my frights this weekend were all on united, and they really had me wondering if they were about to go belly up or something... actually this is just a general rant about flying in general...



1. the line to check in at SFO was an hour and a half long, i was close to missing my flight, several people did. it was the longest line i can remember being. the dumb part is they know how many flights are leaving, and how many people are on the plane, they know about how long the line should be, right?



2. they let me carry my guitar on the plane (with my normal bag) on the way there, on the way back, carrying on the guitar was not allowed....



3. the vancouver airport kicks ass, its really really nice (it looks like a nice shopping mall, wifi, open atriums etc) until you get to the US side, they it sucks. the security is actually closer to keeping people IN the US side than keeping foreigners out.



4. my layover in vancouver was longer than the entire flight time of the whole trip.



5. the SFO airport sucks, its dark, and dirty. the baggage claim is just a pile of bags in the corner. they have the carousels but seem to have forgotten how to use them.



6. the flight out of vancouver was delayed an hour because they didnt get clearance to take off. WTF? again, they scheduled he flight, sold the tickets, but forgot the flight plan?





so just to sum up, i was struck by how poor the whole airline service works. it seriously had me wondering if they had ever tried to do this before.

i really dont like flying





and its not about the actual 30,000 ft high 500 km per hour thing, its really the logistics of getting out of your vehicle and sitting your ass down on the plane

I haven't flown since 9/11, so I don't know. Not because I'm afraid to... but it's just cheaper to drive, and I don't mind driving. Plus, I haven't really gone anywhere far enough to warrant flying.

try driving to hawaii

some cubans drove to fl in a truck a while back, so id guess he could figure it out..

Every time I'm in a damn plane, and it's rattling down the runway on takeoff I can't help but think how much it reminds me of a beat-to-**** city bus with a couple million damn miles on it. ****'s probably dropping nuts and bolts while it's accelerating down the runway. Most of the domestic airline fleet is what--25 years old? And I think they service the planes at Jiffy-Lube.

i hate flying, there's no place I can't drive or sail https://www.nopistons.com/forums/pub...#>/biggrin.gif

the part where the plane was in the air went ok, but everything else was a retarded clusterf$&k



with all the lines and delays and plane changes, its actually a toss up weather its faster to drive or fly.

Yeah, I've only flown a few times since 9/11. The lines are brutal. They treat you like livestock. And those cattle prods aren't any fun, either!

After a certain amount of flight hours each plane is taken out of service and the entire body and structure is analyzed to see if or where the stress concentrated cracks have formed. Any section that has these cracks are then replaced.



- Hand

Yah, sure they are.



http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.p...toryId=89355766

i doubt that the planes in use get the maintenance that it should. nothing else did at the airport

That's called a "D Check", I worked on heavies for several years, even went to A&P school, if you saw the $9.00 per hour dirtbags that were working under a repair station license (yes the one's doing C and D checks) you'd never want to fly again.

I'd love to buy a Mig-29 (my fave) from the russians for dirt cheap (7 million?) and fly to japan myself...guaranteed fanfare when I arrive!!

The main thing we all need to ask ourselves here is, did the hobbs meter on your airplane in fact work??

Yea too bad yer buddy boxrs4ale isn't here that would make two people chuckling https://www.nopistons.com/forums/pub...#>/biggrin.gif

Yeah I really wish I knew what happened to that guy. Last I knew he ran off with some chubby red headed girl and got married after knowing her for 2 weeks. He probably works for United as a mechanic now. She's a flight attendant.

Do you really wish you knew what happened to him??

im sure he was just trying to sound polite.

astonishingly i neglected to inspect said metre



actually the pilot was so bad on the flight back, that you could have done a better job, and actually in retrospect maybe i could have too, his landing was that bad

Well considering I fly on average 120 hours per month, I probably do a better job! And sometimes my hobbs meter doesn't even work.

HAHA, how did I know the HOBBS meter would come up?!?@|!!



I flew 120hobbs, no its HOURS!





douches!

Trying to book my tickets to Japan, United is all sold out, Air Canada is available, you have not seen **** service until you fly Air Canada. Last time to Japan on A/C, the in flight movies were dead both ways, you had the choice of chicken or fish, but they were all out of chicken, and I dont eat fish.

I was gonna fly business class, but they want 7k for business, is it worth 7 times the cost of economy?

I thought SFO was a nice airport, except for the slack ass baggage handlers missing the conveyor belt with the luggage and letting it drop 8 feet to the ground..

