How fast will you REACT?

[Aloyscious]

Hi,

I just would like to know how fast and how will you react to a any certain emergency situation where you have to perform a task to within just seconds? Can anyone please tell me two situations where you react quickly in normal life and another in your work as a pilot or just any jobs?

Thanks!

[tom775257]

Pilots should not react too quickly to many emergencies in terms of pressing buttons, shutting things down etc.. it is better to take some time and actually work out what is wrong e.g. is there a real problem or are the instruments giving you inaccurate information. This will allow for the most suitable response to the problem.

Pilots need quick reactions for dynamic events in actually flying the aircraft, especially while close to the ground. This might be due to a number of problems. One example is strong wind shear while approaching the airport. Wind shear is where a sudden change in wind speed and/or direction causes dangerous loss of airspeed. For this example it is important without delay to add full power and bring the aircraft nose up.
Another example would be flying a twin engine aircraft that has an engine failure just after take off. The pilot will need to apply a correction to stop the yaw using the rudder immediately to ensure the aircraft will actually climb away!

Further examples of immediate responses would be:
*Traffic alert and collision avoidance system (TCAS) Resolution advisory…e.g. climb/descend now or you stand a chance of a collision
*Ground proximity warning system (GPWS) shouting that you are about to hit the ground

I am sure you can think of many situations in 'normal life' where you need to react quickly, driving the car, playing computer games etc.
:ok:

[Old Smokey]

Thank you Tom775257, you saved a lot of preamble.

Aloysius, it would help to know from your profile what type of operations your line of questioning refers to. 'React' will have a very different connotation for an F-16 pilot to that for an air transport operator.

From the air transport perspective, RESPOND would have been a better word. In my own experience, my response to almost all emergency / urgent situations has been to evaluate (as quickly as possible in an emergency) the situation, and respond appropriately. Sometimes the response, such as in a rejected takeoff close close to V1, will be assertive and / or agressive, but not reactive.

When the chips are down, you will surprise yourself how quickly you can assess and respond appropriately. Like others, I've done my own soul searching, wondering how well I would handle emergency / urgent / stressfull situations. Fate has dealt me a full hand of emergency / urgent / stressfull situations over my career, and I was pleasantly surprised at how well time slows down and thinking becomes clear when required to. I can reliably report that on each occasion that I reacted (when I was younger), I invariably stuffed something up. As I got older and started to respond instead, I invariably got most of it right.

I've conducted a lot of simulator training and checking, my observation in 99% of cases is that the 'Reactors' either crash or perform badly, the 'Assessor / Responders' may take half a second longer, but survive the day and do a far better job.

An example on the ground - I immediately apply brakes on the road if the car ahead of me is braking, but that's not reaction, thousands of hours on the road has allowed me to assess that this is an appropriate course of action, and with this 'ready made' assessment, can respond appropriately.

This may all sound a bit ego-centric, but you DID ask how we as individuals would react to situations, I've answered in that context.

Silence the bell, Sit on your hands..........you know the rest.

[limchristopher]

Dear both of you ,

Thanks for your reply! Love some of your suggestions! I agreed on what both of you said but what if i have to react quickly to a certain problem which cant be solve without a few moments of thinking? What reactions should i take? Should i think first and react within minutes? IS that possible??? I think all situations has to be done within seconds!

This is what makes a good pilot: a good, quick reaction which one has a good hand and eye coordination.... IS this what they are looking for in an ab-initio pilot? or someone without any flying experience??
Thanks!:ok:

[Pegasus77]

Hello Limchris,

As Smokey and Tom have said... only in a very few situations you need to react in a split second. For example when deciding to reject a takeoff near V1, there is not much time to ponder about the decision. Therefore, the situation is thought over before going into the takeoff, so this will become a socalled canned decision. That means, that if an abnormal situation arises, the decision was already made, and you only need to react. A similar situation is the engine failure after V1, which we train excessively in the simulator.

Most other abnormals do not need such a reaction. It does not make a good pilot if he decides within a split second to shut down several hydraulic pumps just because they overheat.

It is a common misunderstanding that a "true airman" has the ability of making "saving lives"-decisions within split seconds.
IMHO a true airman takes his time in an abnormal situation, to assess first, gather all resources he can get, make himself a timschedule (a cargo fire requires another response than a GPS/FMS position disagree in cruise flight), and then to take a decision, together with his colleage up front.

Even when an engine is on fire it is good to take some time to find out what actually is happening. The most tragic example of that is the BMI 737 years ago, where they shut down the still working engine and crashed just short of the runway.

