737 pitch attitude on final

[tames oud]

In the FCTM from boeing I found the pitch attitudes for flaps 30 and 40 approaches. I'm looking for the typical pitch attitudes for flaps 15 finals for 737-700 and 800.

little background:
I know that when you loose an engine on an flaps 30 approach and you go above the white bug (vref +15) and select flaps 15 you need to increase you pitch a bit to maintain the 3 deg glide path, but I can't find any exact data out of the boeing manuals.

Also, does anyone know where in the manuals I can find the 1 degree per 5 knots above Vref rule?

Thanks

[Flight Detent]

I'm pretty sure that neither of what you look for is in the Ops Manuals for the BBJ (or BBJW) anyway, I've not seen it!

I'm not 100%, mind you!

Cheers

[Airspeed Ambassador]

Not sure about any such "rule" but for a single engine approach, I have found that (in the simulator) the correct attitude and thrust for flaps 15 is +3 degrees and about 70-74%N1.

Hope that helps.

AA

[tames oud]

I found the one degree per 5 knot-''rule''. it's in the flight crew training manual in the landing chapter. i have the 31october2003 update, it's on page 6.5

[M.85]

what if you get the appropriate ROD or ROC and the appropriate speed...the correct attitude will come by itself:confused:

M.85

[jetblues]

Try QRH P1.10.20 737-700/ CFM56-7B20 Flight With Unreliable Airspeed. (Sept 26 2003).

Final Approach (1500ft) Gear Down, %N1 for 3 Deg Glideslope.



Weight (1000 kg ) 80.0 70.0 60.0 50.0 40.0
Flaps 15 Pitch Att 4.0 4.0 3.5 3.5 3.5
(Vref 15 +10) % N1 57 54 51 46 42

This will help give you a reference to aim for.

[tames oud]

Tnx jetblue, excellent answer.

(better than ''just chase the needles....'')

regards,

Tames

[john_tullamarine]

He who chases numbers on gauges and hopes for the EADI (by whatever name on whatever jet) to end up at the appropriate spot is one who loved roller-coaster rides as a child.

Far better to know by rote enough basic numbers for your particular aeroplane and then set attitude and thrust to suit the configuration and flight circumstances/requirements ... all the other numbers then, quite miraculously, fall into place, or very nearly so .. subsequent fine tuning is just that .. and the passengers and cabin crew give thanks for a competent I/F manipulator up front ...

Something along the lines of

"power (or thrust) plus attitude = performance"

comes to mind if one is into memory joggers ...

[fireflybob]

john_tullamarine, you took the words out of my mouth!

It's a while since I have been on the B737 but the "Flight with Unreliable Airspeed" section has comprehensive details of attitude and power/thrust required etc. and it used to be interesting to note, for example, that the pitch attitude for level flight at 210, 190 and 170 kt was almost exactly the same (about 6 degrees I think). Much useful information can be gleaned from this table.

[M.85]

Guess the remarks about chasing needles were for me..i
i understand the need to know power settings for different phases of flight..but the attitude difference between flaps 15 and 30...idlike to see YOU staring at your attitude to see that you point your nose at 3.5 degrees and not 4 degr..
:ugh:

M.85

ie on final(as the thread title suggest)one should when increasing flaps,add power slightly before speed drops and keep vsi where it should be,trim out if necessary and the pitch attitude reveals it self..it works for me..
But i do understand the concept of having to know power settings and pitch in case failure of all airspeed intruments..
ie in a turn know how much increase of power is needed,increase slightly pitch by feeling to conteract nose drop and keep vsi on zero..then trim..is that bad?

[john_tullamarine]

My remarks were directed at no-one in particular .. rather they were just standard observations.

M.85, in his last post, is talking more about the fine tuning thing, ie being near to the target in any case.

Not having any experience on NG I can only comment on the Classic, which is very easy to fly accurately using the pitch/thrust/adjust approach to life for a pilot in current practice. I used to spend a lot of time polishing I/F for my own satisfaction and, eg, one of our sim diversions was to do single pilot figure eight ILS circuits, hand flown, raw data, in 50ft/100m minima just to keep the brain cells working ... a bit of knowledge, combined with a lot of practice, will produce a very smooth I/F pilot.

