The 225 is happy to descend fully coupled using NAV or HEADING plus IAS ( we use 120 going down) and ALTA. or even VS (which we hardly ever use- why start a descent/climb without tell "George" where to stop. He's a wonderful autopilot but not a deep thinker.)
Never had any problem with this.
If you wish you can change IAS using the chinese hat on the cyclic and VS with the beeper on the collective.
Alt capture with ALTA is very accurate and I have not seen it blow through any selected alt.
Once the alt is captured you can fine tune alt using the beeper on the collective say if you want to desend a few feet to catch a radalt height or climb a few feet for whatever reason such as a QNH change.
IAS selection using the chinese hat is very positive and you can remain fully coupled to <40 Kts. so it is very nice for rig landings.
It is also perfectly happy flying a fully coupled ILS.
The go around mode works a charm and is very positive.
The mod 45 doesn't send an "alarm" in the meaning of the word - what you get in extended descents ->125 kts is a HUMS warning and usually a "No Mod 45" caption once you get the IAS <125 it usually clears in about 5 minutes. Annoying but hardly alarming.
There seems to be a lot of misunderstanding on PPrune as to what these (No Mod 45 / Mod 45 Fail ) warnings mean. Some seem to think it denotes an actual warning of a transmission problem. In fact it is Hums telling you it is not getting the vibration readings it needs due to Hums priority or an out of acquisition parameters.
Once we all got trained in the acquision parameters it certainly doesn't happen very often some folks initially were selecting 123-124 knots going down and getting warmings we now select 120 and the system seems to like that.
During return to service training we got some HUMS No Mod 45 warnings when doing multiple rig circuits because of extended low torque , low IAS. returning to Q>60 and IAS>60 for a couple of minutes would clear the warning.
I am a former S-92 driver and new to the 225 but think the 225 is a fine aircraft. It took a while to get used to the differences between the 2 aircraft but that is normal. You have to learn to dance with your new girl and can't moon over the old one. I will keep my 92 tattoo however. LOL.
I am certainly not a 225 guru so take the above for what it is - ramblings of a driver, airframe.
In the wake of this tragic accident I hope we will see a small change in training priorities with an better Ops manual review with focus on changes since previous training / SOP / Use of automation syllabus. Just opinion.
What I don't want is a blizzard of emails, forms and paperwork from on high.
Too often when something happens there is a kneejerk reaction of this type because some folks think it necessary or are instructed to be seen "doing something" to solve the problem and reinventing the wheel looks better vs reinforcing aready good SOPs ect. (of course In my youth an ops manual was about 5 pages of really large font, double spaced writing and boiled down to "Stay Above 5 Feet and Don't do Nothing Stupid!" there was also a "Common Sense Will prevail" section.)
I think that we as an industry have needed to take a good look at ourselves and where we are, where we are going for a little while. I hope that if this happens the people doing the looking are not the folks who need looking at. Even those with the best of intentions find it hard to be self critical.I've seen that too often. I also hope that they will talk to the troops in the field an not only the generals in the chateau way behind the lines.
Last edited by albatross; 7th Sep 2013 at 07:14.