Our Plane in Denver Talks to San Francisco?

[LeslieDEN]

Hi! I heard something on United's channel 9 today that startled me, and I'm hoping Capt. Hutch or Falcon or Throttlehold (or anybody else who knows) will shed some light.

(For anyone who's not familiar with it, channel 9 is United's "From the Flight Deck" channel. It lets passengers listen to communication between air traffic control and their plane, as well as other planes in the area.)

I was on a 777, and during taxi from the gate to the runway, our first officer told the controller we needed to pull off the taxiway to resolve a maintenance problem. So we pull off, and a few minutes later, I'm hearing her talking to maintenance.

The conversation cracked me up a little because our first officer sounded like me talking to the help desk at work when I'm particularly clueless. She was looking at the multifunction display, and the guy on the other end asked what she was seeing. She said, "Right now I'm looking at 'engine start valve left status.' One status says 'latched' and one says 'active.'" He had her scroll and stuff -- the same thing the help desk guys do -- and she did, and finally she got to the correct screen, and he explained how she could delete something.

Just then the captain came over the PA and explained the delay (hope I'm remembering this right): United's San Francisco maintenance center had received an erroneous message from our plane about engine status, and the pilots had pulled over to delete the message. They had now deleted it and we were ready to go.

What? Our plane sent a message to San Francisco? Planes send messages about their status to maintenance facilities? I'd never heard of that, although it sounds pretty cool. Well, except for the part about the message being erroneous ... which leads to a bunch of other questions, I guess.

But mainly I'm curious about the plane yakking it up with the folks in San Francisco. Please, would somebody elaborate on that?

Thanks!
Leslie

[tusphotog]

I might be able to help you out with this one...United's maintenance headquarters are in San Francisco (located in the monstrous hangar complex in the bay, to be exact), so they probably called them up after getting the error messages. Anywhere in the world, airborne or not, they have the capability to talk to a mechanic at SFO, either by radio frequency, sat. phone, or ACARS (more on that below). They also talk to dispatch in Chicago (I think). I know for a fact that Southwest does the same thing, except they talk to their maintenance folks in Dallas. I've sat on the ground while a plane wouldn't pressurize in Las Vegas and the crew was talking to Dallas.

So, what's ACARS? It's basically email/IM for airplanes...on steroids. Essentially, it allows the crew to send text messages to mechanics, dispatch and others. I believe some of the newer planes have the capability to not only send "block in/block out" times (when they leave and arrive the gate), but they can send fuel weight, fuel burn etc as well. It also sounds like if the plane feels sick, it can call in and let people know it's not feeling well. I'm sure I'm missing a bunch of things, hopefully one of the pilots can do a much better and more thorough job explaining this than I did...

If only my computers did that when they get a hiccup....

[LeslieDEN]

It also sounds like if the plane feels sick, it can call in and let people know it's not feeling well.
Yeah! Although I buried it in my convoluted post, that was what surprised me. If I understood the captain correctly, San Francisco contacted the pilots (not the other way around), saying, basically, "We just got a message from your plane that it's ill."

So the pilots are sitting there minding their own business while the plane is calling in sick behind their back. And faking it at that!

I would expect that from those lazy Ted planes, but a dignified mainline 777? :lol:

[Captain Hutch]

Leslie,

I am not familiar with the electronics/avionics of the 777, but it wouldn't surprise me that engine info wouldn't be sent automatically to the maintenance facility via the acars. Our acars on the 737 has been sending the "out and off" times automatically to the company for years. The air sensor switch controls that function so that shortly after liftoff the message is sent. The acars is a touch screen where we can receive weather information (ATIS) at our request, send messages that we "type" out by hand to the dispatcher, or receive the final weight and balance from load control shortly after we depart the gate.

Hutch :)

[LeslieDEN]

Thanks, Capt. Hutch and Tus ... I never realized the plane could send its own status back to maintenance facilities. Sounds as if the amount of info sent is different for different types of planes.

[Dachiri]

So the pilots are sitting there minding their own business while the plane is calling in sick behind their back. And faking it at that!


My friend's boyfriend is a fighter pilot in the Navy. Apparently, whenever he does something, the plane takes it as a SUGGESTION. He has plenty of stories about the plane deciding that a maneuver was not a good idea. We're talking an ivy-league educated officer here, and the plane has the gall to say it is smarter than he is! :D It's really funny, however, that the plane is playing hooky. I guess it really liked Denver and wanted to stay for a while longer!