Swiss RJ captain "struggled" to fly without a flight director to tell him what to do
When I was with Laker, we were taught to hand fly the DC-10 down to 100 feet with the FD on the ILS and 200 feet without it. I think we were a lot sharper in those days.
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JW411:
When were those days?
When I was with Laker, we were taught to hand fly the DC-10 down to 100 feet with the FD on the ILS and 200 feet without it. I think we were a lot sharper in those days.
Last edited by aterpster; 20th Dec 2012 at 23:10.
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wiggy, the standby attitude indicator had an estimated 30 minutes of use before the battery went dead, after that you were on your own. You knew that so had time to do something about it.
Psychophysiological entity
Indeed, some seriously nifty flying in Freddy's airplanes, but then, crews were delaying flights because of the 1,000 hour yearly limit being exceeded. One gets good with all that practice. 
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Yes, that's a problem for airlines pilots, it's true thay can't fly without a F/D - but also they can't fly more than 30° of bank, and they lose control every time something is a little bit out of the picture.
I once saw a TRI going inverted at 2000 ft on the Sim after a simple engine failure, and crashing... and the chief of training watching that and saying nothing...
Airlines pilots with pure civy background (pay for training, no failure as long as money flows) have never neen very good, and those days they become less and less impressive. Everybody knows that, but it's politically incorrect to write the truth.
Fortunately, there are still a lot of ex-fighter pilots with decent manoeuvring skills and ability in the cockpits, and that's saving the day quite often. But sometimes they are not here (AF 447, all three civies on board, with thousands of hours of... watching the autopilot in cruise! or doing paperwork and radio) And when things go wrong, nobody is there to understand anything and read the instruments correctly.
I once saw a TRI going inverted at 2000 ft on the Sim after a simple engine failure, and crashing... and the chief of training watching that and saying nothing...
Airlines pilots with pure civy background (pay for training, no failure as long as money flows) have never neen very good, and those days they become less and less impressive. Everybody knows that, but it's politically incorrect to write the truth.
Fortunately, there are still a lot of ex-fighter pilots with decent manoeuvring skills and ability in the cockpits, and that's saving the day quite often. But sometimes they are not here (AF 447, all three civies on board, with thousands of hours of... watching the autopilot in cruise! or doing paperwork and radio) And when things go wrong, nobody is there to understand anything and read the instruments correctly.
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Not assigning blame or leveling criticism at anybody, Im new to the Avro having spent 15 years on glass Boeings and FBW airbus, and before that heave turboprops that make that DC-9 pictured above look like the 787, and can't for the life of me understand how the Avro crew failed to identify this failure as an IR fault...the abnormal/emergency checklist has PICTURES of the failure along with the checklist...
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that's a problem for airlines pilots, it's true thay can't fly without a F/D
Still, there are fighter jets flown today that couldn't be hand flown without the aid of a computer and good thing us civy pilots understand MCC and don't fly commercially thinking its a one pilot aircraft!
Just saying
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Reinhardt:
We had to do 45 degree bank turns in the simulator every six months, 180 degrees in each direction and without a flight director. 707, 727, DC-9, L-1011, and 767.
Yes, that's a problem for airlines pilots, it's true thay can't fly without a F/D - but also they can't fly more than 30° of bank, and they lose control every time something is a little bit out of the picture.
I once saw a TRI going inverted at 2000 ft on the Sim after a simple engine failure, and crashing... and the chief of training watching that and saying nothing...
Airlines pilots with pure civy background (pay for training, no failure as long as money flows) have never neen very good, and those days they become less and less impressive. Everybody knows that, but it's politically incorrect to write the truth.
Fortunately, there are still a lot of ex-fighter pilots with decent manoeuvring skills and ability in the cockpits, and that's saving the day quite often. But sometimes they are not here (AF 447, all three civies on board, with thousands of hours of... watching the autopilot in cruise! or doing paperwork and radio) And when things go wrong, nobody is there to understand anything and read the instruments correctly.
