automation...civilian vs military attitudes

[deptrai]

"What's it doing now?", and essentially "I wish I was mechanically connected to the flight control surfaces", is something I have heard often from some civil aviators. But never from military aviators. Do I know too few of them? (I count 3). Any ideas?

[highflyer40]

Cause fast jet pilots know if they were "mechanically connected to the flight surfaces" they would be dead! Without the automation they are unflyable. They are designed to be aerodynamically unstable.

[fireflybob]

Military pilots can bang out if it starts going awry!

[Fox3WheresMyBanana]

The Tornado was a transition aircraft, fly-by-wire, stable, with mechanical back-up links.

The principle behind the Tornado FBW system was very simple - the stick acted as a manoeuvre demand device. Simply put, the more you moved it, the higher the rate of turn in that plane the system tried to give you. If the system detected motion the pilot hadn't asked for, e.g. a wind gust, it tried to remove that. It was smooth,but perhaps lacking in 'feel'. The mech. back-up was pretty rudimentary (e.g.no rudder) and intended only as a 'get you home'.

The auto pilot was very simple and only used occasionally whilst the pilot was busy doing something else.

The real problem the civilians have is with the automation e.g. autopilot, not the FBW, in my opinion.

Essentially civilians can still disconnect all the auto systems and fly it manually, just like mil. do, but they don't

Why not?
Company policy
Unwillingness to fly manually
Inability to fly manually

Your question should be directed towards the those points, which will vary considerably from company to company and pilot to pilot.

[ShotOne]

Thats pretty broad brush to state that civilians have a problem with automation, Fox. Perhaps you'd like to justify that?

In most airlines, the stress is on using the APPROPRIATE level of automation. Most of us are fully capable of hand flying a complex STAR amongst busy traffic at 4am after 13 hours on duty. But would it be the best professional decision to choose to do so?

[Fox3WheresMyBanana]

No insult intended ShotOne. The OP refers to those who do have problems, and that is where my comments are directed. Large numbers don't have problems and use automation,as you say, correctly and to enhance Flight Safety, not diminish it.

[Gnadenburg]

A percentage of ex-mill pilots I work with struggle with mode confusion when disengaging or reinstating automatics and poor hand flying abilities with raw data and visual flying. It's not to the extent of the civilian world where experience levels and training seem to be less than what they were a decade ago and MPL like candidates have zero flight time experience to fall back on. So if some experienced ex-mil pilots struggling I'd suggest this points to airline training system modelling themselves on manufacturer recommended minimums. Airbus is probably a good example.

Having seen a number of airline training systems, by far the best for automated aircraft was starting an endorsement process and building up the automation as the course progresses. Perhaps issues aren't totally eliminated such as mode confusion, but the pilot should have the skills to confidently disengage or engage automation, put the aircraft in its desired state and proceed with the flight phase accordingly.

[VinRouge]

All the types I have flown have recommended maximum use where possible, but with an expectation that you maintain handling skills from time to time.


We have very sop driven use of automation though

[AnglianAV8R]

Following the magenta line.......

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fbQB72-4WQ0

A very candid self appraisal by an airline training pilot.

[Trim Stab]

Well those USAF pilots who managed to turn a perfectly serviceable C-12 in the cruise at 12000ft into a smoking hole in the ground in Afghanistan about 2009 weren't too hot on automation or hand-flying either. In the space of three minutes they managed to:
1. Select the wrong autopilot mode for climb (VS instead of FLC)
2. Failed to monitor decreasing airspeed and increasing AOA.
3. Failed to apply correct recovery when stall warning sounded (they kept autopilot connected and tried to recover using the autopilot)
4. Failed to apply correct recovery technique when aircraft flicked into a spin (they pulled back on the stick).

The USAF report is available online - you can google for it as well as I can if you are interested to read the full report.

[VinRouge]

Bit unfair on those comments...