The unreliable airspeed tables, while intended to provide guidance for failures such as a damaged radome are the first thing the new 737 pilot should put his head into ... makes the endorsement program just so much easier. If you don't know the numbers, you are starting so incredibly far behind the pace .. and sim session progress is ever so much slower as the student spends too much time worrying about the flying bit rather than all the other things the program is trying to cover. We are not talking about setting pitch attitude to the nearest tenth of a degree.... rather we want to see the pitch set to the half or whole degree which puts the aircraft in the ball park attitude. As proficiency increases with practice, the pitch setting accuracy becomes more reliable, repeatable, and automatic for the student and the cognitive bits of the brain can concentrate on the important things .. like SA, systems, procedures, etc., etc.

I am a bit one-eyed on this subject having been influenced in my younger days by another regular poster on this site who is even more one-eyed about the benefits of hand flying and raw data practice.

In days past when I was involved with endorsement training, one of the optional exercises I threw in towards the end of the program (meaning we were going to do it anyway but there was no pressure on the students regarding any sort of required achievement levels .. ie it was a playtime exercise) involved a TOTAL pitot static etc failure on rotation.

Anything I couldn't fail via the panel I covered up with a bit of paper. The aim was not to simulate any presumed real world failure(s) .. merely to provide the confidence boost which comes from being able to fly the bird in the sim in super critical conditions.

Incidental outcomes were that the student gained a very strong impression about the value of knowing the numbers and also learnt a lot about thinking laterally when it came to keeping away from the rocky bits.

Starting just after V1 in a minimum vis takeoff, the student ended up (very rapidly - depending on how fast I could play the piano) with no airspeed, no VSI, no altimeters, no RadAlt, no A/P, no F/D, no standby gauges, etc .. ie by the time he was at around 150-200ft all he had was pitch and thrust gauges - and he couldn't cheat by glancing across ship as both sides had everything failed.

The (unassisted by the instructor) crew task requirement was

(a) complete the takeoff and climb out in min vis conditions
(b) find their way back to the holding pattern at a safe height (they had no idea of the actual height, of course)
(c) confirm that they had found the correct glideslope
(d) shoot the ILS in Cat 1 or 2 conditions to a landing.

This was all hand flown, with (very) limited raw data available.

I can't recall any students who tried this exercise not being able to produce a safe outcome with due attention to risk management considering terrain implications.

Of course, the work we had used for short break exercises practising precision I/F flying (including hand flown, raw data, ILS to either very low or zero-zero minima landing) played a part in developing confidence and skills ... the point remains, however, that pitch/thrust/adjust makes routine flying ever so much easier and will help get you out of trouble when it all turns to custard.

My students certainly ended a session tired and sweaty and, although I got the occasional grumble about workload, I don't recall too many complaints about skill improvements ..

Maybe I was a bit of a mongrel task master ... but I slept well knowing that the new guy (or girl .. and some of the girls were a good sight better than many of the guys) had a very high chance of getting the bird home once he/she was out on the line ...

[tames oud]

I think nowadays it is really up to the individual pilot to take the initiative to fly raw data once in a while. It is so easy to go the easy way and chase the flight director needles. Flying instruments is something you will have to keep doing to stay good at it. Which is why I started to fly raw data more often again whenever the opportunity is there. And when I started practicing again, guess what, I sucked.... And only after going back to the roots and setting pitch and power it all immediately came back again.

Another reason I was looking into this stuff, was that I wanted to figure out how much of a pitch increase I should expect to need when loosing an engine on final (raw data). In the simulator I would always loose at least one dot on the glideslope after selecting flaps 15 and increasing to the white bug. After looking at the figures I guess a good ballpark figure is 2 degrees more nose up from your last attitude. So next time when I practice this at least I will have something to shoot for instead of waiting until the glidepath is out the window.

