PPRuNe Forums - View Single Post - Use of autopilot for instrument rating tests
Old 22nd May 2011, 11:49
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john_tullamarine
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how often you or other operators lose the automation system or navigation computers/equipments? And how often during IMC?

Ah .. now, by inference, you're proposing a defacto certification change.

The design rules REQUIRE that any single important failure results in a VERY, VERY small chance that the aircraft will be lost. This is why, traditionally, we spend so much time on engine failures as, in the piston days, such were routine and the skillsets have been carried over to the much more reliable turbine world.

Now, if all is rosy with the aeroplane meandering along nicely in severe IMC down to the lowest minima and you have a failure in the automatics, you are postulating two decision paths ..

(a) the crew is competent on raw data hand flown stuff ... no real sweat ... other than for the crew at the time who would far rather that they had stayed in bed that day and that another crew were faced with the problem at hand ...

(b) the crew is incompetent on raw data etc ... the risk of hull loss is NOW VERY, VERY REAL. As a consequence you should be requiring in your argument that the risk of automatics failure is near vanishing small .. and we ALL know that such a premise is arrant nonsense.

Alternatively, the logical argument is that we shouldn't waste any time training for anything at all. Just treat flying like an arcade game down at the Mall where, if the gizmo rolls belly up, we can go get a beer and bemoan the fact that we have lost our money down the coin slot because we got shortchanged on the timer.
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