What to do with empty economy seats....?

Todays increase in airline usage - coupled with higher oil prices and increasing costs - has put a premium on airline occupancy. Recent airline earnings declarations have shown varied seat occupancy rates over the last 12 months. But one thing is for sure: The Holy Grail of airlines is to have every seat occupied on every flight. In reality this seldom happens. Some airlines (you know who you are) manage to fill these seats by offering 'free tickets' (which are then loaded up with additional charges and surcharges for everything from choosing your seat to breathing fresh air (Ok, I jest about the air, but it could happen!))

Air New Zealand on the other hand have gone a different route. They are apparently commissioning a new B777-300ER layout which has the possibility of 'seat beds'. The principle is straight forward. If you buy a ticket and the seat next to you is unused you can convert it into a bed. In economy class. Obviously you will be charged for this, but considering that ANZ had a recent trial where you could purchase an empty seat on a trans-pacific flight for an additional $75, this doesn't seem too bad a deal.

I think this is a brilliant idea. Instead of using traditional airline thinking which is saying 'I must pack as many cattle, sorry, passengers, into a plane as possible to maximise revenue' they are looking at this and saying 'We realise 100% occupancy is not possible on our routes so how can we maximise the revenue from the empty seats?". This solution is neat because it increases income, has a marginal overhead (An empty seat does not need feeding and needs no extra fuel to carry the occupant and baggage to the destination), and more importantly it gives the passenger something he or she would not normally get - an economy class bed. The question (As posed by this article from Flightblogger) is "Can Air New Zealand make more money from an 'empty' seat than from one that is occupied?"

To quote another post I saw on this

If Air New Zealand can pull this off, they'll be the first airline to offer lie-flat beds in coach, hopefully starting a trend that other airlines are eager to copy.

I wait with anticipation..

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11 Proven Study Techniques to Become a Better Pilot

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By Amir Fleminger

Chair flying. Flight training involves learning new motor skills. You would do much better in the air if you learn those skills in a relaxed and safe environment, while on the ground. Airline pilots spend hours practicing procedures in a "procedure trainer" (a non-functional mockup of the cockpit) before they step into an expensive level-D flight simulator or into the actual aircraft. That way, they already know what to do. "Chair flying" is simply the act of pretending to fly the aircraft while seating in a relaxed environment. You can practice chair flying in a procedure trainer, in front of a cockpit poster, in a parking aircraft, or on your couch at home. Any of those locations work. Be sure to practice every procedure in your normal, abnormal, and emergency checklists. Reach with your hands to the approximate position of each switch, lever or knob required for the procedure in order to build "muscle memory".

Flash cards. Learning the huge amount of details for training can be very challenging. System descriptions, Aircraft limitations, regulations, SOPs, memory items are all required to be retained in your memory and put in use immediately when time calls. You can make flash cards to help you remember those items. Buy a pack of index cards from any office supply store. On one side of a card write a question such as: "what is the maximum takeoff weight?"; on the other side write the answer: "Normal cat. 2550 lbs. Utility cat. 2200 lbs." (for a c-172S). Make as many cards as you need to cover all subjects including: regulations, system descriptions, memory items, and aircraft limitations. Once you have a large pile of cards start using them. Read a question and try to answer it, then flip the card to see if your answer was right. Put aside all the cards that you answered right and keep reading through the ones you got wrong, until you answer all of them correctly.

Learn the "cockpit songs" for your aircraft. Sometimes you can be familiar with a procedure but still have difficulty performing it in a steady pace while flying. The reason is that your thoughts of "what to do next" are slowing you down. Practice procedures verbally, so when you later perform them in the air, you won't stumble. For example, recovery from a low nose attitude would be "reduce power, level the wings, slowly pitch up". By practicing this procedure verbally while "chair flying" you could easily recall it when needed in a checkride or even better, in an actual unusual attitude encountered in flight. You can take any procedure and build a verbal action list in this way.