What "they" are looking for is different in several companies. My company looks for ab-initio pilots, with a certain level of hand-eye coordination, but they are looking for a huge amount of other things as well. BTW ab initio already means you have no flying experience.
During my selections (I had two, and luckily was accepted both times!) the hands-on flying part (i.e. the hand-eye coordination) was relatively small compared to the extensive psychological part. They were looking for teamplayers, with a certain goalmindedness. There is no reason to be good friends with your captain and then fly into a building, see what I mean?

My guess is you are considering applying for a flight school... My advice is: Just go to the selection and be yourself; that´s what I did at least!

Good luck

P77

[Aloyscious]

wow, thanks tom, old smokey, limchris and pegasus for all of your quick reply...

I think about the engine failure after take off, the procedure for it is already in your mind and so one will react according to what is right but what about other situations? IT doesnt has to be flying....like.....what is the most diffcult experience you have encounter where you ought to make a right choice at a given time?

Hmm, just be yourself in any selection? HOw true is this? I have a friend who is dying to be a pilot and has been rejected from an airline but am still uncertain of why he had not had the opportunity to be accepted even he is being himself;)

:ok:

[Old Smokey]

Pegasus77, I love your term 'canned decision', it sums up very well the decision well considered in advance, and applied in response to an urgent situation. I hope I have your approval to use it myself.

Eye-hand co-ordination is important in every aspect of life, from sweeping the floor to operating modern aircraft. What is probably FAR more important in the flying environment is good Brain-Hand co-ordination.

I've seen many many quick reactions in aviation, but very few GOOD quick reactions. Outside of Pegasus77's canned decisions, which we train for to excess (deliberately), about the only good quick reaction that I can think for is collission avoidance, be it another aircraft, the ground, etc.

For the record, one of the questions asked of potential cadets with one major airline is "Do you think that fast reactions are necessary for an Airline Pilot ?". For the record (be they right or wrong), the correct official answer is "NO".

[Point Seven]

Have to say chaps this is all quite interesting because from an ATCOs perspective we operate the other way and try to get things done as soon as possible.

That is, when we here that something is wrong we try to get as many solutions as possible in the shortest time possible and pick the right one.

Great thread, great answers!

P7

[exeng]

If the cabin altitude warning horn were to go off I do believe I would don my oxy mask straight away and ask questions afterwards. Of course they may remain unanswered because on the older aircraft I would probably have forgotten to select 'mask' on the audio select panel.

Still you can't win 'em all can you.


Regards
Exeng

[Aloyscious]

Old smokey,

I also do know one major airline who love to ask this question like how fast will you react and what sort of situation have you encountered... What if your answer was No? ...that you have never encounter such problem... Will it be a problem with the airline? Will they fail you just because you dont encounter and not experienced in handling or have experienced such situations?

:ok:

[KATLPAX]

You should read the thread about the 767 inflight reverser problem; apparenlty reaction time needed was within 6 seconds otherwise recovery was deemed impossible. Interesting read.

http://www.pprune.org/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=133267

[Romeo Tango Alpha]

Aloysious,

I think the answer to the interview question is "No, fast reactions are NOT as important as a proper response. There are times and places for fast reactions, but generally a proper and correct RESPONSE is right for the situation"

As has been mentioned, fast reaction, an almost automated, "canned" (I like that too!) reaction is needed for certain circumstances and you generally learn that. Like engine failure procedures in twin engine light aircaraft - IMMEDIATELY Mixture up, pitch up, power up, "dead leg, dead engine", confirm, identified..." mantra. Or the "engine failure below V1 I shall reject the takeoff, close throttles, and continue straight ahead..." etc.

Each circumstance has it's own reaction / response. Learning them all would be totally futile. That would account to be a reaction, rather than an informed response.

[Old Smokey]

Aloyscious,

If we're talking about lightning fast reactions here, then I stand by every word I've said. Applications are now closed for World War II fighter pilots where fast reactions might have had their day, but I know of no airline who would share that view. If you're worried about Right / Wrong answers at an airline interview, the correct response will not be whether you said Yes or No, but rather that you gave reasoning as to why you chose that answer. For the record, as a young man at my interview I said "Yes" (the wrong answer), and was then asked as to why I'd said so. This was duly followed by 'counseling'. I did pass the interview, and years later saw on my initial assessment that I "could be a bit impulsive".

Katlpax, 6 seconds sounds like an eternity, if a professional pilot can't make a considered response to a DYNAMIC event in well under that time, maybe he / she should consider another line of work. My opposition, on these pages, is to the lightning fast knee-jerk 'unconsidered' reaction.

