ICATEE

[4Greens]

Are we aware of the International Committee for Aviation Training in Extended Envelopes?

This is a very important initiative to prevent the fate of another high level loss of control exhibited by the Air France off Brazil.

All support welcomed.

[sheppey]

for Aviation Training in Extended Envelopes?


Love it! Another new buzz-word like TEM. Easy money for whoever designs that course. Like re-inventing the wheel. I presume they mean unusual attitude training?

Dead easy. Switch off the Motion in a full flight simulator so you don't bugger the hydraulic jacks and roll it inverted or pitch up towards the vertical or down the other way. . Use the "freeze" facility to discuss the flight instrument interpretation while upside down and at same time this allows the instructor to discuss various recovery techniques at his leisure. Any half competent instructor should be able to teach jet transport unusual attitude recoveries inside 15 minutes; if not, he shouldn't be in the job. You don't need more Committee's dedicated to publishing still more bumpf in "Extended Envelopes" :ok:

[4Greens]

Simulators cannot simulate conditions beyond the normal boundaries of the operating aircraft - there is no such thing as a full flight simulator particularly with the motion switched off.
ICATEE documentation addresses this issue and will be part of an ICAO initiative to improve safety in these areas.

[Willie Everlearn]

For my money, URT should be placed at the personnel licencing level and not at the airline level. If that many airline pilots are losing control of their aeroplanes then examination may reveal they hadn't received URT during the ab initio stages (PPL/CPL) of their training. (That which is first learnt is longest remembered)

Mandatory URT for airline pilots would likely derive 'some' benefit through simulation, such as recovery procedures. But with limited envelope and no 'g' feedback, the benefits fall short of what they could be.

URT in 'real' aircraft could bring greater benefits but the first airline crew lost in URT training outside the airline training organization and the exercise will likely come to a grinding halt. Not to mention who would fund the training?

Since not all airline pilots wish to fly upside down, sideways or in spirals, I'd suggest not all airline pilots would therefore 'volunteer' for such training.

Using statistically improbable loss of control events (like AF447) hardly warrants an industry cleansing.

Let's not OVER react, just yet.

Willie :ok:

[ZFT]

Simulators cannot simulate conditions beyond the normal boundaries of the operating aircraft

Of course they can. The limits are only what the Airframe OEMs decide to put into their data packs. Both the major OEMs have repeatedly admitted that there is a lot more data available beyond that normally supplied, including actual aircraft test data outside of the normal envelope.

[4Greens]

The is no actual data for instance for a transport aircraft in an inverted spin or even a normal spin etc etc. This cannot be put into a sim. As has also been said there are also no requisite g forces.

Please read the report available on line on the ICATEE website for all the good gen.

[Willie Everlearn]

True.
OEMs have data beyond what is required by the RAeS and NSP for flight simulation. But it too is limited.
Why go beyond the normal envelope of any transport category aircraft?
Bad things happen when you do.

We already know that.

[4Greens]

The whole point of this exercise is to be able to recover if the aircraft does go out of its normal operating envelope. This , as you would be aware, is what has happened in a number of cases most notably to AF447.

[Willie Everlearn]

Indeed.
But that's the point, isn't it?
One loss of control accident due more to a lack of experience on the flight deck and the experts organize another elitist study group, coffee clatch, call it what you will, to discuss what's wrong with the industry so the 'experts' can start screaming "epidemic, epidemic!!" when nothing could be further from the truth.
Each time investigators issue their findings we read "more training, more training". Gee, there's a surprise. But is it the solution?
Can't hurt. Right?
Is there something wrong with the way we're training airline pilots?
Absolutely!
Could there be better ways to use a Level 4 device?
Most definitely!

There have been many accidents over the decades attributable to loss of control. In most, if not all, human factors, primarily through poor airmanship, poor system monitoring skills, flightpath monitoring, airspeed control as well as old fashioned stupidity have had more to do with the outcome than a lack of ability to recover from upset.
Shouldn't have gotten there in the first place. So, maybe that's where we need to focus some of the training moving forward.

When I read through the Dutch investigators comments on the NG accident in Amsterdam a couple of years back, while it was due to a loss of control, recovery should have been possible, but I'm hesitant to suggest teaching pilots URT would have been a solution in that case. Impending LOC should have been picked up by the crew before it happened. As with Buffalo, proper stall recovery would have gone a long way in saving the aircraft. In the Buffalo accident, it was the cockpit composition and any number of 'what were they looking at' human factors.

It's easy to look for and spot common trends during accident analysis. A weakness in upset recovery skills has always been there. Has it not?
Will special focus on that specific item in a pilots tool kit reap the benefit ICATEE suggest? Is it worth the cost? Will the industry fund it at a time when airlines are going out of business and the economy is in such a weakened state?

And what about shoddy pitot static systems that are inadvertently flown into severe icing which lead to confusing instrument displays or the lack of them? Do we need to be looking at certification issues or supplier issues?

While they have to participate in the discussion, I am leary of representatives from the Training organizations sitting in on these committees as I see them as a conflict of intere$t. My experience is that all of them are keen to offer training. Look at the MPL. How keen were they to support that movement at the expense of deviating around experience.

EASA want a 'one-size-fits-all' solution for URT. Upset LOC has many possible scenarios and URT will offer limited solutions. This fact alone will create a nightmare in a simulator. URT may be more than what we have now, but that too is likely to fall short.

Willie :ok:

[4Greens]

I can assure you that "coffee clatch elitist training groups" including myself are all volunteers so any cost is minimal. All are very experienced industry people.

On another matter, I am somewhat bemused that there is only one response to this news item.

[Willie Everlearn]

I would agree, the ICATEE working group is an experienced collection of personalities, as opposed to a coffee clatch.
Undoubtedly, the work they are doing is indeed valuable.
But I still have to wonder why try to solve an epidemic problem when we don't have an epidemic.
Aren't there nearly as many potential upsets as there are species of flowers?
One also has to wonder when looking at 'industry working groups' and 'committees' why the work they do is so closely related and in some cases a duplication?

I also wonder why there aren't more participating in this discussion.

Willie :ok:

[4Greens]

Just as a follow up, the ICATEE report is on its way to be the basis of an ICAO requirement.
Then we will see some interest.

[ZFT]

Unfortunately this will get as much 'interest' from EASA, FAA and other NRAs as 9625 Edition 3 is getting. Their processes for any adoption is so ridiculously laborious.

Again like 9625 ed 3, the industry will have to (try to) move this forward without regulatory back up.

[4Greens]

Check out 'bburks' posts on recovery training in Rumours and News.

[SmsPro]

Anybody hearing any action on ICATEE? I'm interested in following developments.

Thanks

[4Greens]

The next news will be from ICAO. This takes some time.