Flight - Should airline pilots have more/better/different upset recovery training?

[pakeha-boy]

well mate..the FAA and NTSB seemed to disagree.......typical east crap

[bubbers44]

You are the only person on the face of this earth that thinks they wouldn't have applied max power as any normal pilot would have before ditching. The FAA doesn't believe it, just you. Have a nice life.

[Dan Winterland]

Reading 'Handling the big jets' is a start, but no substitute for experience. Simulator upset training has value, but again it's not like being in a real aircraft acheiving more extreme attitudes.

I'm sometimes suprised by the fact that many of my colleagues with tens of thousands of hours have never seen an angle of bank over 90 degrees. Having been bought up on a diet of visual and IF UPs (unusual positions) both as a student and an instructor in the military, my advice to those who haven't tried it is to go out there, find a school with an aerobatic aircraft and go and enjoy yourself for a few hours. You owe it to yourself - amd your passengers! What's more, you will become a better pilot and make yourself just that little bit safer. As a long time Airbus FBW pilot, I'm aware that my skills have been dulled down over the years. I make sure that I stay in touch with real flying by doing a few hours of 'real' upside down style flying each year.

[Tmbstory]

Jet Upset Recovery

From personal experience, it depends on the time you have to deal with the upset, the more the better!

Manual flying skills are essential. A good pilot should be able to hand fly the aircraft from take-off to maximum cruising altitude and back to landing, to the same degree of accuracy as the Autopilot.

The"feel" of the aircraft in the seconds before the upset may give the pilot flying some information as to the reason why the aircraft has gone out of control.


As long as human flight crews are used in Aviation, manual flying skills should be practiced and kept at the highest order, for the safety of all concerned.

Tmb

[A37575]

Simulator upset training has value, but again it's not like being in a real aircraft acheiving more extreme attitudes.

You have a good point, of course. But the big jet loss of control accidents were caused primarily by poor instrument flying skills and in IMC or at night with no visible horizon. In other words, poor instrument flying got the crew into trouble in the first place and the same lack of instrument flying skills caused their inability to recover from extreme attitudes on instruments in IMC.

Anyone can learn to do daylight VMC aerobatics in a light aircraft certified for aeros but I suggest that very few are in a position or aircraft type to do them on instruments where you cannot peek outside. This is where full flight simulators are better for IMC unusual attitude recovery training on instruments than a light trainer aircraft.

[Machinbird]

Anyone can learn to do daylight VMC aerobatics in a light aircraft certified for aeros but I suggest that very few are in a position or aircraft type to do them on instruments where you cannot peek outside.

Use the same aircraft (with an appropriate instrument panel) and do follow-up aero work at night. From experience, that is a big confidence builder, but build up to it and you can be safe. The idea is to expand your comfort zone.

Doing night intercepts over the waters West of Key West, was a challenge. Stars above-lights from the shrimp boats below.

[wings11]

Upset recovery training is important but equally, I think, is to use your situational awareness to avoid getting into a situation in the first place.

(I fly the Airbus, I don't know about the 737) Don't fly above optimum alt on the fmgc, ensure you program it properly in the first place, wind, tropo and OAT - update tropo and OAT enroute and if the optimum decreases as it might sometimes then descend with it.

Slow down promptly when you encouter turb., coming back from say 0.79 to .77 will give you a lot more margin if the tx suddenly worsens. If you expect a significant change in wind in the first few thousand feet of descent or tx has been reported or forecast then slow down a decimal point or two at top of descent and then speed up again once the margin is greater and you are through the questionable layer.

Don't push you luck with CB's - use the bloody wx radar correctly! Years ago, just out of line training I was a very inexperienced FO and trucking back north across croatia etc from a med charter we were imc at FL340 and in continual moderate turb, the a/c (321) was struggling to maintain the speed and we were vunerable to any worsening. Suddenly came out into a clear patch and surprise surprise we were in the middle of a line of thunderstorms, the capt had the wx radar on zero tilt and only showing greens, but we were of course just looking at ice in the tops, he turned it down 2 degrees on my suggestion and low and behold and whole pretty picture of reds and yellows etc. I still feel we were lucky that evening. I have never let a radar sit at zero in the cruise again - and many people leave it like that.

