Framer my point is how you said what you said. Not what you said. I willingly accept that you can read it in any way. However the problem with making statements that cannot be differentiated from questions is that someone (on this occasion me) will likely see it in a way that perhaps you intended perhaps you didn't.
i.e. It is the difference between:
Helping Uncle Jack off his horse.
and
Helping uncle jack off his horse!!
I read what you wrote as hands thrown up in air that something so spectacularly unusual could ever be normal. When it is abundantly clear that not only is it normal, it would actually make sense to make it the norm worldwide and then there would be far far less level busts.
If every controller and pilot only used one, two, three, four and five hundred in respect to levels just think how many less level busts there would be with 100,110,120, 200,210,220 etc. Not only that what other loss of seperation events would be avoided.
The one thing I have noticed since I started operating into the US is how often there are confusions about what someone is meant to do next. i.e Do I descend now or at pilots discretion? Any particular rate, oh well you haven't mentioned one I'll just do X or Y and then being told to descend faster or slower. This constantly seems to need clarification, reread backs and seems chaotic in comparison to approaches into airspace like London TMA for LHR or LGW where there seems very little chaos regardless of the weather or scenario on the ground.
I can't find where it says, "climbing out of four point oh for nine thousand". ICAO Doc 9432, it certainly isn't in CAP371 (understand this is a UK doc) I am sure it is likely in some FAA doc somewhere however only the US pilots seem to use it. I'm English and to me this is just gash RT. However for the poor pilots speaking English as a 2nd or 3rd language then you are asking for trouble in the form of loss of separation and/or level busts.
Back on Thread
However as you suggested, now we both know what we meant the point of the thread is the accident. Re the FWD CG. At FZ we did zone pax but it was very very rarely used for boarding as to be honest organising FZ pax is like hearding cats.
If everyone did what they were supposed to then every pax should be sitting in the seat on their boarding pass and the CG on the LIR and load sheet would reconcile. If we got LMCs we would normally ask where the pax/s was/were sitting to make sure we did not need a new loadsheet for that very reason.
However this was crew dependant. As no one really cared about standardisation and things like this were a rarely checked and b) if checked online or even in the sim were done by TRE/TRI/LTCs who were working to their own agenda (because they never got the chance to standardise as no time or direction was ever made available N.B. not blaming the instructors for this)
SO it would depend on how diligent the crew were. I always blocked off seats/ asked for changes in rows or moved pax to make the CG work if they weren't where they meant to be or on the occasions when we had free seating (certain routes and charters)
To this end if we assume they followed the procedures as they are written. The FWD CG on departure would likely have been as they had full wings AND full ctr tank. They would have expected to burn the ctr tank enroute and in the hold given that they knew they were unlikely to land on arrival and this would have of course led to progressively rearwards moving CG as the flight continued.
Not particularly relevant in this case but it is in FZ ops, business class has very few seats and if it is not full and economy is because we didn't really distribute loads to each flight (more a set plan out of Dubai) it meant that the rear hold would be full and the front empty of vice versa i.e it was never something that was done as sensibly in some airlines where they would try and achieve a certain MAC% as that was the most efficient for route X. We weren't even allowed to enter the cruise MAC in the FMC!
Also what you said in post 9362192 was spot on. The culture is that punitive that you simply didn't divert until you HAD to fuel wise to save nugatory discussions with the chief pilot or his cronies who couldn't give a stuff about anything other than getting the plane back for the next sector!
Alycidon
I think you are misinterpreting what Derf said and/or meant. From my perspective (I leave derf to concur or not) using the HGS is more natural than anything else. Whatever is happening outside does not confuse you you just say with the guidance. You will be surprised how intuitive it is. After flying with it for a bit I now would hate to be without it there is no situation where I glance down at the PFD unless the guidance fails. You don't get distracted by the outside picture you just focus your eyes on the display and the outside picture disappears. Coming into land you frequently have to keep turning down the brightness to see the outside world and runway.
Granted there could have been a problem of a newish skipper on the HUD not trusting it and likely not having seen the UA or W/S symbology as it changed to non conformal other than in the sim but I do not think illusions were the issue here, somatogravic or otherwise. I think the whole thing put together with fatigue put on top simply led to a mistake which wasn't noticed until it was too late to do anything about it for the poor souls. I'm sure something else didn't help them but chances are it was all of the things in combination (isn't it always).
Last edited by Vortex Thing; 20th May 2016 at 10:46.