Both pilots were on their first MC-12W deployment and were inexperienced in their roles on the mishap sortie. Their limited recent experience was compounded by the fact that they had not flown together in the past…Inexperience would have made the Mishap Pilot less familiar with the MC-12W, affecting his visual scan and instrument crosscheck proficiency, and making him more susceptible to task saturation while tracking his first target on his first mission. This delayed detection of the pitch, the decreasing airspeed, and the imminent stall. During spin and spiral recovery, inexperience likely caused him to pull vice relax the yoke, and delayed prompt reduction of power. Finally, it was also the Mishap Mission Commander’s first flight as a newly qualified certifier who was just completing his second month of his first MC-12W deployment. This explains his delayed intervention in both preventing the stall and recovering the Mishap Aircraft. Limited weapon system experience is common with MC-12W combat operations due to the high rate of crews temporarily assigned to the platform. This is a result of known program risks.

and:

The MC-12W program was started in 2008 to field immediate Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance capability for combat operations in Iraq and Afghanistan and went from contract to first combat sortie in 8 months. This urgency led to several aspects of the program not being normalized, which created increased risk, particularly aircrew inexperience and lack of instructors in the combat zone. Most mission commanders are deployed with approximately 20 hours of MC-12W primary flight time. Additionally, numerous aircrews, known as “flow-throughs,” are loaned to the program from other weapon systems for 9 months and then returned to their primary airframe, creating continuous inexperience in the program…With 20 percent of the aircrews rotating in and out of Afghanistan each month, it is not uncommon for pilots to fly together for the first time on a combat sortie, such as happened in this mishap. Unfamiliarity hampers crew coordination, and the Mishap Mission Commander was slow to intervene in this mishap. The result of this program risk is inexperienced MC-12W pilots deployed in combat, and inexperience substantially contributed to this mishap.

[[email protected]]

Familiarity - or lack of it - with the aircraft is one thing but most of those points are basic flying skills pertinent to any platform.

[Fox3WheresMyBanana]

Both the mishap pilots were ex-multi-heavy, so I don't think there was confusion possible over stall/spin recovery actions (some fast jets do require stick fully back for spin recovery)

From the accident report:
Training in the often unpredictable weather experienced in Afghanistan cannot be replicated at Beale Air Force Base, where it is largely clear all summer and has mild winter weather
Horsecrap. I taught at an airline training school in AZ, and we overcame this problem by deploying to the California coast to fly real IMC in the fog. Beale is only 100 miles from said coast, they could do it if they wanted.

[ShotOne]

"Do I know too few of them"...? Well, aside from the pilots of the MC12 above, there's also the crew of the RAF Voyager not so long ago. Setting aside the serious lapses of professionalism which caused the event, the actions of both pilots during the recovery displayed very poor knowledge of the flight control system -to the extent that many days after the event, the Captain apparently remained convinced he'd done nothing wrong!

It's a pity that the OP chose to frame this as a military versus civilian issue because I strongly agree with his underlying point. These issues are not always well trained. Simulator sessions which would be a perfect opportunity to do so are mostly used for regulatory box-ticking with the emphasis very much on testing rather than training.

[Fox3WheresMyBanana]

As a former sim instructor, I agree completely. We worked very hard in our sims to bring in realistic training which provided feedback in a blame-free manner, but that was 20 years ago...

[Lockstock]

Well those USAF pilots who managed to turn a perfectly serviceable C-12 in the cruise at 12000ft into a smoking hole in the ground in Afghanistan about 2009 weren't too hot on automation or hand-flying either. In the space of three minutes they managed to:
1. Select the wrong autopilot mode for climb (VS instead of FLC)
2. Failed to monitor decreasing airspeed and increasing AOA.
3. Failed to apply correct recovery when stall warning sounded (they kept autopilot connected and tried to recover using the autopilot)
4. Failed to apply correct recovery technique when aircraft flicked into a spin (they pulled back on the stick).

The USAF report is available online - you can google for it as well as I can if you are interested to read the full report.

Well Trim Stab, what a completely fatuous and pathetic argument.. do you think that by quoting one (military) case study then you have proved a point? You are very wrong.

How about AA 965 in Cali in 1995..?? The report is online, as you are so keen to point out. A sad case of automation confusing the civilian crew, causing the deaths of 189 people with a perfectly serviceable aircraft. I could quote more but won't sink to your pathetic depths. Believe it or not it has happened to both civilian and military pilots and will continue to do so.

