Originally Posted by
ONE GREEN AND HOPING
I'm not familiar with modern types such as the 777-300. ( Although, did fly DC10 and B744 over 20 years ago. ) My question: "Is it mandatory to engage flight director for take-off" ? Rotating followed by nailing the basic parameters not that complicated I'm guessing, even if there is some sort of 'swung cone' for losing a donk at V1 on a twin with spot heights impinging close in. Do recall one of those seasonal DXB temperature inversions making initial climb performance a touch lazy, but this sounds a whole lot more interesting unless there's something we don't know. One comment I read elsewhere would leave potential pax believing that it is normal for the autopilot/s to be fully engaged for takeoff.
PR could be awkward, and I doubt whether the average tabloid pages will go much into explaining 'TOGA'.
The 777 will happily take off and fly around without FDs, AT or even FBW. Airline SOPs, however, are generally more restrictive. I would expect EK to have mandated FD on (and probably to be followed on pain of death...)
Unlikely to have a significant inversion this time of year and the -300 is not short in the thrust department. I suspect this accident (if they did hit the LOC array) will be fascinating in terms of HF and company culture. I’m not saying this is the case here (yet), but you can only dumb things down and be prescriptive to a certain level before you leave people unable to cope with much outside the ordinary because they enter a state of cognitive dissonance: the pilot part is saying 15degs NU, ignore the FD, sort it later and/or turn it off; the part that’s been beaten senseless by SOPs says follow the FD otherwise it’s no tea no biscuits in the office...