Ex-pilot reveals the sneaky way airlines arrive on time even though flights are taking longer
AN EX-pilot has revealed why planes arrives on time despite flights taking longer than before.
Former commercial pilot and associate professor of aviation at the Metropolitan State University in Denver, Chad Kendall, revealed airlines pad out their schedule.
Data from the US Bureau of Transportation Statistics has revealed that planes face longer delays leaving the gate, take more time taxiing before taking off, and spend more time in the air.
Despite this, there has been a decrease in flights arriving after their scheduled time, which means more flights arrive early or on time.
Airlines have extended their scheduled flight duration even more than the flights have lengthened in actual duration.
Kendall said the airlines had plenty of incentives to be on time.
He said: “The benchmark for performance set by the Department of Transportation is based on arriving within 15 minutes of your scheduled time of arrival.
Patrick Smith, an author and commercial pilot for more than 30 years also revealed a little known hack that pilots know about.
Smith said pilots are given a timetable based on weather conditions and air traffic – with the arrival time on the pilot’s timetable showing an earlier time than the one on a passenger’s ticket.
Meanwhile, plans for the next “Son of Concorde” jet that could from London to New York City has reached new heights.
The soon-to-be supersonic XB-1 plane has flown higher than it ever has before in its most recent flight test.
During a flight lasting approximately 54minutes, the XB-1 plane reached a new max altitude of 25,040ft.
That is more than 2,000ft higher than its previous flight test.
Engineers intend to fly the plane higher, and faster, until it eventually reaches supersonic speeds of Mach 1, which is the speed of sound.
At this speed, the XB-1 plane could ferry passengers from London to New York City in just 3.5hours.
The eighth flight test confirmed that flying at eyewatering speeds of Mach 0.8 or 614mph is safe, even with the stability augmentation system switched off.
“XB-1 cleared this requirement, confirming that the pilot can safely control the aircraft at higher speeds even in the event of a stability augmentation system failure,” the team wrote in a flight test update.
Designing a plane that is stable, very fast, and doesn’t rely on computerised augmentation to stay safe in the air has been a challenge, the team said.
Many modern fighter jets, which can fly from Mach 1.2 to Mach 2.5, use automated systems that make constant adjustments to the flight path in order to maintain stability.
Commercial supersonic flight over land has been banned in the US for more than 50 years, and about 20 years in the UK, because of the noise of sonic booms.
There have been no commercial aircraft even capable of supersonic flight since the Concorde.
The aircraft were banned in the UK because they were deemed too noisy and extremely expensive to operate.
With restricted flight availability, fares were often too high for most customers.
There are an increasing number of companies trying to build supersonic aircraft, now regulators are poised to review the bans.
A short history of the Concorde
THE CONCORDE was the first supersonic passenger-carrying luxury airplane.
Two decades ago the Concorde took its first-ever flight.
It became supersonic in 1969, flying passengers from New York to London in less than three hours.
It was the only aircraft in the British Airways fleet that required a flight engineer.
Concorde needed unsustainable amounts of fuel and created very loud sonic booms.
Then, in July 2000, a horror accident saw 113 people killed when an Air France Concorde ran over a small piece of metal while taking off from Charles de Gaulle Airport.
It caused the tyre to explode and the engine to ignite.
A year after the horrific crash, 9/11 majorly affected passenger numbers.
Ultimately a combination of these events led to its downfall.
By 2003, Air France and British Airways announced they would be retiring their fleet of Concorde planes.