Instead of trying to score points by quoting military incidents, why not agree that all pilots from all backgrounds have suffered from mode confusion, it happens but awareness and education can help to to reduce the number of occurrences??

[NutLoose]

Automation isn't the problem, it's understanding what it is doing and how to react to that, the problem with automation, and with the best will in the world is it will only do what man has programmed it to accomplish, it cannot differentiate between that which the pilot needs to know and that which they do not in abnormal circumstances.

Circumstances can be thrown up where normal fault reporting to the crew which in normal operations is acceptable suddenly could become an overload factor in critical situations.

A classic example of that, which took them 50 minutes to go through, and then they had to adjust the info the inputed to allow the aircraft to land.

http://www.flightglobal.com/blogs/wings-down-under/2011/03/how-qf32-should-not-have-been-able-to-land-other-stories/

http://www.flightglobal.com/blogs/wings-down-under/2010/12/interview-with-qf32-pilot/

We had a number of checklists to deal with and 43 ECAM messages in the first 60 seconds after the explosion and probably another ten after that. So it was nearly a two-hour process to go through those items and action each one (or not action them) depending on what the circumstances were.

After shedding an $11 million dollar engine’s intermediate pressure chamber, having a continuous fuel leak that caused the port wing to be 10 tonnes lighter than the starboard wing, and addressing some 58 ECAM messages generated by the uncontained Rolls-Royce Trent 900 engine failure on Qantas flight 32 last November, Senior Check Captain David Evans inputed into a laptop’s landing distance performance application the A380′s vital signs so the computer could calculate what landing scenarios were available. The computer’s answer?

“No results could be found with these conditions.”

VH-OQA “Nancy Bird-Walton”, the flagship and first of the type delivered to Qantas, could not land, the computer determined.

Evans changed the parameters, taking out the factor for a wet runway since Changi was dry, and this time had luck, but would need more of it: the computer had generated a landing scenario for QF32 to return to Singapore. But of Changi’s 4000 metre runway 20C, the computer calculated QF32 would need 3900m, leaving a margin of 100m.

[ShotOne]

Lockstock, That crash was mentioned by Trimstab to refute the OP's contention that this is a military vs civil issue. You claim to agree with him on that point (as I do). In fact the Cali accident had nothing whatever to do with automation or flight mode confusion. There are lots of others, military and civil, which any of us could have cited. The fact you picked that one suggests you either don't know much about the issue, or were just grabbing at any incident involving fault by a civilian flight crew, in your words, "to score points".

Some have tended to merge the issues of "what's it doing now" mode confusion with that of hand flying skills. In my opinion these are two separate issues; I've flown with pilots with excellent hands who are not good at reading the FMA and (less often), vice versa.

[MightyGem]

How about AA 965 in Cali in 1995..?? The report is online, as you are so keen to point out. A sad case of automation confusing the civilian crew,
The crew weren't confused by automation. They lost situational awareness during a short notice change to an approach. They accepted the new approach without any appreciable consideration, leading to rushed and faulty procedures. Contributing factors were the lack of approach radar, two NDBs in the same area with the same frequency and ident and there not being a requirement to retract the speed/air brakes during the reaction to a GPWS alert. There last would probably have allowed them to clear the hilltop.

[[email protected]]

Better to cite the Air France crash off Brazil - not only was there a lack of basic flying skills (select an attitude and power) but they didn't understand the logic in the sidestick controllers and the process for handing over control from co-pilot to pilot that prevented corrective action as one stick was being pulled back whilst the other vwas being pushed forwards.

The designers don't help - my current helo has a 3-axis autopilot where IAS, alt and vertical speed (all mutually exclusive) are managed through the cyclic channel - that means that with VS mode engaged (or with coupled glideslope on ILS) you are controlling speed with collective which is completely unnatural for a helicopter pilot.

Yes, you can train to understand it but if it wasn't designed in such a poor way in the first place you wouldn't have to - no wonder pilots get lost in automation.

[VinRouge]

San fran 777 crash a more likely candidate for equivalence.

