Originally Posted by
galaxy flyer
In my previous plane, not civil, we had charts for, and calculated on each and every take-off, the following:
Critical Field Length, Refusal Speed (accel-stop), Vmcg, corrected for crosswind and runway friction), Vmca (OEI and Two-engine Inop), Vr, Vmbe, AEO ground run, Tire Limit Speed, V2 and Flap Retract Schedule and all the calcs to compute those speeds/distances. V1 was defined as the lower of Vr, Vmbe or Refusal Speed. The handling pilot reviewed the data on a 8x10 sheet of paper and confirmed the data. Very comprehensive.
How is it the civil AFM is so limited in data for pilot use? Is the regulatory bodies afraid of pilots doing the data? This is elemental data.
Depends, at least for us, on the type and its intended use. That level of detailed data is often (I hate to say "always") provided where the aircraft is expected to be operated in an airline-like environment. But to some extent that is because we expect it to be used by the airline's perf guys, not actually by the line pilots - often they'll get the analyzed/crunched version specific to their runway today - OS, mutt, to name two, know far more about that end of things than I do.
But where we are intending the aircraft be operated in the biz jet world its common for us to provide a more simplified set of data, since the assumption is that there may not be the planning infrastructure to back up the crews, yet they may be having to deal with a much larger set of potential destinations. We've even been asked to provide that more simplified presentation for aircraft which have changed roles from airline to business operations.
It's not really a regulatory issue - we do provide that data for some cases. It's more a case of tailoring what is provided for the expected needs of each operator.
Now, in the brave new world of computerized flight manual data, one could argue it's easier to provide the more complex data to everyone. But there's still an issue of understanding the limitations in the data - if it's not really hurting your operations, simplified may be good enough.