PPRuNe Forums - View Single Post - The vital importance of high altitude stall recovery training in simulators
Old 8th Oct 2014, 13:36
  #36 (permalink)  
misd-agin
 
Join Date: Jan 2006
Location: US
Posts: 2,205
Likes: 0
Received 0 Likes on 0 Posts
DL and AA 737's and 777's have AOA gauges.


Checklists have had verbiage using the AOA gauges removed because they were poorly written AND Boeing said the procedures hadn't been flight tested AND in certain circumstances the AOA gauges could be inoperative or give misleading information.


The generic low altitude loss of airspeed training had lead to bad habit patterns that did not transfer to high altitude/low energy flight regime.


So having generic "put the nose this low" that havn't been vetted by flight test is meaningless.


Example - doing loss of airspeed at altitude in the simulator. CKA, new to fleet, didn't know I'd been involved in the issue for over two years. So we do the high altitude upset and run the airplane totally out of airspeed. Very similar to AF 447 in that we were several thousand feet above MAX ALT in a nose high attitude. Ugly. CKA loved the FPV and had come up with a generic 'rule of thumb' that had worked for him up until then - "set the FPV 5(?) degrees nose low and you'll fly out". So we're at twice his target FPV attitude and the plane's barely flying - AOA barely below stick shaker. CKA - "no, no. Keep the FPV at X". Tiniest reduction in back pressure results in instantaneous stick shaker (anyone doing a high AOA knife fight know's what I'm talking about). Unload, go back to twice his target FPV attitude(double wasn't a goal, just what was required to make the plane fly), and we eventually recover.


CKA "huh, that's always worked before." Ugh.


During the event N1's were limited to 75% due to the nature of the failure(s). Didn't bother deselecting EEC's/ELC's because AOA, and not engine thrust, was the primary focus needed to fly the aircraft safely.


Debrief sent to stop teaching unofficial techniques that didn't cover all areas of the flight envelope.


Low altitude techniques, like the AB stall recovery training in Normal Law, can be dangerous in other flight regimes or non normal flight law.


Basic flying skills still are the #1 priority.
misd-agin is offline