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Old 11th Sep 2016, 15:21
  #274 (permalink)  
TangoUniform
 
Join Date: Aug 2006
Location: >FL310
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5star....to hell with the FMA. The FMA will not tell you what the aircraft is doing. When that close to the ground, check what the AIRCRAFT is doing, not the FMA. TOO much reliance on automation. Hand on the control wheel, hand on the throttles, feet on the rudders. Perhaps a strange concept to "children of the magenta line", but you have to fly the aircraft first. With the reliance on autothrottles, it has been discovered through eye tracking, that airspeed is looked at very infrequently on scans. A rejected landing, IMHO, is a manoeuver very similar to GPW, TCAS and windshear manoeuvers.

Fly fly fly, worry about the FMA later. The FMA should tell you what you have asked the plane to do, but not what the aircraft is actually doing. Example. VS -3000, spd selected 250. IDLE/LNAV/VERT SPD. As the airplane passes through 320kts....hey the FMA was correct. Exaggeration, perhaps, but again, the FMA doesn't tell you what the a/c is doing. That little box below the FMA will tell you. But when SECONDS count, the FMA is a luxury. Another example when SECONDS count, what does the FMA tell us on a rejected takeoff? Does it matter? Of course not. Do I care? Imagine if it were an SOP to call the FMA on a rejected takeoff. A GPWS event? We would say the SOP writers had lost their minds.

A normal G/A, of course call the FMA. But when seconds count; airspeed, pitch/roll, climb/decent, power. But of course when we engage or disconnect the automation at 200ft.....well flying skills and scans are finished.

Sorry 5star, you touched a nerve on that one.
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