.85, if I was coming on a little strong, sorry about that. I've been flying a lot of different airplanes, and for me pitch and power is the only way to go. Sure you fine tune constantly to stay on the approach but it all starts with setting known figures and wait for the outcome.

cheers,

Tames

[galaxy flyer]

JT

You can tell that I fly the C-5. I have a tough time "selling" your ideas to our new from pilot training guys that attitude + power is required to smoothly (or roughly, for that matter) fly large aircraft. Many don't seem to have the time and discipline to memorize power and pitch settings, but that's a leadership issue. The Galaxy has tremendous momentum, combined with being underpowered, that makes the "I'll chase the needles and shove the power as needed" way of flying just awful. And has resulted in several inadvertant stalls in the history of the plane.

Could you expound on your sim profile? Any techniques on managing the altitude part of the equation especially. I would like to use it in the sim.

GF

[john_tullamarine]

GF,

Basic gameplan is to follow the KISS approach to staying alive ..

(a) climb out on time using typical/expected ROC to achieve a safe turn height

(b) continue an appropriate, but moderate, climb back to the holding pattern to achieve a height somewhat in excess of MSA/LSA/holding altitude ... with no accurate idea of height the aim is to make sure that the aircraft is high

(c) enter the hold, extend as necessary to find a glideslope

(d) reverse and fly the glideslope inbound to check for a spurious glideslope

(e) if the glideslope is correct, then the appropriate pitch and thrust (making a rough allowance for known wind) will keep the aircraft somewhere near the glideslope .. continue the approach

(f) if the glide slope doesn't fit, then turn outbound and descend slowly in the pattern .. repeat from (c)

Usual observation for a typical 3000ft/10nm ILS was that the crew ended up 1000-2000 ft too high entering the hold for the Classic (most of my work was on -200/-300).

If you don't have an ILS or some other slope profile guidance, then the problems become much greater (and perhaps intractable) unless there is a known low terrain region below cloud to which the aircraft can be flown for a cloud break .. I never considered this for an exercise as the aim was to emphasise the importance of the pitch/thrust mantra and build confidence ... the quickest way to destroy confidence is to put a student in an impossible/too difficult situation.

It is essential that the program includes a progressive skill building aspect so that the I/F skills are appropriate to the tasks requested.

I ran my endorsement sessions fairly high workload (but with an emphasis on a fun approach to learning).

In amongst the normal scheduled exercises I used short I/F skills exercises a number of times during each session to provide breaks from the standard program work.

After the usual gen I/F and keyhole target exercises, the most useful is shooting nil vis, hand flown, raw data ILS exercises (repositioning to start from, say, 500 ft AGL or so once the student is comfortable down to Cat 1 minima) and having the pilot progressively fly lower as his skill improves, usually culminating in hand flown, raw data blind landings toward the end of the sim program. It is an essential part of the briefing process to get across very firmly the idea that these things are skills building exercises and have no part in routine line operations.

Another technique which I found very useful in the endorsement scenario was to alternate exercises throughout the session so that the student alternatively had work and support (quasi rest). My guess is that this increases session productivity by, say, 20-30 percent as the fatigue thing can be managed far better than having each student fly a half session program. While this latter is very common in recurrent sim training, I think it is very counterproductive during endorsement training .. the student thinks and learns better if he is not exhausted.

Seemed to work OK for me ...

[tames oud]

jt,

could you go into the alternating excersises a little deeper. I instruct initial training in the sim and alternate PF halfway through the session. How do set up a session and get everything done for each trainee? Is it a matter of swapping trainees for each individual excersise? Never looked at that possibility.

[john_tullamarine]

T.O.

The aim is to have a reasonable frequency of task alternation without wasting time so that the student gets lots of rest throughout the session but maximum productivity.

One pilot does one to several exercises and then the other pilot does the repeat thing. Just a matter of taking the full half session program and shuffling the card deck to make two half sessions into one full session covering the entire program

(a) Capt/FO scenario. Straightforward

(b) Capt/Capt or FO/FO. Seat swapping is too time wasting. Although it is heresy in many quarters, I have found, so far without exception, that pilots rapidly adjust to flying from either seat. Seats are swapped for each separate sim session.