Lastly, use tcas and contrails, particularly in v busy airspace like western Europe to keep track of wake, its easy to do if you put a bit of thought into it. ATC over western europe are pretty good at wake separation but not perfect and I have asked many times for 5 degrees left or right to avoid wake.

If all of that means you take an extra minute or even 5 to destination, so what? I agree that we probably need more upset training but I'd rather we avoided the situations in the first place.

My tuppence for what its worth.

[RetiredBA/BY]

Upset training

DW: What a really sensible and realistic posting. As a student, and later a QFI/IRE , I had very early exposure in the RAF to UPs (Unusual Positions) UNDER THE HOOD , and of course using only untoppleable instruments (Turn indicator plus pressure instruments) and frankly it was a lesson for life, rather like being taught to swim at an early age.

After a long career on many kinds of aircraft from gliders to heavy jets I sincerely believe that all pilots should have a sound knowledge and be trained in how to regain control of their aircraft, whatever size or type, from ANY recoverable position. After all the principles are much the same whatever the type.*

As well as upsets in large transport aircraft that also includes spin training for PPL courses, and at an early stage of training for professional licences, but with considerable emphasis on early recognition and prompt recovery at the incipient stage, recovery from which often leaves the aircraft in a UP, two birds with one stone !! !

I gather that EASA and the FAA disagree on the latter point !


* Just referred to my copy of Big Jets given to us on day 1 of joining BOAC :

Sort out the speed.
Correct roll angle.
THEN Pull or push to the horizon
exactly what we taught in the RAF for UP recovery !

[CDRW]

wings11 - generally a good post to guys going from big pistons to heavy jets - but I got to say I am not sure your statement " coming back from say 0.79 to .77 will give you a lot more margin if the tx suddenly worsens". That is - at a max - 3 knots IAS - hardly think that gives alot more margin.

[heavy.airbourne]

@CDRW: Think again! 3 KIAS will correspond to 10-15 KTAS, depending primariliy on altitude, and then on some other things. What you are looking for is to fly an (indicated) speed somewhere near the middle of high and low speed buffet.

[Waspy]

Money

It all has to do with money. Once upon a time pilots were picked/sacked/bashed/kicked out/selected/graduated in function of real skills as both airlines and the military did'nt need so many of them. Today virtually anyone with enough cash and time available can become an airline pilot. It is not politically correct to say that a candidate/young pilot is below average. The center of interest of many youngsters I see flying is more on the latest version of their FMS than on correctly decrabbing the jet at roundout or using their thrust levers for their initial purpose: power ! Keeping a correct speed as near as possible to the bug is not essential: we have autothrottles or autothrust, handflying ?? Are you crazy ? we have an autopilot and you are supposed to use it to the maximum extent ! Looking outside the window ? half of young pilots are already blind at the age of 20...Can you blame them ? Surely not: they adapt to the system and the system is happy they're not asking questions
To answer one of the questions of the post: Yes, pilots are becoming airline agents, just the same as ground agents, gate agents....system controlers...but that's an industry desire, not a pilot request if you ask me....
It's a personal constant fight to let not my skills erode with time as less and less opportunities exist to keep them

[misd-agin]

pakeha-boy - NTSB said the engines were incapable of producing thrust to maintain flight. Page 81 of the report, page 98/213 of the pdf, Section 2.2.3.2 Engine Core Damage

http://www.ntsb.gov/doclib/reports/2010/aar1003.pdf

[misd-agin]

Old rule - the first guy has to get ridiculed and the second guy gets the credit.

AA CA Warren Vanderburgh developed Advanced Aircraft Maneuvering Program at American Airlines in 1997. Given a Flight Safety Award in 2000 for his work.

NTSB found AAMP partially at fault for the 2001 AA 587 crash.

Ten years later the circle is coming around once again.

[Capn Bloggs]

Originally Posted by heavy.airbourne

@CDRW: Think again! 3 KIAS will correspond to 10-15 KTAS, depending primariliy on altitude,

TAS is never more than double the IAS; most times for airline type aeroplanes below 40k, 70% extra.

[Al Murdoch]

Waspy, glad to see that the answer to any problem posed on PPRuNe remains to kick the young. Must be their fault. No one had irrecoverable upsets in my day.

