Originally Posted by
Boudreaux Bob
In light of what Keith suggests about Pilots liking to fly using ALT and HDG, or some very simple utilization of the Automation, perhaps we should first decide just how much automation is needed, desired, and sufficient.
Couple of points there, firstly just because the pilot only wants to use ALT and HDG (and I suspect IAS) doesn't mean that the behaviour of the software in those modes doesn't have some "hidden bits" - there certainly are on the 225, and these can surface whether the pilot likes it or not.
But secondly, the "line pilot" is not perhaps best placed to decide how much automation is needed or wanted because, as a general rule, they are a very conservative bunch and like to keep things within the bounds of what they understand, how they flew in the past and what they need to do 99.5% of the time.
When we first got the EC225, the pilots were happy with ALT, HDG, IAS and coupling the FMS en-route, since these were all things that they did on the AS332L (well, maybe not ALT and IAS at the same time).
Two of the main hurdles were:
To trust the GA mode to be used at low speed, near the ground/sea. They wanted to get to the sort of speed where the AFCS worked adequately in the 332L - ie a point they were comfortable with based on their previous experience, Vy or so. Eventually (once a Sim was available), we could take them into the sim and practice engine failures just after rotation on a rig takeoff. In general they flew it badly, dived to get unnecessary speed and flew into the sea, failed to dive enough and fell into the sea etc, and this was with them knowing the failure was going to occur. So then we said "rotate, press GA and then don't touch the controls" at which point the AFCS flew an immaculate OEI departure diving to get speed and then raising the nose so that it was on the horizon just as Vtoss was reached. They soon realised that it was much better than flying the manoeuvre that they were, and of course it wouldn't suffer from "startle" when the unthinkable engine failure actually happened. That battle was eventually won, and now they love it, especially on a nasty dark night.
Then there was the whole "overlay approach" thing. They were quite happy to have the FMS fly them out to the rig and back, but oh dear, all those STARS, transitions and approaches built into the FMS for an onshore instrument approach was all far too difficult. When I wanted to make it SOP to always put the instrument approach into the FMS they said "we always have radar vectored ILSs at Aberdeen, so what's the point?". And the answer was probably "not a huge amount of point on a radar vectored approach at Aberdeen (although situational awareness is helped by seeing the final approach track on the NAVD)" - but surely we do use other airports as alternates, they do have procedural approaches, DME arcs etc and even though we very rarely have to go there, when we do have to go there surely the FMS is a great boon as it totally looks after the horizontal profile of the initial, intermediate, final approach and missed approach of an approach we are not familiar with. We can sit back and monitor against the plate. Easy - if you know how it works!
Anyway, the battle was mostly won when we got our simulator and were able to take them to all sorts of airports that they had used as alternates but never actually been to. They realised that once you knew how it worked, it was fantastic! Of course we got a lot of "uphill" from the CAA too, who thought this was all cheating and we should be flying NDB approaches on some wandering needle that was probably pointing at a CB anyway!
Just as an example, ferry flight from the factory in new 225, had to divert to Carcassone due to appalling weather in the Massif Centrale. Next day was drizzly and definitely IFR departure. Never mind, the SIDs (the French love their SIDS and STARS) were all in the FMS so the one given by ATC was duly loaded in, and jolly complicated it was too. We got airborne and literally passing about Vy going IMC, Mr ATC man say "Change of SID due traffic, its now xyz" (the delights of Class E airspace). To trawl through our pile of plates to find the right SID at that stage would have been pandemonium but instead it was I think 4 button presses on the FMS to load the new SID, going in a substantially different direction, which then promptly unfolded on the NAVD and all the altitudes etc were on the FMS screen. A doddle.
So a potentially very difficult situation was a complete non-event because we knew how to use the kit fluently.