[Lockstock]

Lockstock, In fact the Cali accident had nothing whatever to do with automation..

Really..? The crash was investigated by the Aeronautica Civil of Colombia with assistance from the US NTSB who reported that the number one cause of the accident was most likely..

"The flight crew's failure to adequately plan and execute the approach to runway 19 at SKCL and their inadequate use of automation."

[ShotOne]

Yes, really. The Cali crash doesn't in any way support a case about over-reliance on automation. Quite the reverse in fact. Indeed back when aircraft were less automated, accidents like this, sadly, were far more common.

[Lockstock]

Not the view of the Colombian CAA and NTSB... but hey, what do they know?

[ShotOne]

Try actually reading the report rather than just plucking out the word "automation"

Re. "Better to cite The Air France crash off Brazil". The trouble with that is so much went wrong it's hard to come to any meaningful conclusion. The CM2(co pilot) action in pulling back the stick was clearly terribly wrong, but I don't see how you can possibly know he did so because "he didn't understand the sidestick logic". I suggest it's far more likely that in the pitch-black turbulence and hail of the tropical storm cell he was simply overwhelmed by a mass of contradictory information, crucial parts of which(airspeed) were wrong and a cacophony of alarms and warnings.

[MightyGem]

A sad case of automation confusing the civilian crew
Lockstock, the automation didn't confuse them. What confused them was the fact that they didn't plan their initial approach, they then accepted the offer of a shorter approach without giving adequate time to consider whether it was a good option or not. The PNF(Capt) entered a new (incorrect)waypoint in the FMS without checking it's Lat/Long or asking the PF to confirm his selection. The new course line, which gave them a sharp left turn, wasn't checked and confirmed. They didn't pick up on this turn initially, but when they did and turn back towards the airport, they didn't realise that they'd crossed into a different valley. They didn't follow the approach plate. They asked to cut short the published approach. They didn't recognise the ident of a beacon, because they hadn't briefed the approach. They started their descent without passing over a specific beacon.

Yes, they were confused, but not by any automation.

[Lockstock]

The PNF(Capt) entered a new (incorrect)waypoint in the FMS without checking it's Lat/Long or asking the PF to confirm his selection.

And that was part of the problem, the beacon that they wanted the aircraft to steer towards had the same frequency and identifier as another beacon 132nm away and in another valley. If they had 'recognised the ident of a beacon' it would have been the same anyway. The logic of the FMS made the aircraft turn towards the nearer (wrong) beacon. As you say, the new course wasn't checked and confirmed as it should have been but subsequently the FO asked 'where are we?' and 'where we heading?' and the Captain's reply was that he didn't know.

The aircraft on autopilot, following the FMS had put them in a place where they had lost situational awareness. The report says that over-reliance on automation was a factor.

[[email protected]]

Shotone - no, the misunderstanding of the logic occurred when the other pilot finally tried forward stick on his side - this didn't work because the co was still pulling back on his and hadn't actually relinquished control. The control logic wouldn't allow one sidestick to override the other as it doesn't know which is the valid input.

[ShotOne]

?? That's not quite how it works, crab. Theres no such thing as a "valid input" as far as the aircraft is concerned. If the side sticks are moved in opposite directions they will be algebraically summed, I.e. Full fwd/full back inputs would cancel each other out. The only way one would be overridden is if the takeover push button was pressed (which it wasn't at any point as far as I know)

[NutLoose]

And the other side of computerising everything and the pitfalls.

App fail on iPad grounds 'a few dozen' American Airlines flights | Technology | The Guardian (http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2015/apr/29/apple-ipad-fail-grounds-few-dozen-american-airline-flights)

[Trim Stab]

Lockstock: As others have pointed out to you, you are missing the point of my post. There is no simplistic "military v civvy" argument - I was merely pointing out that there seems to be an increasing capability gap between automatism and hand-flying skills in all aspects of aviation.

[[email protected]]

Shotone - I get that, so full fwd and full aft would not effect a recovery from a deep stall. And they didn't operate the takeover button so they clearly didn't understand the system.

