Nice bird, Mike!

A couple of questions... What was with the xfeed? Curious why it reads as an “fault” if it’s simply an auto-xfeed?

What is the purpose of the arrow off of the YNE waypoint?

Also, why is there the bracket around the flight path line at the 317 - 320 degree bearing?




Warren

Sounds like a sweet gig. I have just over 2 years of mil leave to go then back to Delta. I don't think I'll be able to hold it by then, but a year or two later I should be able to. Happy to provide some Coonass fun, stories and tall tales with you!

Mike Did you fly it in the commercial that was filmed down at MHV the end of January?

Warren, I tried to find a more benign photo most of which are non operational (hero shots in the cockpit.) This one was for “operational necessity” to document the issue you note, but had a nice view of the office seat I thought I could share.

The Auto-xfeed message was a guess the fuel system made since information from the center left fuel pump was “unreliable.” The “guess” turned out to be not quite correct. It acted like and turned out to be a center left pump failure, so you can see in the photo we configured to solve the imbalance, then once balanced flew center tank to all engines until empty, then tank-to-engine. This single component failure type is about the only systems issue I’ve heard of us dealing with on occasion aside from various anamolies AB has documented for fix via software updates, like brake accumulator fault messages, etc.

The crooked arrow is a Nav Display icon depicting a programmed climb point (notice it points up) in this case a step-climb for optimum altitude. There is also an arrow that points down designating a step-descent or top-of-descent point when in range. Cool thing is many icons are also color-coded to deliver additional information like magenta (managed), amber (managed but currently out of range) etc.

The bracket, aka “the staple” is correlated with the Vertical Display below it. Notice the range displayed on the VD is ~160NM, so the staple shows on the upper ND the max range depicted the VD is displaying (which varies when longer ranges are selected, still keeping a relevant scale on the VD.)

Cool stuff...

No! The Boss took a few of the simulator instructors who needed flight time out with him for the photo shoot. It turned out nicely.

In case anyone hasn’t seen it...

https://app.frame.io/f/1e3a419c-80ce-4359-aed2-947f27d0a69f

I rode one last year, China Airlines to Taipei. Everything about it was classy, even had that new airplane smell.

I haven't been on a 787 yet, but I'll agree that Airbus did a great job on the 350.

Thanks Mike for the explanations. Cool stuff indeed!




Warren

?? Ben, are you a left over DAL furloughee that went back on active duty?

No, I’m in the Air National Guard (12 years active duty USAF before that). I got hired in ‘14 and I went on mil leave for a deployment in 16, then became the commander so I stayed on mil leave. Now I’m two years from an active duty pension/retirement so I’m staying to get that then go back to DAL.

Ben, congrats on becoming the Commander! And of course, thanks for your service.

At times I feel like my 11 yrs active duty was wasted by not going with the Guard.

Ha! Yup, I'll take two.

This week was my first ride in a A350 (Cathay). It was a nice flight (quiet, power to seat, IFE all worked). I just happened to be in Toulouse at the Airbus site the day of the first A350 flight - It was kind of cool to watch (went up on roof of a building next to the runway).

I have not been able to get on a 787 in the air yet... I was also at (PAE/BFI) the first flight of the 787.

The 787 is smaller than the A350 but in terms of noise and passenger comfort it is supposed to be similar, although I do prefer the larger window on the 787. I can't comment on the similarities/differences between the two in terms of sitting in seat 0A (I am not allowed to sit there...)

Stuart (I like airplanes)