I once saw a TRI going inverted at 2000 ft on the Sim after a simple engine failure, and crashing... and the chief of training watching that and saying nothing...
Airlines pilots with pure civy background (pay for training, no failure as long as money flows) have never neen very good, and those days they become less and less impressive. Everybody knows that, but it's politically incorrect to write the truth.
Fortunately, there are still a lot of ex-fighter pilots with decent manoeuvring skills and ability in the cockpits, and that's saving the day quite often. But sometimes they are not here (AF 447, all three civies on board, with thousands of hours of... watching the autopilot in cruise! or doing paperwork and radio) And when things go wrong, nobody is there to understand anything and read the instruments correctly.
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@Aterpster
Uuhhhh! I do not believe it! What a fright! I am petrified! No one can do such things!
Ando Rumour or not, News or not:
Merry X-mas an Happy New Year
Fly Safe
DOVE
Uuhhhh! I do not believe it! What a fright! I am petrified! No one can do such things!
Ando Rumour or not, News or not:
Merry X-mas an Happy New Year
Fly Safe
DOVE
Last edited by DOVES; 22nd Dec 2012 at 13:50.
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B757: 1st command. The company was young and small and so was the training dept. I had come from a B732 and an airline with a good training dept. Thus manual no FD flying was the norm for many visual approaches. The old-school TRE on my command course considered it normal competency to fly an ILS on SBY instruments. The failure could happen and you should be able to do it. If you know pitch/power it's not difficult. In the sim session we had a sim glitch of the RMI failing, so the ILS was flown using the basic P1 compass. The F/O was very surprised it was not a major drama. Now, on B738 with a total loss of AC the captain's PFD & Map are still glowing. These are the SBY instruments, just minus the FD's. I believe this might be customer option? However, if the batteries are not up to scratch you could end up on the dark side, and a torch and tiny SBY's might be your only hope. Could you do it? Have you ever tried? Should you be able? IMHO the answer to the last is YES. The a/c is flying; there should be no reason not to keep it doing so. Sadly, because the technocrats have tried to design out the all possibilities of pilots ending up deep in the poo, training dept's and CAA's have diluted the training competency with the claim that "it'll never happen." In the world of TEM perhaps they are correct. Mother nature, human nature and mechanical gremlins will still try and line up the holes. However, the philosophy is that ever time the pilot screws up another set of restrictive SOP's is wheeled out; the a/c designers include more back-ups and fail-safe auto systems and the pilot is told not to do this or that.
It will not be long before the single pilot and the dog becomes true. That can only happen if we're allowed to take the dog food through security as all crew members have to bring their own chow these days.
It will not be long before the single pilot and the dog becomes true. That can only happen if we're allowed to take the dog food through security as all crew members have to bring their own chow these days.
aterpster:
Oh, what memories! I remember doing my FAA ATPL on the DC-10 in 1982 and we did indeed have to accomplish turns through "at least 180 degrees" with 45 degrees of bank exactly without the FD.
What you forgot to mention was that the limits were +/- 50 feet, +/- 5 knots and roll out had to be +/- 5 degrees on heading. It was a great exercise once you got used to the idea.
On the DC-10 it was possible to cheat as far as speed was concerned for switching the FD off did not remove the speed donut so that was a bit of a help!
I also forgot to mention that auto throttle was not allowed.
Oh, what memories! I remember doing my FAA ATPL on the DC-10 in 1982 and we did indeed have to accomplish turns through "at least 180 degrees" with 45 degrees of bank exactly without the FD.
What you forgot to mention was that the limits were +/- 50 feet, +/- 5 knots and roll out had to be +/- 5 degrees on heading. It was a great exercise once you got used to the idea.
On the DC-10 it was possible to cheat as far as speed was concerned for switching the FD off did not remove the speed donut so that was a bit of a help!
I also forgot to mention that auto throttle was not allowed.
