RETIRED COL, FLYING AN AMERICAN AIRLINE 777.

Just a quick update with what I know about the Malaysia 777
disappearance. The Boeing 777 is the airplane that I fly. It is a
great, safe airplane to fly. It has, for the most part, triple
redundancy in most of its systems, so if one complete system breaks
(not just parts of a system), there are usually 2 more to carry the
load. It's also designed to be easy to employ so 3rd world pilots can
successfully fly it. Sometimes, even that doesn't work...as the Asiana
guys in San Fran showed us. A perfectly good airplane on a beautiful,
sunny day...and they were able to crash it. It took some doing, but
they were able to defeat a bunch of safety systems and get it to where
the airplane would not help them and the pilots were too
stupid/scared/unskilled/tired to save themselves

There's many ways to fly the 777 and there are safety layers and
redundancies built into the airplane. It is tough to screw up and the
airplane will alert you in many ways (noises, alarms, bells and
whistles, plus feed back thru the control yoke and rudder pedals and
throttles. In some cases the airplane's throttles 'come alive' if you
are going to slow for a sustained period of time) All designed to
help. But, it's also non-intrusive. If you fly the airplane in the
parameters it was designed for, you will never know these other things
exist. The computers actually 'help' you and the designers made it
for the way pilots think and react. Very Nice.

Now to Malaysia. There are so many communication systems on the
airplane. 3 VHF radios. 2 SatCom systems. 2 HF radio systems. Plus
Transpoders and active, 'real time' monitoring through CPDLC
(Controller to Pilot Data Link Clearance) and ADS B(Air Data Service)
through the SatCom systems and ACARS (Aircraft Communications
Addressing and Reporting System) thru the VHF, HF and SatCom systems.
The air traffic controllers can tell where we are, speed, altitude,
etc as well as what our computers and flight guidance system has set
into our control panels. Big Brother for sure! However, most of
these things can be turned off.

But, there are a few systems that can't be turned off and one, as
reported by the WSJ, is the engine monitoring systems (not sure what
the acronym for that is, but I'm sure there is one....it's
aviation...there has to be an acronym!). The Malaysia airplane, like
our 777-200's, use Rolls Royce Trent Engines (as a piece of
trivia....Rolls Royce names their motors after rivers....because they
always keep on running!) Rolls Royce leases these motors to us and
they monitor them all the time they are running. In fact, a few years
back, one of our 777's developed a slow oil leak due and partial
equipment failure. It wasn't bad enough to set off the airplane's
alerting system, but RR was looking at it on their computers. They
are in England, they contact our dispatch in Texas, Dispatch sends a
message to the crew via SatCom in the North Pacific, telling them that
RR wants them to closely monitor oil pressure and temp on the left
engine. Also, during the descent, don't retard the throttle to
idle...keep it at or above a certain rpm. Additionally, they wanted the
crew to turn on the engine 'anti ice' system as the heats some of the
engine components.

The crew did all of that and landed uneventfully, but after landing
and during the taxi in, the left engine shut itself down using it's
redundant, computerized operating system that has a logic tree that
will not allow it to be shut down if the airplane is in the air...only
on the ground. Pretty good tech. Anyway, the point was, that RR
monitors those engines 100% of the time they are operating. The WSJ
reported that RR indicated the engines on the Malaysia 777 were
running normally for 4 to 5 hours after the reported disappearance.
Malaysia denies this. We shall see.

Parting shot. If you travel by air, avoid the 3rd world airlines.
Their operators and maintenance are substandard. Substandard when
traveling by Bus or Boat isn't so bad when the engines quit. You just
stop on the water or by the side of the road. Not so in airplanes.
My piece of advice....if traveling by air use 1st world airlines. So,
that leaves USA, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, most of Europe, Japan
and just a few others. Avoid the rest....just my opinion. If you get
a real deal on air fare from 'Air Jabooti'...skip it. Oh, there are a
lot of the 'developing' countries that use expatriate pilots from the
1st world. Emirates and Air Jordan come to mind and are very safe.
As is Cathay Pacific. Air Pakistan and Egypt Air...not so much. Do the
research.

And don't EVER get in an Airbus!!