Originally Posted by Pilot Pete
On my conversion course to the 737 I turned the right hydraulic pumps off instead of the engine anti-ice......taught me a good lesson in the sim and highlighted a possible design failure in one of Mr Boeings finest.
You're not the only one: I have been about 0.00001 seconds from making that same mistake myself, however not in a simulator. This certainly
is a pretty serious design flaw in the 737. In the sim I also once switched Bus Transfer i.s.o. Standby Power; put a smile on my instructors face, as he'd witnessed that one before too.
Yeah, airplane ergonomics... Reminds me of this nicety: on the MD-11 glareshield there are two round buttons to set the QNH and the minimums on the PFD. The BAROSET button is on top, the MINIMUMS button below. Nice, except on the PFD itself the QNH figure is shown below, and the minimums figure is displayed on top.
Now imagine this: you're flying into Quito, trying to dial in an MDA of about 9600 feet, knowing you'll have to give a
huge swirl to the MINIMUMS button if you want to have it set before touchdown. So doing just that... you inadvertently reset the barometer to a QNH of 1281 millibar.