[JosuaNkomo]

www.vanityfair.com/news/business/2014/10/air-france-flight-447-crash (http://www.vanityfair.com/news/business/2014/10/air-france-flight-447-crash)


Very good article.

[ShotOne]

It's one thing to make the obvious observation that there was confusion on the flight deck, but quite a stretch to single out one particular action and state it was carried out because they misunderstood the function of a specific system."They didn't operate the takeover button":who's "they"? Which one should have been pressed? Your statement pre-supposes one pilot had accurately diagnosed the problem. I don't believe they did -and for much of the fatal descent were trying to make sense of conflicting alarms and information(the stall warning only sounded for a relatively short period but, confusingly for them, recurred when the stick was pushed forward). While we can agree that many things went terribly wrong, where does that leave us in respect of the OP's question? One could pluck aspects of this tragedy to support or refute many opinions. Certainly I'm not aware of any operator, military or civil,which practices stall recovery for large transport aircraft.

[NutLoose]

I am surprised no one has mentioned the RAF Tristar Autoland incident where the crew sat and watched it autocrash.

[beardy]

There are folk, like shotone, who operate highly automated aircraft and understand them and their limitations. There are others who operate and don't understand them, they would be as inept on steam driven machines as on highly automated ones.

And then, of course, there are those who don't operate them and consequently don't understand them.

We tend to forget that an inept pilot (and they do exist) will be inept whatever type he/she flies. Which goes back to the idea of good training, good assessment and a willingness not to accept low standards of airmanship in ourselves and in our colleagues.

[BEagle]

NutLoose wrote: I am surprised no one has mentioned the RAF Tristar Autoland incident where the crew sat and watched it autocrash.

SEngO 101, sitting in his office, felt the impact through his chair!

The first words on the CVR after the crash-and-go were "It shouldn't have done that....."

They then flew round the circuit losing about 8 tonnes of fuel - a welder in the industrial estate near Witney was rather concerned at the kerosene rain he was experiencing. After it landed, there was much consternation as to whether it could be towed in. Having seen the photos of daylight through the massive crack in the main wing spar, I think that they were very lucky to have survived. I'm not sure whether it was that DeathStar, or the one the ground crew tried to set on fire by holding in a reluctant CB, destroying most of the wiring, but one of them had evidence of a previous heavy landing which the vendor hadn't disclosed.

Nothing wrong with highly automated aircraft provided that the crews have been adequately trained and have remembered how to apply basic flying skills.....:hmm:

[Fox3WheresMyBanana]

Assuming they have those basic flying skills...

[[email protected]]

Shotone - I agree there were, as ever in such accidents, a plethora of factors contributing to the crash; but, as that excellent article highlights, simply using the controls correctly (they both pressed their takeover buttons in rapid succession increasing the confusion about what control they had over the aircraft) would, at pretty much every stage, have recovered the aircraft to unstalled flight.

It would appear that the problems were correctly diagnosed, both the loss of airspeed info and the subsequent stall - the pilots just did not take the required corrective action.

Stall recovery is about the most basic FW technique taught (I still remember it from Chipmunk and JP 30 plus years ago) so the only explanation of why the pilots in this case didn't perform the recovery is that the level of automation, its complexity and its behaviour in degraded modes overwhelmed them.

Now is that due to poor training, poor quality pilots, CRM breakdown or poor design and display? I don't know.

[Fox3WheresMyBanana]

All 4 I should say.
I feel just about every form of education has been nibbled to death by ducks. The causes are:
A 'bite-size' approach to instruction, with not enough holistic work.
Emphasis on passing the student, not on attaining a standard.
Training syllabi which are easy to deliver and examine, not easier for the student to learn from or recall.
A minimisation of ongoing training by companies on cost grounds.

Part of the problem is financing. Students all over the World in many industries are now obliged to self-finance. Inevitably, this means weaker students are attracted to educational establishments which will pass them, whatever. For-profit educational establishments make higher profits if they have more students (and if they cut instructor salaries, which is easier when they need less qualified/experienced instructors, which is easier with 'canned' courses), so a race to the bottom has ensued.

Furthermore, everybody has a vested (i.e. financial) interest in keeping quiet about dropping standards.