A sideline benefit is that both pilots learn and know the systems scans for both seats which provides gains in the PNF support role. If you go down this path, it is essential that both pilots are required to learn all the normal scans and checklists prior to the first session.

Prior to the sim program proper, I run several (or more, if required) additional classroom cardboard bomber sessions in front of the photographic instrument etc. panels where we run through all the checks and scans repetitively until both pilots have all the important sequences committed to memory and are comfortable with the relevant actions from memory .. I am a do-by-scan and then read the checklist ... rather than a read-and-do man when it comes to normal checklist items. There is a significant benefit in using the cardboard bomber with abnormals/emergency drills as well .. not to commit the drills to memory, but to ensure that the sequences and logic aspects are well understood before the sim sessions.

After all, the box is expensive ... a bit silly to waste box time learning things which can be learnt outside the box.

This all presumes that

(a) the students WANT to learn .. there are some occasions where one gets students who have no interest in learning ... that presents a whole different set of problems ....

(b) the particular airline one is working for permits such an approach to training. I can only use this sort of approach if I am given the flexibility to do so.

... and, as I suggested, I make no apologies for working the students hard ... the endorsement is a dollar expensive exercise and we want to claw the maximum benefit practicable from the box time.


I shall be interested to see what level of rebuttal my heretical views on life might bring ....

[Dale Harris]

Your views heretical john? Oh I think not....

[alf5071h]

I am surprised by the apparent disregard for speed awareness in this thread. Speed and attitude are interlinked; correct airspeed for the configuration equals safety, especially with an engine failure.

‘Rules for attitude’ are actually rules of thumb or guidelines for use during training, for giving examples, or as an aid memoir for given situations as discussed above. When it comes to controlling the aircraft there should be a loop process involving attitude, speed, and power. During takeoff and climb, power is regarded as fixed, thus the control loop is attitude and speed. During an approach there are more variables, but always speed, attitude, and power, intermixed with altitude, altitude rate (VS), or flight path (GS).

I wonder if this thread is assuming the use of auto throttle, thus the crew only have to control the pitch loop. Or is it the use of a FD, an attitude based (presentation) instrument that overshadows the basic aircraft control mechanics, which we should all have been taught initially and may well require during abnormal operations in large aircraft?

How would Pprune’ers respond to the question of pitch attitude and aircraft control without auto throttle and no FD? And if this differs from the normal operation, how and when are these different control techniques taught and practiced?

[john_tullamarine]

I think we are all singing to the same words and music .. just taking different parts ..

.... apparent disregard for speed awareness .... speed and attitude are interlinked ...

Fair comment .. but ASI is of lesser predictive value in other than smooth air and steady flight path ... trying to fly a larger aircraft in dynamic conditions using ASI as the prime guide makes for hard work .. much easier to use speed for a degree of refinement.

.... rules of thumb or guidelines for use during training ..... there should be a loop process ...

Are we not all talking the same thing ? .. albeit viewed from different perspectives ? However, he who forgets the basics and, eg, follows the F/D slavishly, sees a less than smooth flying performance in line operations ...

... assuming the use of auto throttle ...

Use of A/T in underslung engines makes for harder work when hand-flying .. hence the often seen preference for handflying with manual throttle (preferably with the unit armed) and A/P with A/T .. certainly, in the sim exercises I was referring to, it is a case of NO automatics at all .. everything is done the traditional way ..

.. FD ...

Again, a system which works well when the going's good .. but can, itself, significantly increase pilot interpretative workload in dynamic situations .. 737 Classic drivers will be quite familiar with this in the windshear case (I guess that there will be quite some variation depending on the capabilities of particular systems)

... aircraft control without auto throttle and no FD ..

