What calls are used?

[duir]

When aborting a T/O before V1 for whatever reason, what specific calls would be used by the PF/PNF?

Same question for after V1 when it is decided to continue the T/O?

[Atlas Shrugged]

"Aborting" :hmm:

[18-Wheeler]

"STOPPING"
It depends on the SOP for the company in question.

There is typically no call made after V1, other than to call for the appropriate emergency drill.

[Old Smokey]

Before V1,

PNF calls "FAILURE", Captain calls "STOP" and takes control to executed a rejected Takeoff.

At or After V1,

NOBODY calls "FAILURE", Captain calls "GO", or nothing at all if already airborne.

The fewer the words spoken, the lower the chance of ambiguity.

[Menen]

So if the first officer is executing the take off and a decision is made to abort, shouldn't the captain announce "Taking over - aborting"? or "I have control - aborting" Most Ops Manuals require that when transfer of control is made between pilots the call is "Taking over" or "I have control".

I have frequently seen real cock-ups in the simulator when an engine failure has ocurred well below V1 and the captain as PNF did not immediately detect it for various reasons at the time, whereas the first officer as PF immediately detected the problem because he was on the controls. That can lead to a confusion on whether or not the first officer should initiate an abort under those circumstances.

[catchup]

@Menen

At my airline's SOP the call "STOP" during T/O means the Commander takes over the control of the AC.

regards

[alexban]

Cpt should keep one hand on the thrust levers,no matter who is PF,and he will perform the RTO.
If the cpt is PF ,the FO will call the failure (in simple,precise terms,i.e. eng failure,vibrations,oil pressure,etc..),the capt will call REJECT and perform the RTO.
If the FO is PF the cpt will call failure,like above ,then HE will decide also -REJECT-and will start the RTO.The FO will mantain control of the a/c (directional control) until positive control from the cpt who also has to say I have control.
No call for at or after V1.
All this must be as simple as possible as to not create any confusion among the crew.
this is also described in the NNM of the QRH
Brgds Alex

[Max Angle]

Call after an announed failure or an ECAM message is "stop" or "go". If you are PNF at the time, it's "stop - I have control"

[earnest]

The above is all in the simulator, of course. When it's real, it's something like:

"Shi ** * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * t!!!!!"

(The number of "i"s inserted is proportional to the speed when the "stop" call was made and the time it takes for the aircraft to finally come to a complete standstill, regardless of who thinks they have control at the time).

[keithl]

Earnest - How true. Oh, how true!!!

[CJ Driver]

I confess I have never understood the philosophy of a transfer of control DURING a rejected takeoff, particularly an "unambiguous" one. If as Commander (but PNF) I say "STOP STOP STOP" during the takeoff roll, I expect the PF to stop the thing, not to simply say "you have control". (Obviously they can call for appropriate items to be carried out by PNF, and in due course perhaps hand over control, but the first actions are all theirs). Why would you want a flurry of changing hands at the instant of peak stress?

[18-Wheeler]

If as Commander (but PNF) I say "STOP STOP STOP" during the takeoff roll, I expect the PF to stop the thing, not to simply say "you have control".

As a Commander, I have no intention of waiting for the F/O to do anything when I shout out that we're stopping.
The Captain has the thrust levers and feet on the brakes, and both those get actioned very quickly regardless of the F/O making any other calls.

Other companies may have the F/O actioning the stop, but I don't know of any.

[spoilers yellow]

On any sector the FO may call stop for any a/c fire, engine failure and config warning, additionally if the FO is PF, they may call stop for a blocked runway and control difficulties.

If the FO is handling and a stop call is made the, FO WILL carry out the abort. ie. disconnect the auto thrust, close thrust levers, and ensure the a/c is braking (RTO if over 85kts, manually otherwise)

At some point during the deceleration it is the plan that the Capt will take control, usually below 80kts and attempt to turn the a/c in a sensible direction with respect to the w/v.
Once the a/c is stopped, park brake applied, the capt will then call for any relevant checklists to be carried out.