Now and again, a few with standards make a stand,e.g.
A&M-Galveston prof says flunking entire class was the right thing to do | Dallas Morning News (http://www.dallasnews.com/news/20150428-texas-prof-says-flunking-entire-class-was-the-right-thing-to-do.ece)

There remain a few beacons of excellence, but the standard of the majority has been declining gradually for 20 years.

I have instructed/taught at Uni, high school, flying, offshore sailing, scuba diving,and a bunch of others, on 3 continents, and I have seen this situation developing pretty much universally.

[NutLoose]

I'm not sure whether it was that DeathStar, or the one the ground crew tried to set on fire by holding in a reluctant CB, destroying most of the wiring,

I will add that it was a BA engineer that did that, not an RAF one.

[TorqueOfTheDevil]

Very good article.


Agreed - fascinating and terrifying.


It would appear that the problems were correctly diagnosed, both the loss of airspeed info and the subsequent stall


Are you sure? They were certainly aware they were descending rapidly, but my understanding of the chatter in the cockpit suggested that they felt the aircraft/autopilot was malfunctioning/failing to react to their inputs, rather than it had simply stalled (and the aircraft's own attempts to communicate the problem were lost in the general confusion). Unless I missed something, none of the three pilots mentioned a stall, let alone the recovery action.

[[email protected]]

TOTD you are right - I read this Carried by inertia, the airplane continued to climb. A flight attendant called onto the intercom, apparently in response to Robert, who may unintentionally have rung her while trying to rouse the captain. She said, “Hello?” As if the buffet weren’t enough of an indication, the stall warning erupted again, alternating between STALL STALL STALL and a chirping sound. The warnings sounded continuously for the next 54 seconds.

The flight attendant said, “Yes?”

Robert ignored her. He may have realized that they had stalled, but he did not say, “We’ve stalled.” To Bonin he said, “Especially try to touch the lateral controls as little as possible.” This is a minor part of stall recovery, and nothing compared with lowering the nose. and clearly thought to myself no trained pilot could miss those cues - evidently I was wrong!

[TheChitterneFlyer]

[Quote] The first words on the CVR after the crash-and-go were "It shouldn't have done that..... [Unquote].


That particular incident was when a "Training Captain" was conducting a demonstration/familiarisation sortie with the Station Commander in the other seat. At that time "Autoland" wasn't an approved manoeuvre for the RAF and crews only had scant information of how the system worked. Hence, with little experience of how to set up the initial approach for "capture" of the LOC and GS, the Training Captain engaged A/L during the final approach in an attempt to demonstrate, i.e. "show-off", the capability of the aeroplane. At 300 feet they had the wrong perception that the autopilot had captured the GS, and the LOC, when in fact it was in CWS mode. The autopilot, at the last moment, captured the GS and took a dirty dive to capture the GS which resulted in a high ROD "into" the runway. The resulting "bounce" was recovered into a Go-Around which, indeed, had ruptured the Centre Tank which contained ballast fuel for the training sortie. The main wing spar had also taken a huge impact load and they (the crew) were very lucky to get away with a successful landing.


As is always the case with a new aircraft on RAF inventory, someone must be nominated as a "Training Captain"! The said pilot was a very experienced Victor pilot with many hours under his belt, though, he was very inexperienced on the TriStar.


The "bottom line" was... the lack of understanding of the Autoland System and little experience on type.


As a separate aside reference the "Circuit Breaker" incident (the brake "Top up Pump" power supply); the BA Ground Engineer held-in the CB in an attempt to get enough hydraulic pressure to tow the aeroplane... which set fire to the hydraulic pump (and the whole of the hydraulic bay). During the extensive repair programme it was discovered that a previous (undocumented) repair had been carried out to the Main Spar. Hence, the return to flight of this particular (ex PAN-AM) aeroplane took longer than expected.


