Originally Posted by learner001
Tip of the iceberg...?
From pointers to drums... From dynamics to numbers...
Tiny observations large outcome...
When I started flying ‘digital’ I missed and preferred the ‘old’ familiar dynamic moving pointers on the Airspeed indicators and Altimeters, rather than the relatively ‘dumb’ moving number-tapes and/or drums on the flight displays.
And my ‘emotion’ is not limited to Airspeed indicators and Altimeters only.
Of course, as with all sort of changes, I was told that I “just have to get used to it!”
OK... Fair enough... But, although I am getting more and more used to ‘flying digital’ by now, on occasion, I really sense the lack of instant dynamic ‘speed and altitude situational awareness’ that the ‘old’ analogue Airspeed indicators and Altimeters with their moving pointers will give us more or less instantly.
Looking at the tapes I have to figure out: Are the changes going up or down? Moving Fast or slow? Is it an increase or a decrease? What’s the trend? Things, that I would instantly be aware of with the analogue indicators. With digital indicators, however, I need more of my brain capacity to ‘translate’ the sheer changing of numbers on the rolling tapes (or drums) into dynamics.
Oh, yes... We’ve got the ‘speed trend arrow’ to sort the speed thing out... Haven’t we... But, then again, isn’t this turning the things upside down?
In every new aeroplane that our company receives, even the ‘last resort’ analogue standby instruments have been replaced by a single digital display.
Man tries a lot of things to improve safety. On the other hand, in my opinion, these efforts are broken down again, unnoticed.
As for hindsight typing behind the computer:
Most of our daily flying ends at a couple of hundred feet going out and starts again at a couple of hundred feet coming in... Almost every flight we are being flown, mostly by the comfort of automation, very near to the ‘coffin corner’... The ‘gap’ being smaller one time than the other. I wonder how many of us really actively realise this...
At high altitude in the very thin air, especially in turbulence at night, a cockpit can turn into a relative ‘hell’ very abruptly if the Autopilot kicks off... (LOL most probably from many in here...) Controls will be very sloppy in conventional aircraft. In FBW aircraft this will be even more (un) noticeable, as there is different or no direct feedback.
In both cases, while you’re shaking, you need to handle the controls like being a Swiss watch maker. And you are now manually manoeuvring within this tiny confined little gap... If you’re lucky you may have done it may be a couple of times. Even ‘minutes’ would do a great deal of benefit already... But it is something we hardly actually ever do...!
Are we stupid, then? We train constantly for all sorts of situations... Or could here be a training deficiency? If you have/were never trained in hand flying close to the ‘edges’ of an envelope (or even outside an envelope), or if you have never actually been hand flying close to the ‘outside’ of an envelope, chances are that you won’t even notice that you’re going out... Whilst thinking you’re ‘hanging in there’... And so far, so good...
How much ‘flight time’ were our unfortunate colleagues granted to log in their logbooks on actual hand flying the plane in that tiny little gap, before they all of a sudden were forced and committed to do so in a very, very narrow gap. Whilst probably shaking, vibrating and being bombarded with all sorts of alarms going off...
So, whilst trying to analyse, I have learnt to always remain respectful and very humble and do a great deal of effort to see the whole picture...
29th May 2011 at 21:03.