Airbus moving between types

[tartare]

Mods, please relocate to proper forum if necessary.
Given there is commonality between Airbus types, how technically difficult would it be for an A320 Captain to do a type conversion course and then fly an A380. The question is prompted by a study we did at Air NZ years ago - looking at the possibility of introducing common fleet flying (i.e. an entire fleet of Airbuses from A319 right through to A380).
I asked a Captain at the time - aside from systems, checklist etc - when it comes down to it - what is the real hand-flying difference between flying a smaller jet (B737) and a heavy (B747).
Could we rate everyone to fly everything?
He commented that inertia was one issue - but said the 747 was surprisingly quick on roll rate etc.
He also made the observation that the 747 in particular is quite a benign big beast - gentle to fly etc.
Any observations...?

[FLEXPWR]

Well, biggest I have ever flown is an A320, but asking the question to some colleagues, if you chop the thrust at 40 feet RA and flare at 20 feet on the A330 like you would on a 320, you'll be in for a nasty surprise...100 tons more on the 330 will not be displaced as fast as a smaller aircraft!

I guess flying 330/340 would be ok considering it's the same wing, therefore one can presume the handling characteristics would not be too far apart.

For more different types, I don't know...

Flex

[Denti]

We do MFF on our airbus fleet between 330 and 320 family for around 10 years or so. The other big airline in the country uses MFF between A330 and A340, but not between A320 and bigger or between A380 and smaller.
We plan to do MFF on the 737 once the 787 arrives and currently a program for CCQ is being developed, we had approval for 737/757 and 737/767 MFF as well as an approved training scheme (three simulator sessions, some classroom training). Some management type pilots do fly both the airbus and the boeing fleet, however that is not done at the same time, they switch every half year or so between types.

[oldchina]

There have been several cases, which I can't cite from memory, of pilots routinely flying A320 and A330.

As for the hand flying characteristics, it's one of the beauties of fly-by-wire that Airbus can tweak the feel (within reasonable limits) to get the big and the small to feel more similar than they otherwise would.

[Eric Janson]

I spent 2.5 years flying A320/A330 mixed fleet.

It's surprisingly straightforeward. Biggest issue is the size difference and you need to think about your wingtip clearance and mainwheel location while on the ground.

Now I fly A330/A340 mixed fleet. Biggest issue is the huge difference in performance between the two types. System architecture is the same.

I've also flown 757/767 on a common type rating.

Airbus is well ahead of Boeing in terms of commonality between different aircraft types.

[ReverseFlight]

FLEXPWR, the flare and landing in an A320 is almost the same as the 73NG but doing the same in a widebody is a different story.

I suspect that a straight conversion from an A320 to A380 might be politically unacceptable at some airlines, but I was once assured by an A380 check n' training captain that most of the controls on the big beast would be very familiar to any Airbus pilot.

[neilki]

If i recall, a couple of years back an Emirates crew ex Melbourne failed to notice the unreasonable A340 weights, hence t/o performance data as they also routinely flew the A330. Came as close to disaster as the slatless BA 747 rotation out of Jo'berg last year.

http://www.pprune.org/rumours-news/366754-ek407-tailstrike-ml.html
http://www.atsb.gov.au/media/1358013/ao2009012_prelim.pdf

i had a friend at United swapping almost daily between the 757 & 767. apparently he wrote the type on the TOD card, and i've heard it's part of the SOP taxi brief in some operators.
i believe there's a common type rating for the 777 and the 787.
the FBW logic can model performance anyway the manufacturer (or customer) desires, but physics is still physics..

[tartare]

Interesting - thanks guys.

[Slasher]

what is the real hand-flying difference between flying a smaller jet (B737) and a heavy (B747).

I went from 747 to 737 - and I found I had to actually work
when hand flying esp in an engine out case!

The 747 was a bloody dream to hand-fly at any time, in any
kind of weather in any contingency.

I once went from 320 to 330 briefly and found it a doddle -
its just a big heavy 320 handling wise.

[oldchina]

I have no reason to think the 777 and 787 can have a "same type rating" as Airbus has with the A318/319/320/321. They're just different planes.

Probably what Boeing is aiming for is some kind of plan for reduced training time when converting from one to the other.

Or, depending on your local rules, you might be allowed to fly both.

[Denti]

Actually, they do have a common type rating, same as 757 and 767 have. The 787 flight characteristic was tweaked to be similar to the 777. Differences training from one to the other is only three days. That said, cross training from the 737 to 787 is only a week too.

[safelife]

Another interesting question would be, when does it make sense to do mixed fleet flying? Does it depend on the fleet size?
Are there values known when it would be feasible?
A330/340 MFF is a clearer case, and is done by most airlines flying both types.
But A320/330 MFF is done by some, not by others.
For example Qatar don't do any MFF afaik, but Etihad do.

[TruBlu351]

The older generation Airbuses seem to have a lot more common than the 380.

Quite a few airlines will give a CCQ (Cross Crew Qualification) to pilots who operate multiple Airbus types within a company.

Even within a single Airbus type, eg A330, there may be several different types or varients/series 200/300 etc and even within each of those there may be other differences too.....engines/software/weight limits etc.....so sometimes, even when flying "one type" you have a ton of numbers & different procedures in your head!

Cathay for example have the A330-300, A340-300 and until a few years ago, the A340-600....and some pilots would be qualified to fly all 3 types and the 340-600 was quite different to handle compared to the others. Just means you need to keep in the books more!! Once you're up in the front end, you just put your "other hat" on and away you go.....sometimes slowly and cautiously, depending on your recency.

Even though previous Airbus experience will allow you to zip through an A380 conversion, as there are a heap of similarities with older generation Airbus aircraft, personally, if you were on the 380, I think that you'd just want to focus on that one type. Although it has the typical "Airbus" layed out cockpit, the software/displays/FMS/systems have "some" similarities, but they are a fair bit different.....and being a long haul aircraft (limited sectors each month), you may run into recency issues with keeping qualified on other types.

The A380 aircraft systems are a lot more complex than your regular Airbus, and there's a miriad of things that can potentially go wrong or fail, so from the perspective of being on top of your "emergency handling game of what if....", it helps to be able to focus on just one type. That being said, a lot of emergency procedures are almost identical from one Airbus to the other, but.....there are some significant differences between handling some types of emergencies on an A319/320/321 compared to an A380.

So, yes you can be qualified on several different types of Airbus jets, and it does happen, but there are common sense limits applied in most cases so that safety doesn't become an issue.

The good thing about Airbus aircraft is that everything is almost in the same spot in the cockpit for the most part, your hands and feet know where to go!