As is always the case on PPrune, posters don't always get the facts correct. The crew of the TriStar Autoland incident didn't sit back and watch the aeroplane fly into the ground, it happened in very quick time at a very low altitude when they (the crew) hadn't seen that CWS Mode was temporarily engaged whilst the Autopilot was trying to look for a valid GS/LOC signal. The aeroplane was flying at a normal ROD for the final approach, albeit in CWS Mode, when, during the final 200 feet or so, Autoland found the GS signal and the autopilot made a rapid descent correction... and struck the runway whilst hands were flying everywhere to get rid of the autopilot.


Sad but true! Quite how the Captain got away with just a minor bollocking beggars belief! Within this day and age of the MAA I'm guessing that he'd be hung out to dry?


TCF

[NutLoose]

I was there when both episodes happened.

It rather reminds me of the 737 attempting to land in marginal weather at East Midlands.
During the high workload on finals they got a totally inappropriate radio call that resulted in the autopilot being disconnected in error and reconnected as the pilot tried to reply, the resulting crash left the left main gear behind as the aircraft continued on to its final crash landing at Birmingham...

Details

http://aviation-safety.net/database/record.php?id=20060615-0

[H Peacock]

I seem to recall that most of the damage done to the Tristar was from the second bounce and not the first impact from the "auto land".

Following the first arrival and bounce, the crew applied a large helping of nose-down. The Direct Lift Control (DLC - very clever in its day) correctly interpreted this as a need to increase the RoD whilst also trying to hold the attitude, and deployed most of the spoilers - inevitably resulting in a much harder arrival than the first!

[Juan Tugoh]

I seem to recall that most of the damage done to the Tristar was from the second bounce and not the first impact from the "auto land".

Indeed it was a failure to understand the automation, which lead to the initial impact. The failure to correctly hand fly the recovery, as a result of a failure to understand the flight control system caused the more serious structural damage.

Not a great day in the office for the guys at the front end.


The TriStar autoland system was fantastic and very capable, indeed many described it as PFM. The weak link in the chain was the aircrew that had inadequate knowledge, training or hand flying skills to meet the challenges they gave themselves that day.

[ShotOne]

RAF TriStars were not certified for Autoland at that point. Rather than a "failure to understand the automation" this was surely a gross and deliberate exceedence of the aircraft capability?

[Juan Tugoh]

The aircraft and it's systems were capable, and a monitored daytime VMC autoland should not have presented a problem to a crew that had been trained and understood the system.

The point you make is valid, as it shows a wllful disregard of the release to service.

[A and C]

I was in BA at the time the Tristar was introduced to the RAF and it was the opinion of some of the BA Tristar experts ( both flight & Ground crew) that some of the RAF policy makers were simply out of their depth and trying to impose an operating system to the Tristar that was far more appropriate to the HP Hastings.

Both the frontline flight & ground crews that the RAF had on the project were generally respected for their abilitys and professionalism but the direction from above was poor, from what I have been told the accident was more a product of systematic failure within the RAF to adapt to the Tristar and draw fully on the expertise avalable within BA.

Unfortunately recognition of the honest mistake and military discipline are not compatible especially when those at the top can find a way of shift in the blame onto some poor unfortunate who has made an honest mistake.

[ShotOne]

You'll have to explain that; are you telling us that the flight crew were unfairly blamed for that accident?

Even if we agree entirely with your first two paragraphs, they knew autoland wasn't certified so that surely takes us out of the realm of "honest mistake". You were in BA; would happen to a BA pilot who committed an identical breach of flying discipline?

[NutLoose]

I thought he departed Brize rather rapidly after that little mishap.

[MightyGem]

Sorry, been off line for a few days.
If they had 'recognised the ident of a beacon' it would have been the same anyway.
Correct, which is why, in theory, they should have checked the Lat and Long. The nav chart identified the ROZO beacon with an "R". The PNF entered "R" expecting that it would show the ROZO beacon as the nearest one; ie, at the top of the list. He automatically excepted the one at the top of the list, but it was the ROMEO beacon. The ROZO beacon was list as ROZO and didn't show up with just the "R", but the crew weren't aware of this.

[TheChitterneFlyer]

[quote]I thought he departed Brize rather rapidly after that little mishap.[unquote]


He probably did, though, I cannot now remember. I did hear, on the recent grapevine, that he's now a departed soul.