As a venerated elder statesman pilot in the Australian scene said some years ago when transitioning to his first heavy jet endorsement (and after having had some difficulties with the earlier sessions) .. came to the standby power exercise session .. and all of a sudden he had no troubles with the sim ... "mate !!! .. with nothing working ... it flies like a real aeroplane ... "

Should there be any difference in flying technique with/without automatics ? .. I think not ... albeit that there may be an increase in workload stressors due to the need to keep track of what the gadgets are doing for (or against) the pilot ..

[4dogs]

alf5071h,

I always thought that PWR + ATT = PERF was indeed a sound measure of speed awareness, among a number of other things. I was a bit surprised that you found the previous posts as supporting such a conclusion - I came to quite the opposite view.

JT,

I am a bit surprised about your conclusion in regard to the ease of flying from either seat. I have been doing it for many years and I still require some very conscious activities to re-attune myself with the different role, different instrument scan, different switch positions, different controls in different hands (except in helicopters, thank goodness) and remembering where everything is in total darkness.

I see a lot of command training and co-captain flying that suggests that it is not that comfortable for most people. Mind you, that is most often due to lack of practice.

I think that CAPT/CAPT upgrade training or initial conversion is not a great drama and I could certainly generate an argument that suggests that flying from both seats is so beneficial that the extra workload is justified. In the early sessions where the focus might well be on technical or "hard" skill training, there is no great disruption in flying alternate approaches or procedures, probably less so than freeze-reposition events. However, I do see some drawbacks once the emphasis shifts onto "soft" skill training involving flight management, cabin management and situational awareness type issues where the flow of events and preservation of the illusion predominate.

While not being overly keen on burning dissidents at the stake, I do have a different view about the benefits of flying from both sides for FO/FO initial conversion.

I accept unreservedly that alternating the flying will reduce fatigue levels and that that is a highly desirable outcome. However, I think that learning the CAPT's scans and war-cries and presumably the post abnormal/emergency management responsibilities is an avoidable increase in workload and, importantly, stress that may well offset the fatigue management benefits.

Clearly, it has worked for you. My reticence is based on the appropriateness of the approach for less-well attuned instructors than yourself and also on what I suspect may well be candidates from a different gene pool. I also think that the experience gained from flying in the left seat for FOs is somewhat illusory when they may not get back there for three to five years - the tradeoff is clearly one between which technique provides the most immediate or more productive benefit.

The sim instructor's mission is not only to prepare the candidate for the final sim check/rating but also for entry to line training. I suspect that, in the end, the choice of how to run the sim sessions should remain open provided that the instructor's enthusiasm does not prevail at the expense of the student. The days of adequate spare sim slots or management agreement to allocate more resources for poorly performing candidates are well on the way out.

Stay Alive

[john_tullamarine]

4Dogs,

As has been the case so often in the past, I think that we generally are in heated agreement.

Certainly, I don't advocate the seat/role swapping other than during the skills acquisition phases of endorsment training for the reasons you list. In the ideal world the training would always be done with an appropriate crew complement especially once one gets to the LOFT components of the program.

However, in the case of same status crew composition, the fact of the matter is that the guy in the "wrong" seat has to be able to perform in that seat's role to a level sufficient not to disadvantage the colleague in the other seat. I am of the view that that entails being able to role play effectively.

In the case of captain/captain, especially on initial upgrades combined with a new Type, the new captain has to have a pretty good knowledge of what his F/O is supposed to be doing if he is to exercise an appropriate level of supervision on the line and, at the end of the day, be able to look after his own interests .. recalling that, at the enquiry, the captain gets shot with a heavy calibre round, while the F/O takes the .22

Except for strict skills exercise repetition, it has been my observation that undue use of reposition is distracting for many pilots, myself included. While the instructor workload increases, I have always found it very satisfying and productive to adopt the flight test philosophy of minimising unproductive time and, for instance, structure tracking and altitude requirements so that one exercise can lead directly into the next with a sensible work flow for the crew and, when it works out nicely, there is very little routine need for freeze and reposition unless the instructor misjudges the gameplan and the crew becomes overloaded.

[PPRuNe Towers]

I think I see what alf5071h is driving at and I agree.

Looking closely at the information provided for flight with unreliable instruments indicates ball park figures are exactly that albeit a very handy lifeline to offer in the sim.