Vancouver is a useless airport, they killed that Polish guy there this last year.

on the way back i had an air canada ticket, but the plane said untied....



how long is the flight to japan? last time we flew back from france, we had the whole deal, it was hot, crowded, crying baby, fish (eating fish on an airline is not a great idea, IMO), it seriously sucked. although for $7000 i think they can go fly a kite.

yea i remember this flight i was on everyone who had the fish got sick, even the pilots, so they found this guy Ted Stryker who had apparently flew during the war, what a flight from hell.

I flew in the war with that guy

lol seriously though, i picked the wrong week to quit sniffing glue

We only fly on Southwest. Never a delay. Never a cancellation. I got deathly sick in LasVegas once, and left the airport in an ambulance. Southwest put us up in the hotel the Crews use. We left the next day when they changed our expired tickets for new tickets, no charge. All very nice people.



Any company mechanic, or FAA inspecter can keep a plane on the ground or in phase dock by not signing off a release form. It is not political or dificult to understand. No need to whine to a supervisor. Just don't sign it off.

Then if the supervisor wants to sign it off, fine, its his problem. Keep a camera in your car for such occasions and take a picture to cover yourself, and move on to the next aircraft. Southwest has only Boeing 737s. All the same spares, all the same books, all the same procedures. Fewer mistakes lower down time. Just my opinion. I could be wrong.



Lynn E. Hanover

Air Canada was fine for me. Flew from Victoria to Toronto with them and it was the best flight of the trip. Of course, that could only be because we flew with the Luftwaffe, err...Lufthansa the rest of the time. Angry German women should never become stewardesses. All they do is bitch at you like you're bothering them if you even ask for a drink. They wouldn't even let me see my friend. They f'ed up and double booked a seat, so they gave him first class instead. I go up the stairs (because it was a 747) and the lady yells at me for going up there because "Zey are sleepink!" It was approximately 4pm at the time...



Even the shady Russian airline we flew with from Frankfurt to Moscow was better.

yeah southwest runs a good airline, unfortunately only air canada/unites and alaska fly to victoria BC



haven't flown them much, but alaska has been pretty good too.

I've only ever been in a fedex plane

My buddy at work swears by Luftanza...but hes a little strange.

with Wilson?

i fly somewhat regularly, i think its all about timing and planning but i'm rarely sitting at the airport for more then 30 minutes, on my recent trip to aruba on the way back the tornados that were going on in the US apparently took down the only computer system that could give approval for flights back into the US or some ****, so we had to sit in the plan for about 25 minutes extra until the fax came over.



i mainly fly to caribbean/bahamas/aruba and vegas. going to texas in february for boar.



kevin.

It can be anywhere from 14 to 24 hours depending on which way the plane goes, and how crazy the pilot is. On our last trip back, the the wind speed at altitude was something crazy like 160 km/hr pushing on the tail of the plane. I was watching the on screen fligth data, the plane starts to shake and shudder , the planes speed is over 1100 km/hr. I pull the little brochure from the seat in front of me, the planes maximum air speed was something like 980 km km/hr. They reduce engines till it drops to 950 ish, then you hear them throttle up, in 3 minutes we are banging up and down in the plane like crazy, the plane feels like its coming apart. They slow for a minute then back at it again.. We arrived an hour early, the pilot must have had the shits, a hot date or late movie rental to return.

If you get on a milk run, its stupid long, with long stop overs in boring as **** places. It was ok when I was 32 ish, at 36 I just want to get there and get the f off the plane. My knees can't take being cramped in a seat for that long.

another stupid Air Canada thing is the 2 official languages, that have to be spoken by Canadian Law. I am on a plane that is going to Tokyo then on to some place in China. They do the whole safety lecture in English and then French, on a plane where I am the only non Asian on the plane, out of them maybe 5 payed attention to the stewardess, nobody else had a clue what she was saying.

The funny thing is, most of those Asians were likely Canadian. So many Chinese people came here, had kids, and now even their kids don't speak English as well as exchange students from Hong Kong. If you're ever in Vancouver you'll see what I mean, and it's frightening.

In the winter, half of Onterio is living in Zephyrhills Florida. If you could open a Tim Hortons down there you could make millions. They keep a car down there, and some own houses as well as rent houses.



Lynn E. Hanover

Most of the people on that plane were Japanese, and were just yammering on to each other while she spoke, it was kinda hilarious to watch, she knew she was being ignored. Vancouver is no different than Calgary in that sense, everyone tends to isolate into their own communities and fails to integrate at any level, so much for multi-culturalism... We just learn to tolerate intolerance.

What is it with Canadians and Tim Hortons, worst coffee on the planet, people lining up 50 cars deep in a drive through to get a cup of pee maker.

I dare not drive there during winter! Although there is just as many here in lakeland..