A story from my own log book -

I 'pulled' an engine on a trainee just above V2. With lightning fast reaction he applied a boot full of rudder - to the wrong side (no evaluation of yaw, engine parameters etc. which would have taken under a second). I was unable to oppose him, as his reaction had now gone into overdrive, and he REACTED by pushing even harder (Still no evaluation). As the aircraft was rolling towards vertical at about 200 feet, I restored and 'firewalled' the failed engine and full aileron against the yaw/roll. I had evaluated that this was the only remaining course of action.

A story from Australian aviation history -

A fully laden B727 was doing a low visibility takeoff at Sydney. As the aircraft came over the hump, a DC-8 was seen some distance ahead still on the runway. The normal 'Reaction', even the 'Canned reaction' was to stop. The Captain evaluated that this was not an option, there was insufficient space, nor was early rotation, the aircraft would 'squash' along at low level, and still hit the other aircraft. Instead, the Captain continued to normal V1 and rotation, EVALUATING that this was the best of all options. The Fin of the DC-8 tore open the B727's belly, destroying the hydraulic and other systems. A manual reversion landing, after fuel dumping, followed. There was no loss of life.

The airline (TAA) tried to crucify the captain for not reacting as they who had the benefit of hind-sight, would have reacted. Exhaustive performance analysis by Boeing, which considered the thousands of outcomes which could have arisen from the thousands of reactions that he COULD have made, showed that he followed the ONLY course of action which lead to the successful conclusion of the flight - a considered response. (Captain Jimmy James was reinstated and became something of a hero - deservedly).

That's all.

[john_tullamarine]

... and, even so, as I recall ... the court subsequently awarded damages in thirds .. including to the pilot ?

I don't think that any of our brothers considered that to be a reasonable outcome ... wonderful thing, wisdom in hindsight.

Clearly, there will be those situations which arise (rarely) where the pilot is going to be hard-pressed to assess and analyze within the very short window available to save the day ... especially if the event is totally out of left field ... the design standards don't address such things. The Lauda accident and any of a number of readily thought up multiple major events fall into this category.

And yet, we have the occasional outcome which defies the odds .. the Sioux City accident, the tale in 'Fate is the Hunter', etc.

In the end analysis it comes down to a statistical approach to risk mitigation .. not so much guarantees as stacking the odds most of the time in favour of a desirable outcome.

[Old Smokey]

Of course Jimmy got nothing. Not even a "Well Done" pat on the back. Al Haynes did.

[Pegasus77]

The above mentioned six seconds for a certain thrust reverse problem will be just as canned as an RTO I guess.

BTW The term 'canned decision' doesn't come from me; I believe it comes from the good old Swissair, and my company just copied it.


Oh there is one situation coming to my mind now...
A mega difficult 10kts tailwind approach with a heavy A321 into SVO, with (reported) 550m visibility (might have been a little less), and the tailwind turning to crosswind in the last 300'... The captain was PF, and was aiming for some lights he saw through the fog, just when I noticed a nice runway... about 50 metres to our right. My split second decision was to shout GO-AROUND into his ear, which pretty well worked as the capt applied TOGA-thrust and pulled the nose up, although it took him some minutes to understand what actually had happened.

However I still think that the best decisions are non-rushed ones.

P77

[KATLPAX]

Reaction is one thing as seen in the inflight reverser problem, identifying the problem and especially one that is not common eats up much precious time (those 6 seconds). Part of the quick decision making is not only the physical solution but the thoughts and analysis needed before.

In this case 6 seconds to identify that "whats that vibration, oh we have a reverser on, which one"...6 seconds is oh so short methinks.

[Aloyscious]

SO, How should one answer if one has no flying experience? What should he say to convince the interviewee that he is capable of having a "quick reaction to within just seconds'? Any examples?:O

[Vee One...Rotate]

Aloyscious,

I'm not sure the heart of any interview will be them trying to determine how quickly you'd react in an emergency. I'm guessing you're looking at some kind of ab-initio sponsorship scheme or the like as you hint that you have no flying experience. A measure of your hand-eye coordination, spatial awareness, mental capacity and reactions etc. will be gleaned from the aptitude testing they will undoubedly get you to do on top of the interviews.

I wouldn't worry too much about anything like this coming up in an interview and there's not a MASSIVE amount you can do to prepare for the aptitude tests either. I'd imagine the closest thing to trying to determine how well you'd cope in an emergency you'll face in any interview is them giving you a scenario (e.g. Captain wants to bend the rules on an approach, you deem it unsafe, what would you do? That kind of thing) - but that's not really the same thing.