Could it be that the habit of sim instructors to load to a single convenient weight gives PWR + ATT =perf an undue simplicity in jet transport operations?

I liken this environmental capture, if you aren't offended by the term, to 75/76 sim instructors advancing the ease of elegant tracking on approach by placing the white line over the magenta. It only works in sims because they are frozen in all perpetuity regarding mag variation mapping. Sadly the magnetic pole continues to move for the rest of us mortals.

I'm in the sim every day - it works great in the sim - therefore it must work in real life. Sure, get them comfy and with something to grasp onto but get speed control rapidly into the loop and please, please start significantly varying the weights to re enforce this.

Come on folks, haven't we all been there? 'Standard fuel, trim is five on the wheel, the engines are running and I'm putting you at the end of the runway.'

Yep, a huge number of you are now running details from a printed 'scenario' but it seems pressure to get that beast up on the jacks leads to some, err, simplifying.

Regards
Rob

PS If this isn't anything resembling what alf5071h was trying to suggest please ignore everything after, 'I think.' :uhoh: :uhoh:

[alf5071h]

JT we are using the same hymn sheet (how to fly an aircraft), but I was wondering whether crews now-days use attitude as the control parameter instead of airspeed. Attitude is a good stabilizing (damping) parameter with good feed back (response) to control input, but the input was made to effect a change in the primary control parameter – speed, altitude, etc. This is not to question the basics of aerodynamics, debate stick vs throttle, or discuss speed on elevator or speed on thrust; it’s just to observe that the techniques used in modern aircraft appear to have changed from those used in less sophisticated types.

However I would be concerned if the apparent reduced speed awareness became be a problem on EFIS speed tape equipped aircraft when the FD / AT are off; then the attitude airspeed loop is vital with conscious effort required to relate the direction of pitch change vs speed change (rabbit hole, not for debate). Try a night take off with engine failure at rotate without FD and AT in the sim, use non standard weights, then reconsider the Ops requirements for the MEL !

4dogs I trust I have not miss understood your point, but PWR + ATT = PERF is only correct for a given speed; thus you first require the correct speed to achieve the performance. Thus PWR + ATT = PERF a not sound measure of speed awareness, you have to look at the ASI for that; remember the days when flight was visual using attitude for stability (airspeed a second order effect of attitude) and you had to look inside to check speed? That’s speed awareness.

Many light twin aircraft accidents, following engine failure, occurred because the crew flew a fixed attitude (as taught in some countries) without reference to airspeed.

Taking this thread, IMHO, beyond the overemphasis of attitude due to human laziness and ease of flying new aircraft (a simplification of PPRuNe’s points), has the industry also forgotten the basic instrument scan? Pilots were probably taught a ‘radial’ or sequential scan of the instruments; has this been adapted with the introduction of FDs and vector displays to become an over focus on a ‘primary’ parameter. What has this change done to the instrument scan during fully automatic flight? Obviously the needs of an ‘autos’ scan differs from that when flying on raw instruments; but who changes their scan pattern when on autos, and if so what is it?

[john_tullamarine]

.. doesn't it come down to using ALL the various bits of information to come up with a big picture ? .. and then play with the beast as necessary to achieve the aim ?

Basic scan is critical and at risk as the cockpit presentation simplifies ... hence the need for intensive I/F work in the endorsement phase .. as, in many cases, this is the only time where there can be made time to do it ... ?

There may be a variety of personal preference and emphasis ... however, if the basics are well grounded, then the result is going to be similar.

As for me, if I didn't fly the ball principally, then just the airspeed didn't work anywhere near as well ..

Apart from the sometimes quite different panel presentation .. does there need to be a fundamental difference in scan pattern ? .. restricting my comments to the aircraft with which I have a familiarity, it always appeared that the pilot who looked through the F/D, eg, to the ball information beyond, flew far smoother than the automatics slave.

As is often said ... each of the gadgets gives a bit of the puzzle's answer, albeit that we might emphasis this or that gadget's information a little at different phases of flight ...

