Confounding Tech probs with CRM...

[Captain Stable]

I have been emailed this. The originator didn't want to post it themselves, so I undertook to.

Comments, anyone?I was doing some flying with a very knowledgeable, capable and
experienced and somewhat 'strong' instructor. I'd done some decent
flying, and things were ok, apart from a nagging feeling that nothing I
said was being taken account of and I should just shut up and get on
with the flying, than get the heck out before my confidence got blown
apart.

Anyway, on a shortfield takeoff (in a twin) I noticed a really marked
pitch-up tendency right after calling airspeed alive about 50 or so. My
first instinct with plenty of runway remaining (5000 feet, 3000 greater
than accelerate stop distance - hope I am correct on that) was to close
the throttles and stop, and I started doing just that, just enough for
the engine pitch to change ...

However, as the take-off definitely looked normal, I REPRIORITISED (very
fast) and can remember reassessing the risk as fairly llikely that my
instructor WOULD just re-open the throttles and force me to continue ...
and rather than moving them any further closed and potentially getting
into a fight, and maybe leading to a problem with too much speed, too
low and running out of runway :-((, I just tweaked them back open and
continued, having to hit the trim pretty fast with a few foward swipes
just to have the plane flyable at liftoff.

Dunno if this is hugely dramatic as a training incident, but it shook
me a little, as my PIC sense had been battered enough to do something I
would not have done if I was really in command.

Feel free to flame me, or point out my mistakes ...

(one of which was my failure to notice the u/s trim indicator had
become displaced forward, which could have been noticed by making sure
it was centred on getting out of the aircraft to do the external
preflight then looking for excessive down on the servo tab on the tail
...)

[411A]

Had a little difficulity following the plot with the last post, but ...

On my ATPL ride in 1966, the FAA inspector (inspecting me) was accompnied by another FAA guy inspecting him.

After five and one half hours in the air, for every maneuver required, including canyon approaches (rapid descent and pull-up, now no longer required) and LF range orientation, on the last takeoff, with an engine failure at liftoff, I closed the throttles and landed on the runway remaining.
The head FAA honcho in the back bellowed...'that's what I wanted to see, a guy who knows what he is doing, this piece of cr@p has a hard enough time flying on two engines, never mind one.'

Made my day.:E

[Anthony Carn]

Abondon the take-off, if possible with the words ..."Stopping"...."Something's wrong" even "Something's wrong with the balance" or "Something's wrong with the trim".

I wrote that as soon as I'd read your post. ie I did'nt spend ages mulling it over. Now I'll justify it. (or not !)

YOU are flying the aeroplane, HE is supposed to be caring for your safety, but in this case he won't be aware of a problem. There is'nt time to explain, so do the safe thing. Stop ! How could you continue with a problem, not knowing the cause ?

In other situations where you both were aware of a problem, he , as instructor and, therefore, pilot-in-command would decide upon the actions to be taken. This might involve you in simply handling the flying whilst he carried out drills, it might not. He would have briefed you before flight and variations on this may have been briefed.


The biggest mistake of all was to continue with an instructor you did'nt get along with. Have a meeting, discuss and resolve the problem, or find another instructor.


As for CRM, or specifically the so called "training" of CRM I've recieved, there's been absolutely ZERO instruction on pilot-to-pilot interaction, how to behave towards colleagues in the flight deck, how to avoid unnecessary disagreements. ALL of the emphasis was on how difficult the cabin crew's job is in an emergency, pilot to cabin crew emergency briefings and why a monkey's backside is bright red. Pathetic. Never mind, it's another few ticks in another few boxes for the CAA to coo over.

[Jetstream Rider]

There was an accident some time ago in the states with a biz jet -can't remember exact details, but it illustrates the point.

Pilot landing on humped runway, touches down and thinks he has too little runway remaining, so opens throttles to fly a go around (after touchdown). On reaching the hump, a huge bit of runway appears, so he decides to land again, touches down and then realises there is not enough runway left. He then opens the throttles again to fly a go around, but too late and they go off the end of the runway below flying speed and fall down a cliff face killing all on board.

Moral - don't keep changing your mind. If you have to make a descision, make it, but don't keep changing your mind. The place for an argument is on the ground afterwards, not at 50 feet above the ground. In the case above - a go around would have served its purpose and the visual picture corrected in the pilots mind for a second landing. What would have happened in your takeoff if you were fighting the trim and then the instructor pulled a throttle to simulate engine failure? - suddenly it gets very interesting. If the throttles had been closed and you had stopped, a quick check of the trim/flying controls might have put your mind at rest if nothing else in the best case, and in the worst case discovered a nasty fault.

If your instructor is bad - change him. A good instructor will respond to the needs of the trainee, while getting the message across. A bad instructor (no matter how good a pilot he is) will try to get the trainee to fit in with him. For instance, different people respond to different styles of instructing - a bad instructor will have just one and keep using it, a good instructor will use a range, depending on the how the student responds. If your instructors one tool is to shout - then he is doubly bad.

Include the stop cases in your take off brief, including a cover all of 'anything else that I decide at the time is worth stopoping for, I will call stop and we can discuss it after the aircraft has come to a halt with the parking brake on' (commercial multi crew is a bit different - as the FO is usually limited for what he can call stop for, but in my airline a control restriction is one of them).

[alf5071h]

A CRM issue here is the apparent lack of a good debrief. If the student had asked for an explanation about the Captain’s actions this should have been given together with the reasons for the decision. These may have been misunderstanding, the Captain did not see the situation in the same way as the student – more discussion as to why, the Captain may have made a mistake, or the student was mistaken. It would be disappointing for an instructor not to admit to error, but we all make mistakes and are reluctant to discuss them. Debriefing is a way of both continued learning and improving our airmanship.

If a mistake was made, was it the acceptance of an aircraft with a deficient trim indicator, an error in setting trim (student or instructor), or an error in not detecting the miss setting. Investigate how such an error could have been made, rush, hurry, oversight, poor design; all good learning points.
A debrief is a most valuable yet most underused CRM tool. Both student and instructor should remember that in aviation we never stop learning from others and particularly our own mistakes.