Originally Posted by
Vessbot
Thanks for the exposition, and it goes a long way toward explaining to me what happened. To make sure I understand you right, I'll repeat it in my own words: On a normal TO, the FD is only capable of showing 8 degrees, where you normally pitch to ~15. (So far so good?) So on a routine take off, (before acceleration) you're used to ignoring the pitch bar as you're flying ~7 degrees above it.
If you're used to following the FD (normal for my plane) it's inconceivable to not notice that it's down in the dirt.
But if you're used to ignoring it, it's a much smaller gap to bridge from "it's somewhere down there in the blue" to "it's somewhere down there in the brown." Not noticing is now a lot more plausible, and according to your normal-case scenario, it's easy to see how they could engage the AP at the routine time.
Of course all this only explains the pre-AP engagement phase.
What you say is quit relevant, we are used to not follow the GA FD in case of take off or GO around with 2 engine, the FD when pressing GA is initial pitch for one engine ...
I was surprised about this comgic from a more advanced plane when I took my command ... But it is how the plane is designed ... And as said before there is a lot strangely designed in the dash 8.
Now I said that, still, I force myself to synchronise the pitch to the FD bar after acceleration before asking for the AP engagment and I also force myself to really read the mode FMA I see and not just what I think I pressed, it has saved my day more than once ... The dash is tealre basic, it will do what you ask for even if totally stupid.
A good example is when you go in IAS mode, my previous plane, if you had selected an altitude above and ask for a high speed climb with IAS mode but still at low speed when engaging, the plane would have level off, speeding up then resume climb with the speed requested, the dash 8 will start to descent (you ask for a high speed, so he want to reach the speed you want) then will climb when reaching the asked speed and realized you have lot of energy with engine and so can climb. Only way to no do that is avoided big speed change with IAS mode or monitor closely your engine set up (not auto throttle on the dash 8)