at least belatedly) some of your questions.
-Matt JHS 2002.
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