Last edited by JW411; 22nd Dec 2012 at 16:02.
Psychophysiological entity
I once saw a TRI going inverted at 2000 ft on the Sim after a simple engine failure, and crashing... and the chief of training watching that and saying nothing...
Airlines pilots with pure civy background (pay for training, no failure as long as money flows) have never neen very good, and those days they become less and less impressive. Everybody knows that, but it's politically incorrect to write the truth.
I spent a year just sitting beside new skippers on the fairly frisky BAC 1-11. What I witnessed was the complete gamut of skill levels. Some of the worst had been ex-mil - but then, so had some of the best.
When I spent a brief time with Laker, it was like a breath of fresh air. Young self-trained skippers with skills and professionalism the likes of which I haven't seen before or since.
In the sixties, one gained a lot of experience flogging to Spain - at night - with no radar. 30degrees, 45degrees? How about seeing the horizon bar go behind the shrouds, time and time again? Seemingly endless lightning strikes - one putting a 4" hole through the wing. And I mean through. And then having to beg to re-route to avoid going through it again on the way back.
Kids of today.
Some of the ex-mil blokes were utterly lost. They'd never seen a cloud, let alone the inside of a CB. Somewhat tongue in cheek, but it showed when the Transport Command blokes came along. The were generally fine. They'd seen it all before and quickly transferred their skills to the civil aviation world.
So, don't generalize. My feeling has always been those that have routinely had an empty aircraft to play with, get to be ahead of the game. Sitting in a huge computer, never having seen much go wrong? I recon there are kids on x-boxes with more hand-eye coordination.
Rant over.
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Reinhardt, if you care to check out the statistics ex-military pilots are the largest cause of accidents in airline and GA crashes. Pompous self aggrandizing winder up, but hey I am cool. Just winding you up!
Loose rivets:
I thank you for your kind comments about Laker and I absolutely endorse what you say about the high standards in the company.
I was one of the ex-Transport Command captains and, having spent 16 years flying 4-engined aeroplanes through Cbs (because the aircraft wouldn't go above 15,000 feet most of the time and the weather radar was rubbish), it was a joy to fly the DC-10 which could get above or around the weather most of the time.
I think my record was eight lightning strikes in a month.
I thank you for your kind comments about Laker and I absolutely endorse what you say about the high standards in the company.
I was one of the ex-Transport Command captains and, having spent 16 years flying 4-engined aeroplanes through Cbs (because the aircraft wouldn't go above 15,000 feet most of the time and the weather radar was rubbish), it was a joy to fly the DC-10 which could get above or around the weather most of the time.
I think my record was eight lightning strikes in a month.
DOVE
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@Aterpster
I owe you an apology. I was just looking for a way to send greetings to everyone without being banned.
Anyway:
With 60° bank? (Now my pupils on the LSA meet their trail).
And one eng out ILS approach with no A/P, F/D, A/T?
Those were the days!
Fly Safe
DOVE
I owe you an apology. I was just looking for a way to send greetings to everyone without being banned.
Anyway:
With 60° bank? (Now my pupils on the LSA meet their trail).
And one eng out ILS approach with no A/P, F/D, A/T?
Those were the days!
Fly Safe
DOVE
Unsurprised
Perhaps the beancounters and ginger beers can prevent these types of situations by building an aircraft with quintuple redundancy in every aspect of instrumentation, navigation equip., flight controls, hydraulics and engine control. That way all pilots can avoid those tricky situations when only raw data is available.
In the mean time what needs to be done to close the 'skill-gap' between the last generation of pilots and the new?
In the mean time what needs to be done to close the 'skill-gap' between the last generation of pilots and the new?
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Originally Posted by aterpster
..We had to do 45 degree bank turns in the simulator every six months ...
Were you allowed to have the upper button of your battle-dress loose as a testimony ?
Last edited by Reinhardt; 24th Dec 2012 at 07:00.