Analyze "what if" scenarios. One very important (if not the most important) characteristic of safe pilots is the ability to make good and timely decisions. Luckily, this trait could be practiced and improved. Before, during, and after each flight consider "what if scenarios". WHAT IF the weather moves in over my destination while enroute? Where would I divert? Would I have enough fuel to go there? Or WHAT IF I have an engine failure on the takeoff roll? WHAT IF it happens immediately after takeoff? What would I do? You get the drift.

Take advantage of Group study. Studying with other people can boost your understanding of the material and help you gain new insights.
Highlight with a marker essential ideas in textbooks while reading them.
Use mnemonics and acronyms to aid memory retention. "Black square, you're there!" John and Martha King [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SY0GxKRDBmk]repeat, referring to airport location signs. Although mnemonics often sound goofy, they can be very effective in helping you remember things better.

Visualization. Mental rehearsal helps us improve our skills and correct errors. Visualize each maneuver while on the ground prior to your flight lessons. This is a technique used by many pro-athletes to improve their game. You can use it to improve your flying skills.

Ask many questions.

Study the Practical Test Requirements for your rating or certificate level. After all, you have to know what's expected from you on the checkride so you won't be surprised.
Use a PC-based flight simulator or PCATD. Despite their many limitations, PC simulators provide you with free practice time. Although it cannot replace real practice time, it is still very valuable.

Amir Fleminger is a FAA Gold Seal Flight Instructor and an airline pilot.

Learn more and read news stories, tips, and tutorials about flying at Pilotscafe.com Connect with other pilots, ask questions about flying or help others on the aviation pilots forums.

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Instrument Flight Training - Old Analogue Or New Glass

By Jon Pickering

General Aviation in the twenty first century desists in pursuing the technology of it's larger heavier cousins. Affordable computers and new technology has now bridged the chasm between GA aircraft avionics suites and the glass cockpit behemoths of the sky, and to the private pilot, offers an exciting new dimension to flying.

There can be no doubt that such instrumentation offers extra safeguards with visual representation of terrain, moving maps and courses, you name it, it's all there at a glance. Everyone would agree that such instrumentation offers the VFR pilot a level of safety, never enjoyed before, and yet, some would argue (myself included) that the temptation of a glass presentation might encourage the pilot to push into an ever deteriorating situation that he or she may not have previously considered pushing had their aircraft been furnished with analogue gauges. We should not forget that a VFR pilot with a thousand hours, is still just a VFR pilot, and only trained to that level, and is required to have their eyes on the natural horizon. With the introduction of glass cockpits in GA, there will be a natural tendency for those pilots to start spending more of their time inside the cockpit. VFR pilots delighted with their new modern avionics will find themselves relying on it more and more and may result in getting into more trouble with it than if they were without it in the first place. Without the correct training and guidance, the outcome could be disastrous, as the pilot will be have been lulled into a false sense of security thinking that they are equipped to deal with situations that will likely spiral out of control.

There are many varied types of pilots, but we can reduce them to two kinds. Visual pilots and number pilots. Most of you will fall into the visual category, the remainder of us are number pilots, and then there are the very few who are adept at both. My friend and colleague is a visual pilot but is a very accomplished IFR pilot also. He uses a visual picture in his mind, but uses numbers to confirm his situational awareness picture. I myself am a number pilot, all the way, and do not use a visual picture at all, the numbers tell me everything I need to know. Number pilots I think, will make generally better IFR pilots than there visual counterparts. It is important to clarify however, whatever kind of pilot you happen to be, neither one way or the other is right or wrong, ultimately, your training should be tailored for the way your mind processes information.

And so, we have reached the point and subject of this article. Adding the IFR rating to your certificate, old analogue or new glass?

