Studi - I think your experience of CatII/III operations and autoland practice has a few gaps in it. When doing practice Cat III in the Sim it is common for only the first landing to be without some kind of fault. Executing a safe GA from 20' to 50' feet is common, usually triggered by a major localiser deflection, or, if no lights at 20' (747), GA etc. There is no requirement to 'forecast' a bent localiser but a definite requirement to deal with it safely when very close to the ground.
Your statement:
Quote:
I stand my point: autoland on unprotected runways during normal ops has no justification, as there is nothing to be gained from.
only serves to emphasise the gaps mentioned above, practice autolands are definitely the 'norm' in just about every other airline except yours, honest!
CARGOJOCK - Glad to see you are still as bitter and twisted as ever, with little or no grasp on reality, keep it up!
As a controller I have seen some iffy attitudes to LVO from crews, that is stating that they want to fly "CAT3 for practice" or some such in marginal CAT1 conditions. Flying them in cavok-ish conditions is one thing, but doing it in marginal CAT1 conditions seems to add more risk than you need to.
Airports are under pressure to stop low viz ops as soon as possible, as CAT1 can often near double the hourly capacity. Thats why LVP gets cancelled as soon as ceiling/viz creeps above CAT1, even by the slimmest of margins.
In such condtitions I have had crews asking for CAT3 at visibility 1000 meters, and after they got the "CAT1 one only, no LVP safeguards in place" stated they would do a "CAT3 for practic".
M609 - as most crews on here know, doing an autoland on either a CatI approach OR on an 'unapproved' autoland runway for evaluation purposes is by no means unusual nor beyond the abilities of a capabale and trained crew. What IS contrary to procedures is to use the CATIII minima 'for real' as part of the approach in those situations (except, of course, in an emergency). There is, of course, nothing wrong with practising the Autoland.CATIII procedure 'call's' in the cockpit.
The crews you describe in your post should not use the words "CAT3 for practice" as that kind of gives the game away, really. There is actually no need for any 'information' to ATC for an autoland UNLESS you are asking for LVP protections for the autoland for any reason (then you'll be popular!).
you still fail to justify why it is worth the risk to do it without protection. Just because some airlines do it doesn't mean it is smart once you think the whole thing through.
I guess your perception of risk is somehow different from mine, since you have been operating at a longhaul airline (SIA?) which does probably 200 flights a day. The whole risk management business looks much different if your company has 3000 flights a day.
amazing how many of the chaps on this forum are exchanging BS on the bending of the LOC and the protection of the ILS blah blah blah........
hey, the bottom line is these chaps, on the "GRASS CUTTER" just lost it and was slow to react or did they react at all? apparently not so do not waste your BS arguments on this forum.
this is far deeper than any of you blokes realise.the entire, SIA, LVP training program is to change and already crews, advised to beware of bending when doing autolands.i thought they ought to have known that already!
the senior check airman is already promoted and the entire accident has been omitted from the company safety bulletin.just as i had predicted a total hush hush and cover up.
Picking between the usual dross there have been some interesting points made and I have learned a few things from the discussion of this incident.
The first thing is that there are amazing differences in attitude towards auto landing. They seem to range from don't do it unless it is absolutely necessary to it being no big deal.
Whatever various parties would like us to believe autolands in better than low visibility conditions occur frequently. This seems to be the only serious incident. At least nobody has cross referenced to anything similar. Why might this be?
In this case a fail operational aircraft veered off the runway while in rollout mode. As Clandestino agrees an aircraft overflying the localiser antenna could have caused the interference. This appears to have occurred at the precise moment the 777 was transitioning into rollout mode. In this mode the automatic go around function is disabled, which is not something that seems to have been the focus of training (in Singapore airlines at least).
So the holes in the swiss cheese line up. Had the runway been shorter the interference would have occurred at a height where the pilot would in all likelihood have avoided this happening. Had the aircraft been fail passive the autopilot would have dropped out rather than heading for the grass. Had the crew been trained for this eventuality they might have responded more appropriately. All supposition of course, but it has made me think a bit.
Interesting supposition, Leder - I am not familiar with 'roll-out mode', but what was to stop the crew disconnecting, correcting and if necessary/possible (reversers permitting) aborting the landing?
I think it is fairly clear that the captain was trying to abort the landing but using inappropriate actions. The report (in german) says there was no call for a go around instead the captain commanded flaps 20.
There were noises sounding like the speedbrake handle being retracted and Toga trigger clicking. The video also shows the nose raising. Both pilots kicked the rudder hard right which then disconnected the autopilot.
In rollout mode the autothrottle kept idle power and the aircraft rapidly decelerated. As they were now down there was no obvious benefit from taking off again. However I am not sure what stopped them steering back onto the runway.