[BARKINGMAD]

Sims for UP Recovery Training.

About a decade ago towards the end of my 73 "classic" sim conversion syllabus, we did some UP recovery training in the "box", owned and run by a major British airline.

Great fun and somewhat informative despite the lack of "g" and dirty laundry factor.

Some time later at another session I asked to use up the spare time at the end of a OPC session by practising UPs and recoveries, same company and simulator.

The answer was a definite NO. The reason was attributed to the complaints from the simulator engineers that our manoeuvres were placing abnormal stresses on the motion hydraulic jacks and structure and cracks were either detected or feared.

Can anyone cast any light on whether this was the real reason this exercise was dropped from the menu?

Re hand flying the real aircraft, my previous (now defunct) airline actually had a statement in the Ops Manual Part A saying "it is unlawful to hand fly above 10,000 feet", probably due to an altitude bust alleged to have occurred to one of the movers and shakers of that company. Other colleagues in that and another airline say it is forbidden to hand fly in RVSM airspace, so I presume I'll just have to eject if the A/P goes phut at cruise altitude?! The MEL is vague regarding u/s A/Ps, the wording seems to revolve around "must be a least one altitude holding capability" (F/Ds?) or similar wooly wording.

I thought the average pilot instrument rating included the requirement to fly S&L to well within RVSM limits, so is management going to accept my diversion on departure from Egypt to Europe due to cruising below RVSM flight levels and running low on fuel as a result? Though me and my oppo in the flight deck are tested as capable of such S&L flight, the written guidance on this issue is alas vague in the companies for whom I have flown, so I would appreciate any constructive input on the topic from those who can quote HARD FACTS please.

So is it any wonder that the pilot community as a whole are suffering from a lack of handling skills, even before the bean-counters via the training empires are pushing automatics for economy reasons?

[A37575]

Can anyone cast any light on whether this was the real reason this exercise was dropped from the menu?

Don't know about your company's decision but in the full flight simulator we used for UA training, it is obvious the hydraulic jacks take a beating at attitudes well beyond those used in 60 bank angle steep turns - although 45 degrees is OK. Because the G fidelity in terms of G manoeuvres is not available it is common practice to go off-motion for UA recovery practice.

As the purpose is mainly practice at flight instrument scanning IMC when in a UA, then it makes no real difference in the recovery technique whether the simulator is on or off motion.

[4Greens]

We used to do recoveries from unusual attitudes on primary instruments under the hood in the Hunter Trainer. The instructor would hurl the aircraft about and then hand over. As you took over he would press the 'g' suit test switch! Very disorientating.

[BARKINGMAD]

Hand Flying Real Aircraft.

Thank you A37575, as I suspected the sims were being damaged. Fair enough, so we switch the motion off and use it as a fixed base trainer, which would be useful to practise techniques.

I would prefer to use "Speed, bank, pitch" in that order, rather than Mr Boeing's long winded non-recall checklist, whilst recognising the effect of thrust/pitch with underslung engines.

Now I eagerly await from those in the know, the chapter & verse on hand flying, either S&L or climbing/descending, in RVSM airspace. Obviously some unlucky colleagues have had to do this for real as quoted in another posting re a 73NG whose A/Ps went on strike. I'm just keen to find the legal/regulatory position on this one should the kit go u/s down route with all the associated aggro and expense.

As I said, the references available to me and others are at best ambiguous.

[Capn Bloggs]

I'm just keen to find the legal/regulatory position on this one should the kit go u/s down route with all the associated aggro and expense.

My AIP is quite clear:

39.4.8 Failure of the Autopilot with Height Lock
If the autopilot with height lock fails, the pilot must initiate the following actions sequentially:
a. Maintain CFL.
b. Evaluate the aircraft’s capability to maintain altitude through manual control.
c. Assess the situation regarding possible conflicting traffic.
d. Alert nearby aircraft by turning on all exterior lights and, if not in VHF contact with ATC, broadcastadvice of failure, position, flight level, and intentions on 121.5MHZ.
e. Notify ATC of the failure using the phraseology “NEGATIVE RVSM” (see GEN 3.4 Sub-section 5.5 Item 2.q.) and the intended course of action.

I would prefer to use "Speed, bank, pitch" in that order

The only way to do it.