Tail scrape
With increasing technology today’s crew are more remote from the workings of systems (the total system: FMS, aircraft, other crew) and thus they are more vulnerable to any safety threat or error potential. Similarly the crew has less contact with reference manuals and paper work; training has evolved to meet the current needs that have reduced the focus on manual / mental calculation.
Therefore, agreeing with RRAAMJET, it is necessary to seek more defenses to the threats cause by these changes; the defenses are many and varied - CRM, airmanship, personal culture or general treat and error management. In the spirit of seeking a safe new year I offer a few operating tips that kept me scrape free:
Avoid the use of ‘cross fill’ between FMS as it removes the opportunity to check for erroneous entry that can be detected by comparison – “mine is bigger than yours” routine!
Additional knowledge (a requirement of good airmanship) can provide rules of thumb about takeoff weight and speed; in my aircraft these were:
VR approx 2 kt / ton above the basic 100 kts at MZFW, applicable for all three takeoff flap settings.
V1 approx VR-10.
V1 ‘wet’ max VR-20, but not below Vmcg (always know Vmcg for the aircraft type; it does not usually vary with weight).
V2 approx VR+10, but within a range of +7 to +15
Calls and communication are always a threat area. Defenses in this area require well thought out procedures and personal discipline. Beware the ‘parrot speak’ error; parrots cannot evaluate and compare, where as humans can; thus they must take part in a dual checking system. Only call the speed / bug that is indicated on the instrument; this means reading the instrument (and understanding the context), only call what you see. One aid in this area is to state the value of a sped bug when setting it i.e. “V1 set 103 kts”. This communication enables another crew member to detect an error either in his or your calculation / setting. Use this concept in other checks, don’t just call “checked” or “set”; these are meaningless as error detecting checks.
Any other good tips out there?
Last edited by alf5071h; 31st Dec 2003 at 21:20.