[CJ Driver]

Spoilers Yellow - Thank you for that contribution. I was beginning to think that our company was "odd-one-out" for actually expecting a handling FO to initiate the abort themselves.

I understand the feeling behind 18-wheeler's comments, and clearly if we've called STOP and the handling FO isn't keeping up with the rapidly ensuing series of events, I always have the ability to take over - but that is true at any stage, in any flight, not just in a rejected takeoff. Our SOP remains that if the FO is handling the aircraft, and I call STOP, the FO closes the throttles and stands on the brakes, and does NOT immediately pass control to me.

[Hobo]

18 Wheeler:

"The Captain has the thrust levers and feet on the brakes,..."

I assume you don't have your feet ON the brakes during take off or even hovering over them. Standard (at least Boeing) procedure is the requirement to have heels on the floor during take off (and touchdown for that matter) so as there is no danger of the brakes being touched.

[BEagle]

In the RAF, we trained both pilots of a VC10 to be sufficiently competent to execute a rejected take-off correctly.... Handing over control during such an event is UTTER nonsense until at a standstill and highly dangerous with the danger of a "Who has control?" event - but that's what most airlines seem to advocate.

The call would be:

ABORT! for those failures which would necessitate rejecting a take-off. That call could be made by the PF, PNF or FE. The Capt would confirm the reject by closing the throttles. PF would apply max braking and steer to a halt, PNF would extend full speedbrake and full reverse thrust. Reverse thrust would be deselected when ordered by the PF. When stationary (and NEVER before), the Capt would take over control by announcing "I have control" and would apply the parking brake. The Co-pilot would retract speed brakes and extend flap to approach (in case overwing evacuation was required). Then the Capt would request "Reason for abort?" and decide whether to taxi clear. We were fortunate enough to carry a navigator who would check the brake energy absorbed and indicate in which zone (Normal, Caution or Danger) the brake temperature was likely to be; the Capt would act accordingly.

We had the same rejected take-off drill from zero knots right up to V1 - none of this above or below 80 KIAS nonsense. Crews normally practised rejected take-offs in the simulator at least once per month both as PF and as PNF...

Above V1, the only call would be "FULL POWER" if reduced thrust had been set for normal take-off.

Rarely did crews screw up a rejected take-off in the simulator (after completing type conversion) - practice made perfect!

[chuks]

After noticing a serious problem past 80 knots (blocked runway, fire or red warning, loss of control) we use a call of either 'Stop, stop, stop' or 'Continue' (as appropriate), with the decision to stop or go made by the P1.

Below 80 knots any abnormality would normally result in an automatic abort, so that we call '80 knots' on takeoff. The grey area is between 80 and V1, of course, since we are trained to take off once at or beyond V1, pitching up at least 8 degrees and then using V2 or more, up to 15 degrees pitch, as the target speed up to one thousand feet AGL.

It seems that we often get a problem in the sim that means we are almost at or just past V1 once we have recognised it and come up with a plan of action, so that we end up 'going'.

The PF remains the handling pilot on an abort up to the point where the left-seater has to take over since the ground-steering tiller is on the left side of the cockpit. That would be around 40 knots or so.

Then we have a little script stuck to the chart holder that details the drills for the left- and right-seaters following an emergency stop that is supposed to be memorised.

[chuks]

The aircraft we operate, the Dornier 328 Jet (J328) has lots of little sensors hooked up to the EICAS (Engine Indicating and Crew Alerting System). Since this system is computer-controlled it can be a real-life example of The Law of Unintended Consequences.

The aircraft uses a single chime for an abnormality (yellow colour code in the CAS field). What can happen is that something pops up on the take-off run with a single chime and a CAS message, so that the PNF has to read and interpret the message.