V1R :)

[Old Smokey]

Aloyscious,

You started this topic with a seemingly simple and straight-forward question that I figured would get one or two replies. You've had responses from right across the spectrum of experience levels, including the esteemed John Tullamarine himself, and achieved a 5 star rating for your post - well done!

I still get the nagging feeling that we've gone full circle, albeit you may have stretched your reaction to a few seconds, but not a great deal more.

There is no definitive response to the reaction time required for operational situations, because these are as many and varied as the minutes of the day. Re-reading the responses here, and putting my own posts aside, I think that there is little doubt that, where it has been possible to ascertain the experience level of the 'posters', the longer one flies, the more one leans towards the evaluated response as being superior to the quick reaction.

There will always be a place for the quick reaction, collision avoidance is the best example. This one is truly out of John Tullamarine's Left Field. I, and many like me have made very fast considered responses, within a second or two, to serious dynamic events, this review of multiple choices in such a short time can only come from experience, and should not worry you greatly at your experience level. Our ATCO contributor alludes to this in his 'action within 3 to 4 seconds' post. If you have aspirations to join an airline, be assured that you will be flying many thousands of sectors and / or hours with a much more experienced captain before you move to 'the hot seat'.

Airlines are not interested in hiring First Officers, only potential captains. The time you spend as a F/O is a great learning period. If you, for example, do your technical course for the aircraft, get the tick in the box for a pass, and promptly forget it, Yep!, you do have a problem. If, however, you consider this as the mere introduction to the aircraft, to be added to by further research and studies, you will be well prepared for the analysis / decision making process required as your career matures.

At interview, prospective airline employers will be looking for your POTENTIAL, not how quickly you can rattle of bright quick answers. Each profession has it's own 'ideal' personality and performance profile, and there's little you can do to change this within yourself. No candidate gets the perfect score, of hundreds of zero time, low time, and high time applicants I've interviewed for an airline, none went higher than about 8 out of 10 - Chill out!

You'll never convince anyone at interview that you have all of the right qualities, you will be accepted or rejected on their assessment on the day of whether or not you have the POTENTIAL to achieve the type of person they're looking for. Your ability to successfully assess and appropriately handle problems will be addressed as you enter flight training, with increasing emphasis upon these skills as you progress to higher levels.

The success rate at interview is quite low for cadet pilot schemes, and there is a significant 'scrub' rate during flight training. This scrub rate goes into steep decline as pilots become more experienced.

[Romeo Tango Alpha]

Old Smokey - check your Private Messages please.

RTA

[alf5071h]

Aloyscious, you react as fast as the situation requires, but generally situations in aviation do not require a fast reaction. Many accidents have been caused by over reaction and very fast ill-judged decisions. Similarly, accidents result from a failure to react, reactions in-between these extremes may frighten the crew but rarely cause an accident.

Circumstances requiring really ‘quick’ reactions such as controlling an engine failure on take off, have a certification safety margin built in to the crews reaction time. These margins normally allow for recognition / diagnosis of the problem thus ensuring the correct reaction; as outlined by Old Smokey.

Where quick reactions are required e.g. for a TCAS RA, the system design defines the reaction time; “the crew will manoeuvre the aircraft to achieve the required state within 5 sec”. The crew do not have to evaluate the situation as the warning includes the command parameters; it is important that the crew practice the manoeuvre to gain experience of the feel of the aircraft during the manoeuvre.

For more severe circumstances the crew’s reaction are assumed to be automatic (a canned decision), action without deep conscious thought i.e. GPWS, Windshear, stall warning. Again, the warning provides an understanding of the situation and the action required (Terrain, Terrain, Pull Up Pull Up). It is very important that the crew have a level of training and discipline that enables an automatic response as well as an appropriate feel for the aircraft manoeuvre capability.

Many operations overreact for cabin depressurisation. I believe this to be due to the amalgamation of depressurization and emergency descent drills during training. Explosive decompression requires quick action and descent, but the certification requirements do not demand a rush. For lesser depressurizations, even after a warning (10,000ft), the regulations ‘allow’ up to 14,000ft cabin alt before passenger problems are deemed to occur. Thus, even with a leak as high as 2000 ft/min the crew has considerable time to asses the situation before descending. Of course, it would be prudent to act before the extreme limits are reached and judgement is required to achieve a safe altitude before the cabin limit is reached.

For the majority of abnormal operations the certification standards of modern aircraft do not require urgent action. In many instances, the crew drills are follow up actions or preparations for a change of flight condition.

Thus, in aviation few circumstances require fast reactions. However, most require a timely assessment of the situation and a well considered decision on a course of action; slow hands, fast mind(s).