As most of you know, GPS, EFIS systems employ satellites to compute a position in space, and presents that information to you on a colourful logical display, complete with terrain, intersections, and all manner of numbers in the form of a tape, like headings, courses, altitudes and the list goes on. Essentially, your being presented visual and numerical information. The currant land based navigation system for pilots is usually in the form of V.O.R's and N.D.B's. Although N.D.B's are officially being phased out, the V.O.R system will be with us for the foreseeable future and most GA aircraft use this type of navigation coupled with Distance Measuring Equipment. (D.M.E) So, which system do you decide to use to acquire you IFR rating? Having spoken to a good cross section of people including D.P.E's (Designated Pilot Examiners), FAA inspectors, other CFII's it seems the general consensus of opinion is that it would be advantageous to the IFR candidate to learn the V.O.R based system first, acquire the rating and then transition to a glass system. If you happen to be flying an aircraft that has both the analogue system and a say a Garmin 530 also, you will have to learn not only the analogue system but also learn to use the GPS system also, the rule states that you must be able to use the equipment that is in the aircraft. This will add extra training hours to your rating. If your a renter, and wish to rent an aircraft that has analogue gauges, and you decided to learn on a glass system, odds are when you go to rent that aircraft, you will not be able to fly IFR with it. Simply put, you will be incompetent to fly that system. The final conclusion, you are, and always will be, so long as the old system is around, an incomplete, and sub-standard IFR pilot.

Case in point, an young airline pilot who visited Kona some time back, wanted to rent a Cessna 182, no GPS of any kind, could he file IFR, no he could not. Why? He learned on a E.F.I.S and was unable to fly IFR using the analogue gauges, he even admitted as such. He was however willing to give it a whirl, I won't bore you with the details, except to say he was not much better than a VFR pilot. The simple fact of the matter is, not to learn the land based V.O.R system of IFR puts you at such a disadvantage, it clearly is detrimental to your skills as an IFR pilot. It will be far easier to advance to glass systems than to learn on a glass system and then go back, who goes back to old systems when you have learned a new one? Remember, once you have your ticket in hand, you can transition at your leisure to any glass system you want to fly. In today's world, everyone is after instant gratification, ten day Instrument Ratings, bare bones minimum standards as stated in the P.T.S and bare bones minimum hours, as little studying as possible. If that's the kind of IFR pilot you want to be, good luck, fact is you will probably end up on a piece of government paper as another FAA statistic, because you just won't be prepared to fly real solid IFR when the time arrives, and it will some day. Any pilot with mediocre skill can fly IFR when all is hunky dory, it's when you have an instrument failure or two, it's night IFR, the weather is bad, visibility is nothing and the only company you have are the outside strobe lights and yourself, that's when the true test of your instrument training will be revealed. The simple fact of the matter is, your standard of IFR piloting will be considerably higher having mastered a analogue system first. One last note before I conclude this article, if you do have anyone else in the plane with you, you're responsible for their lives, get the picture?

Greetings everyone, Jon here, I am a CFII here in Kona Hawaii. I take flight training very seriously and in particular, the instrument rating. I am interested only in excellence and making you the best IFR pilot out there. Please feel free to visit my website at http://www.herculesflightservice.com for more information. If you have any questions, email me and I will be happy to provide you with an answer.

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Understanding Wake Turbulence and How to Avoid It

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By Jimmy Drago
Wake turbulence is one of the most common flight disturbances. Most pilots experience it on a regular basis. In short, wake turbulence is the result of wake vortices that are created whenever an airfoil produces lift. Lift results from a pressure differential at the wing surfaces, with the lowest pressure occurring above the wings and the highest pressure occurring beneath them. The pressure differential then causes a rollup of the airflow behind the wings, which results in a swirling air mass that occurs downstream of the wingtips. The air mass rotates counterclockwise at the right wing and clockwise at the left wing.

Slow flying, heavy aircraft produce the strongest wake, but short wing aircraft, due to their short wings, are the most prone to experiencing a variety of wake turbulence situations, the most dangerous of which is an induced roll and yaw. Because the pilot has little altitude for recovery, induced roll and yaw is particularly dangerous during take off and landing. During takeoff and landing, vortices push toward the ground and move away from the runway when the wind is low. But moderate to high wind keeps upwind the vortex in vicinity of the runway, which can cause the down wind vortex to push an aircraft into neighboring runway paths. When an aircraft reaches altitude, vortices stabilize at between 500 and 900 feet beneath its flight level. Until then, however, pilots must make certain to avoid drifting into other flight paths.