As others have pointed out the appropriate actions which I am sure will feature in many people's next sim would have involved clicking everything off selecting go around thrust manually and rotating appropriately.
you still fail to justify why it is worth the risk to do it without protection
Studi - I think you are over emphasising the 'risk' element, crews, (including SIA crews), are trained to cope with last minute changes to the autoland status and are expected to cope with them, this is where correct monitoring is vital, particularly at and after the handover point when the handling pilot goes visual, (20' minima Cat III in a B747, so around 100' the HP should be looking out, NHP looking in). This is a procedure that requires continual practice, not just in the Sim, it is going on all the time and as lederhosen says, there are extremely few reported incidents or accidents.
Where is this GA button and how do you initiate the GA? It appears to me that a go around is the simplest thing to do: Kick the throttles to max. At least that's what you do in an Airbus. Seems to me that the so much preferred moving throttes do have some quirks involved. Even if you are on the ground you might have to be able to initiate a go around. It is after starting deceleration devices (brakes, autobrakes, reversers) you should not attempt it anymore.
You say none of your colleagues have ended up in the grass as yet. That is as maybe but your colleagues on the A340 at least seem to have an attraction to R/W approach lights as in JNB and MEL instead
not a pilot, and can't begin to understand the technicalities of Autoland, but Munich is my home airport, and I can't help wondering (or worrying?) more about the gap between departing and arriving aircraft. From the report, this seems to have been a factor in this incident. Was also intrigued by the description of the Munich tower by a previous poster, on being "professional but sporty" on separation.
I have witnessed it myself, watching approaching aircraft, pretty close to the perimeter, while another is still taking off. Have always thought "these guys obviously know what they're doing". Not so sure now.
You say none of your colleagues have ended up in the grass as yet. That is as maybe but your colleagues on the A340 at least seem to have an attraction to R/W approach lights as in JNB and MEL instead
Not me sunshine (well, not yet at least, ahem....Aren't you glad you've retired)
Anyway - the discussion is about falling off the tarmac on an unprotected Cat III.................
I have witnessed it myself, watching approaching aircraft, pretty close to the perimeter, while another is still taking off. Have always thought "these guys obviously know what they're doing". Not so sure now.
vested interest - You can sleep safe tonight and every other night. Viewed from the side it would be hard to distinguish between departures from the RIGHT and LEFT runways as well as arrivals on either, unless you are in between! In which case they are a long way apart, as in Charles De Gaul etc.
In any major airport using parallel runways, the picture can be confusing to the most seasoned professional not involved in ATC at the time. ATC are a highly professional crowd who have no intention of risking your life and their job. If you have any faith in statistics take a look, accidents in which ATC played a significant part very few, pilots planning to be involved in an accident, somewhere between 0 and 0+, a very little. Enjoy your flights, it is the safest form of transport on Earth!
For sure you do; otherwise you might wake up dead!
Incidentally, I am re-reading a book from my library called "Angel Visits" by Gp Capt Frank Griffths who was very involved with the development of autoland during WWII.
The huge problem then was how to get hundreds of bombers into their home airfields quickly when they came back from Germany damaged and their base was covered in fog.
When the USAAF came to "England" they were appalled by our lousy weather and lots of them considered that this was a bigger problem than flying over Germany.
Sperry invented the ILS system as we know it now. It was brought to UK as the "Signal Corps System 51" in early 1944. The team leader was Lt Col Francis Moseley who had been the development engineer for Sperry. He had an idea that combining an auto pilot with ILS signals could result in automatic landings.
The Americans didn't want to know but we did. So it was that he came to the RRE at RAF Defford which was a happy mixture of aircrew and boffins with great ideas. I quote:
"After he had been at Defford about a week demonstrating in our usual atrocious winter weather how the American ILS system worked he asked if he could wire up his breadboard (a plank of wood with all of the boffin's circuits wired up) to the autopilot and ILS instrument in our Liberator (4-engined bomber) to see whether the autopilot would bring the aircraft down the beam to the runway automatically".
Moseley had made up a coupling circuit on his breadboard in the cellar of his house inOsborne, Ohio with just four wires hanging from it; two to the autopilot and two to the instrument (what we would call a zero reader).
To cut a long story short, it all worked beautifully in the Liberator. The captain tripped the autopilot at the last possible second to complete the landing.
vested interest - You can sleep safe tonight and every other night. Viewed from the side it would be hard to distinguish between departures from the RIGHT and LEFT runways as well as arrivals on either, unless you are in between! In which case they are a long way apart, as in Charles De Gaul etc.
thanks parabellum, but I'm talking about standing at the perimeter fence at the end of one runway, watching aircraft land and take off on the same runway.
And I'm sure ATC are an extremely professional bunch, was just intrigued by the "sporty" remark on separation.
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