jamesharding

18 ms·

1.
by jamesharding 2mo ago
The pulse pairs themselves are always 12 us apart. The jitter comes from the aircraft sending interrogations at random intervals in a steam, so that it can discern which returns are at at the same interval as the ones that were sent. I can
2.
by jamesharding 2mo ago
As for VOR approaches, I have done a handful in my career, especially into some of the smaller airports around Europe (Greek islands!), but these are gradually also being replaced with RNAV approaches generally. On the A320 which I flew at
3.
by jamesharding 2mo ago
Valid question! The vast majority of approaches are still using an ILS. Pretty much the only time we would use an alternative approach (most often RNAV or LPV, and rarely VOR) would be if an ILS is not available. That said, in the US especi
4.
by jamesharding 2mo ago
Interesting idea! Most in-flight wifi systems also have an API with many of these stats (to show on the captive portal page), so I wonder if you could source any additional data from these APIs?
5.
by jamesharding 2mo ago
Here was my interactive logbook post from last year for those interested: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44396518
6.
Show HN: Airline pilot's interactive guide to aviation radio(jameshard.ing)
3 points by jamesharding 2mo ago|8 comments
7.
by jamesharding 6mo ago
I work as an airline pilot, and I just recently calculated mine to be 65,658 tonnes in my 10-year career so far (not quite so bad when calculated per seat-mile, but still eye opening!). https://jameshard.ing/pilot/#stat
8.
Airlines Safely Dispatch Aircraft with Failed Equipment (The Mel)(jameshard.ing)
1 points by jamesharding 7mo ago|1 comments
9.
by jamesharding 7mo ago
Hey HN! I had a flight cancelled last month because of a defect (a spoiler system fault) that wasn’t deferrable under the MEL. That meant: no legal way to dispatch the aircraft, so we cancelled the flight and I got an extra few nights in Au
10.
by jamesharding 8mo ago
https://jameshard.ing is mine :) My airline pilot logbook statistics page was quite popular on HN last year
11.
by jamesharding 1y ago
If you ever hear my name on the PA, please come up to say hello! In fact, after the flight when it is not busy, we are always happy to have visitors in the flight deck. Feel free to drop me a message any time too, the A350 is a pretty small
12.
by jamesharding 1y ago
Exactly that! This is the only route that I know of where this is the case. Looks like today’s flight home is following that route: https://uk.flightaware.com/live/flight/BAW8/history/20250629...
13.
by jamesharding 1y ago
So happy to hear that!
14.
by jamesharding 1y ago
I have only had very few incident with ill-behaved passengers, and none that escalated. Ill passengers is a different story, especially on longer flights! With no hard data to back this up, I think that medical emergencies are probably the
15.
by jamesharding 1y ago
Cool website! The idea of rendering it to a video is an interesting one. I had thought that a challenge trying to turn something like I have built into a business would be that people would be reluctant to pay for (yet another) subscription
16.
by jamesharding 1y ago
Thanks! My father being a pilot certainly played a large part, not in the sense that he forced me into it, but rather that I had the opportunity to sit on the jump seat as a kid (pre-9/11) and it planted the seed quite early. After fin
17.
by jamesharding 1y ago
Flying Eastbound across the international date line also kind of counts as going back in time, right?
18.
by jamesharding 1y ago
It truly has been the career highlight for me! He will be retiring in a few months, so we have the last flight together planned aleady. Hopefully you will be able to have the same experience with your kids! What fleet are you on currently?
19.
by jamesharding 1y ago
Thank you! I have text comments/remarks for all particularly memorable flights (for all of the above reasons you mentioned, plus famous passengers, family on board, etc), but some of those are quite private and also difficult to show i
20.
by jamesharding 1y ago
I do actually have my GA flying included in this data, it’s just pretty minimal these days! GA flying is very expensive in the UK. I still fly our family airplane when I am home in Canada, but it only amounts to a few hours a year. You can
21.
by jamesharding 1y ago
Haha, need to add some AI in there somehow too (no vibing used when making this)!
22.
by jamesharding 1y ago
Thank you! It is on my to-do list, I just need to clean up the code a little :)
23.
by jamesharding 1y ago
globe.gl and a little bit of Flask/Python to wrangle the data
24.
by jamesharding 1y ago
Glad you like it! I have a screen on there which shows my flights live while airborne - maybe worth a post of its own :)
25.
by jamesharding 1y ago
Slightly biased, but right now I am really enjoying the A350! There are a few "gadgets" that really improve the QoL for pilots (moving map on the ground, camera in the tail for taxiing on the ground, much improved safety systems f
26.
by jamesharding 1y ago
Almost all, but not quite all! For example, about 6 months ago, I operated the following trip pattern: LHR -> GIG -> EZE -> GIG -> LHR The Rio to Buenos Aires and back "shuttle" flight was a day of flying on its own, w
27.
by jamesharding 1y ago
Good question! There are a few routes in my data where the outbound and inbound sectors don't match for this exact reason. Since almost all of our flights begin and end at LHR, if a flight is cancelled we either operate the flight the
28.
by jamesharding 1y ago
May I ask which airline you fly for? Feel free to email me if you like (email is on the website!) if you'd rather not post it in public :) Career progression in airlines is interesting - with lifestyle being so heavily influenced by se
29.
by jamesharding 1y ago
I guess the variety of flights is based on which aircraft one flies! I flew the A320 for the first 6 years, which covered all of Europe and a little bit of North Africa (Egypt, Lebanon, Jordan). Now flying the A350, there is more of the wor
30.
by jamesharding 1y ago
The term "Heavy" (for wake separation) in the ICAO context is 100% based on MTOW! In the context of this graph, these are flights where we carry 3 or 4 pilots, and I am not in the seat for takeoff or landing. We still operate at t

More ›