Uncommanded aircraft movements are the greatest indicators that an airplane is experiencing wake turbulence. Because the onset of wake turbulence is often surprisingly subtle, there have been many fatal instances where pilots attempted a landing during mild turbulence only to experience severe turbulence as they neared the runway. When a pilot suspects that wake is affecting his or her aircraft upon landing, the safest move is to execute a go-around or a missed approach in order to prepare for stronger wake turbulence on the re-approach.

With that said, there are ways to insure that wake turbulence is avoided in the first place. Starting with takeoff, departing a few minutes later than your scheduled departure time if another aircraft immediately preceded you is a smart idea, especially on a windy day. Then, once you depart, avoid crossing behind and below the preceding plane. Instead, try to climb above the plane's flight path or deviate slightly upwind from its path. If you have no choice but to cross behind and below its path, attempt the pass at 1000 feet or more below its flight path. When landing, make sure that your touchdown point is well ahead of a preceding aircraft's touchdown point, and always land well before an outgoing aircraft reaches its rotation point. If you're landing behind another aircraft on a crossing approach, be sure to cross above its flight path.

Avoiding wind turbulence is one the most important safety aspects for large and small aircraft alike. Unless you take the right precautions, wind turbulence can lead to an induced roll and yaw, which can be fatal upon takeoff or landing. Wind turbulence is an everyday aspect of flying. But unless pilots understand how it works and, therefore, how to avoid letting it get the best of their aircraft, their chances of experiencing an induced roll and yaw remain high. For more information on wind turbulence and how to avoid it, visit apstraining.com. They are expert instructors in aerobatics and spin/stall flight training.

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Flight Training - Instrument Rating Basics - First Crucial Hours

By Jon Pickering

Today I am going to write about an aspect of IFR training, and one of the most vital aspects of Instrument rating there is. This concerns both CFII's and pilots alike. The need to be able to fly the aircraft precisely. That means training to what I like to call, zero, zero tolerance. That means dead on an altitude, dead on a heading. Pressure from pilots to rush into flying approaches, holds, etc. will end up being completely detrimental to them in the long run, and as yet, are unable to comprehend the negative impact this will have. Pilots new to IFR training must be made to understand the need to master precision flying skills before learning to fly holds, holding entries and such.

I get inquiries from pilots all the time, such as, "why do I have to spend all this time doing this? When can we move on to the good stuff?" and similar questions. These questions, are indicative of a pilot who has no concept or understanding of the absolute necessity to master this skill prior to advancing further into the syllabus. As CFII's, it is our responsibility to convince new IFR students that without this skill, probably, the most important skill in IFR, they will never make safe, good, IFR pilots. The acquisition of this skill will enable them to fly safely, it will enable them to manage their instrument flight workload effectively and efficiently.

IFR student pilots, embrace this phase of your training, learn to fly the plane precisely in any configuration, learn to trim the aircraft for a climb, a decent, level flight, an airspeed. Trim skills will be the most valuable weapon in your IFR arsenal. Once you have that skill mastered, it will make the rest of your IFR training much easier. If you decide to take short cuts and rush it, consequently you will be fighting the course all the way through, your confidence will suffer and you will become despondent and disillusioned.

A fair amount of time will be spent with your hands off the yolk to perform other duties, you will be unable to do this if you are having to make corrections to maintain the desired headings and altitudes. In smooth air your plane will be trimmed up exactly to maintain an altitude, and your able to maintain an exact heading with your feet on the rudder pedals. A demonstration of these skills consistently, and competently will be the indication for your instrument instructor to advance you into the next phase of your training, whilst never permitting your newly acquired skill to regress. If you have not realized thus far, you have now mastered a great skill, and are already head and shoulders above your VFR peers. Further into your rating and undertaking actual IFR flights, it should have dawned upon you by now, how essential this skill is. In busy airspace, typically Class B, "Air Traffic Control" take deviations in altitude very seriously, a deviation in altitude could get you violated. At the very least, a call to the control tower.

Instrument Flight Rules and Instrument training is not to be taken lightly.

My name is Jon Pickering. I am a CFII here in Kona Hawaii. I take flight training very seriously and in particular, the instrument rating. Please feel free to visit my website at http://www.herculesflightservice.com for more information.

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