There are some messages, such as 'Primary Anti-skid Fail', that could give real problems if you aborted, when you might end up with four flat tires. (The cleverly automated system sensed a failure in a speed sensor as you gathered speed on your take-off run, when it shut down the anti-skid system. Now it's up to you to select the standby brake system if you want skid protection, something not easy to do during an aborted take-off. The carbon brakes are very powerful, so that you could easily flat-spot the tires without trying very hard.)

And then there are other problems that might not pose an immediate safety risk but mean the aircraft will be grounded for maintenance after landing. You might as well knock it on the head then and there if you are at your home base, or else continue. It can take a minute to think just where you are once you think you know what is wrong.

And just to keep things interesting there are other alerts that usually mean nothing at all, being just false warnings generated by a speck of dirt on a sensor plate, perhaps. When you ask the Greenies what is up there they just shrug.

On top of all this we have the usual commercial pressure and also some pressure to avoid unnecessary passenger complaints. It is not an unreasonable amount of pressure, but there is enough of it to make the job of decision-making rather interesting.

Our in-house training staff have sifted through all of this to develop our SOPs. I often have a question about some point or other, often from stuff gleaned from sources such as PPrune, which can provoke some interesting reactions.

[GlueBall]

Where I work, the F/O sets power but removes his hand from the throttles prior to 80 kts. The captain puts his hand on the throttles at 80 kts, because only the captain makes the decision to abort and the execution of the abort. The call is according to SOP (Stop, abort, reject). At or just before V1 the captain removes his hand from the throttles, and that is the cue for a "go" decision.

:ooh:

[chuks]

Another possible reason for why we do what we do (PF handling all controls, PNF hands-off until fast taxi speed on an abort) is that our aircraft has FADEC so that the only power settings are either TOGA or else Climb (full or reduced-thrust takeoff). There is no power setting aside from just shoving the throttles into a detent, when the FADEC does the rest.

The interesting thing in all this, all these different approaches to the basic problem of a safe stop-go decision and actions, is that there doesn't seem to be any real consensus.

I had a similar question in a sim session about actions post-abort with a fire indication, whether to simply fire all the bottles, shut the a/c down and evacuate or else to spend about two minutes working through a rather detailed list of things to do while the pax were expected to just sit there politely waiting to be told what to do.

Then just to leaven the mixture the instructor raised the spectre of insurance company lawyers coming after us if we had converted our aircraft into slag unnecessarily, albeit in the cause of preserving human lives!

[Idunno]

The call is STOP!

Why say it three times?
Do you think the F/O might be asleep?

Abort!,
Aborting!!,
Stopping!!!,
Arghh!!!!
Halt mein furher!!

DOH!!

Just - STOP!!!! - Simple innit!!

"I'm taking over":yuk: ...!!!???..do you have SOPs?

[chuks]

I have no idea why one must say 'Stop' three times when once would probably suffice to say nothing of saying it twice. That is the way it was presented to me as a Company SOP, so that's the way we do it.

It might go way back to something that happened in the FAA or the RAF. Something like that, I suppose that is now long gone and forgotten as the reason for this arcane practice. It isn't worth worrying about, so that I save my energy for questions about other practices that present bigger potential problems.

I did hear one about a co-pilot who looked down in the dumps, when the Captain said, 'Cheer up!' You know what happened next...

We have a lot of different cultures working together so that whatever the call or action we need to stick to the agreed-upon script. Here I can get some ideas, at least, about possible changes to the script.

[Old Smokey]

This topic is running in Tech Log, but I feel that it's headed strongly in a CRM direction.

What I have gleaned from the good responses here is that each operator has a system, and so long as there is a GOOD system of SOPs in place making no ambiguity in the comprehension of a standard call and the procedures which will follow, then there is no problem. It doesn't matter if Stop, Halt, or Sheeyut is called, as long as it's a standard call which should elicit a standard response.

Also detectable in the responses is the old well worn "Only my airline does it the right way"....Yawn

Old Smokey