[tames oud]

Never thought that my question would result in this healthy discussion.

To stay current in a particular skill you will need to practice it until you retire. I keep track of the way I fly (auto/manual/autoland) approaches in my logbook. For me it is a way to stay away from doing the same routine everyday and forgetting the other. Complacency kills, and in current operations it is very easy to get complacent.

Thanks for all your reactions.

[john_tullamarine]

... applies to all professions .. I can recall querying my AMO (whom I knew quite well) during a licence medical as to why he bothered pummelling my body when he knew that there was no problem ... to which he replied in like vein ... " if I don't keep the practice up .. I lose the skill "

[GearDown&Locked]

Do Instructors seek for the instinctive flying capabilities of the student, in a case of no instruments available, or just expect the student to follow a pre-programmed guideline to achieve the main goal of getting back safely?

The point of this naive question is to know how instructors deal with different types of "brain power" from the students, as they move trough the exercises, to the expected level of expertise.

One of the sim exercise example presented on this thread put one poor soul whith a dark cockpit even darker just after v1, as I recall, and at that particular point in time the guy at the wheel has to "squeeze" the brain for the info needed just to fly the damned thing; Do Instructors have a somehow "standard" aproach, a magic mnemonic, for everybody to deal with those situations ? or do they let the emotional intelligence of the student solve the problem on a "trained/tamed" instint basis?

Best regards
GDL

[john_tullamarine]

Except, perhaps, for those infrequently encountered gifted souls who seem to have been born with a joystick in hand (I have encountered just two such pilots .. and don't they make mere mortals such as me envious) .. the majority of us have to work hard at acquiring and maintaining skills ..

I don't think that instinct has much of a role to play. For such as us, the aim is to move as much workload as is reasonable to the automatic cognitive level so that what little brainpower is left is maximised and available for thinking on the run .. hence the usefulness of simulator repetition skills exercises.

The sorts of exercises to which you refer are just that . .. and are intended to

(a) build skills .. both manipulative and planning

(b) expose the student to a bit of workload extension (and the majority relish this opportunity to test themselves a bit in a non-threatening cockpit environment)

(c) build confidence in the student's ability to handle high workload and unusual situations.

When it all turns to custard we are not looking for elegance (except from the aforementioned gifted pilots) .. rather a workmanlike and repeatable way of recovering from the situation.

Generally

(a) there are no magic formulae (although we all develop codified sets of "rules of thumb" to help us get by),

(b) we look for some understanding of what is going on

(c) there should be an emphasis on a healthy dose of risk management and mitigation to maximise the chances of a satisfactory recovery.

Often there are several ways to recover from a given situation .. the aim is not necessarily to demonstrate incredible prowess .. rather a "sensible" approach to managing and recovering from the problem. Sometimes a particular strategy fails, giving the student the opportunity to analyse what was planned against what was achieved with a view to obtaining a better result on the next try.

A good example of this is in the typical standby power emergency sometime after takeoff. Provided that the instructor doesn't give in to expediency and freeze and reposition for a practice approach ... but lets the student run with the problem, the student gets a close look at the quite significant difficulties associated with time management in the AC fail situation under non-visual conditions.

Your point about brain power (spare cognitive capability) is very important and the instructor bears a high responsibility not to overload the student to more than what he/she can reasonably handle. This may mean that the performance level in extension exercises has to be reduced, or the student given more time, etc. .. I suggest that this is an area where one glove does not fit all ....

I neglected to respond to one of Rob's comments in his earlier post ... the use of "standard" weight/cg operations in the sim is a bit silly, I suggest, and denies the student one of the sim's great values in exploring various areas of the operating envelope. While acknowledging that a sim is not an aircraft and the validity/fidelity question needs to be considered throughout, there is much benefit to be had in exposing the student to the range of weights from MTOW/max forward to minimum weight/max aft.

[GearDown&Locked]

Thanks for the reply JT.

Yes, I guess you're approach is correct. There are no Supermen, only Men(Women) who learn how to fly the cape, safely I might add.

GDL