Qlink Dash 8 tail scrape Roma

[bigsquirrel]

I heard that a Dash 8 had a tail scrape on landing or take off yesterday at
Roma. Aircraft is still at Roma. Anyone know the circumstances?

Cheers

BS

[PPRuNeUser0161]

I hear it, but I don't wanna believe it!
SN

[TBM-Legend]

Let's blame Joyce...:hmm:

[Flava Saver]

Two tail strikes in 6 wks now. :eek:

[Capt Claret]

300 or 400?

[PPRuNeUser0161]

Q400 again!
SN

[JezYBBN]

Its all OK though the crew have passed the SHL testing during recruitment so it wont need to be written up or any issue made of it happening

[DutyofCare]

What happens / get when you pay Peanuts ???

Good work to management / recruiters & there grade 12 requirements !!!

So sad to see a fantastic $27million dollar machine handled by fools...

[Bahama Breeze]

Pretty sure Horizon Air has had around 8 tailstrikes on their Q400s.

Perhaps it comes down to the initial training.

But also the pay is a long way from where it should be. Increase pay to attract some more experienced folks.

[tmpffisch]

Dutyofcare, Bit far to be slamming them for their entry requirements, when you struggle with the English language yourself...

Bahama, it's pot luck whether you're on the 400 or classics, makes attracting suitable talent difficult, especially when they still compete against 2nd year Grade 3 instructors. Who wants that?

[Going Nowhere]

Command requirements just went up a fair bit too along with tightened operational restrictions for FO's.

As a result, low time FO's either won't apply or will move on quicker.

A 200-300 hr newbie will probably wait 5-7 years for a command.

I don't think more pay will lessen the risks of a tailstrike. A fundamental redesign of QLink's screening and training program would be a good start.

If you're going to employ people with low time, then your initial line training needs to reflect that and at the moment I don't think it does. Not much has changed in the training file since the average time of newbies was 2-4000 hrs.

You can't have Training Captain's spending valuable line training time on things like "Power + Attitude = Performance" and the like as has been in the past.

[bigsquirrel]

I would agree with above sentiments. I have seen them land down wind,
into Roma on Monday missed approach due to height, does not promote confidence up the front.

[AviatoR21]

Also how about the Training Captains only having 2-3 years experience in the company? Experience is non existant!

[Duck Pilot]

Have to agree that Qlinks selection process can restrict suitable applicants from applying. I know of a high time Training Captain who flies for another DHC8 operator who couldn't even apply as his application was rejected as he didn't do year 12.

There needs to be some exceptions if they want to have a experienced captains within the organisations. Seems like REX and a few other smaller operators understand this. Although I have to agree - the pay and conditions should be improved to assist with stability to make the regionals a long term career path for those interested.

There are very experience pilots on the market doing other things outside of flying who would like to fly for Qlink and the likes - but they can't get their foot in the door due to unrealistic requirements, which in the big picture account for nothing.

[Bigdog01]

How many of these have occurred. I also heard to avoid another, one landed hard enough to require gear change. Me thinks there is a systemic problem. Seems strange that this is occuring years after introduction when procedures should be down pat. :ooh:

[Ejector]

Cadets, Yip Yip ha-ray,.

[LongLats]

Most of the cadets I've flown with at QantasLink have been very impressive. Much better than a lot of the FOs that come in through direct entry with thousands of hours under their belts. It's a shame that people put them all under the same banner when 1 or 2 of them make mistakes.

I know a lot of people stuck in GA who can't get through the QantasLink recruitment process because they have the personality of a wet carrot, or the "experience" they so boldly strut around with was all built doing visual circuits in a C152, so they make a mess of the sim check. Those guys love talking about how cadets are terrible and QantasLink has flaws in it's recruitment and training. That's just because they're bitter and jealous.

If you've actually seen the quality QantasLink can produce from its cadets you'd know that these tail strikes don't reflect the entire group of them.

[jpilotj]

Perhaps the solution is to only employ 2000-3000 hour GA operators as a minimum who have plenty of time practicing the landing technique in a 1.2 T aeroplane before they jump into a 28T, completely unforgiving turbo prop. After all, long time GA experience, in a single pilot operation, only doing the annual renewal and "pushing" all the "rules" will colour a pilot in such a favourable way as that they will have the perfect multi-crew skills, procedural and regulatory understanding and compliance, leadership qualities and future management skills that any sound airline would so desire. Above all, this persons many years of operation in light aircraft will provide a more suited candidate to the cadet who has known nothing but airline operation. In no way could this said applicant ever, ever have an incident/accident, or in this case, landing event - I cannot for the life of me recall an experienced pilot ever having an incident or accident through handling error.
It's simply the only way to go about achieving consistent safety records.
As for the aptitude testing, it is clear that it is completely biased toward these highly skilled personnel.

A shame really....

[LongLats]

Perhaps the solution is to only employ 2000-3000 hour GA operators as a minimum who have plenty of time practicing the landing technique in a 1.2 T aeroplane before they jump into a 28T, completely unforgiving turbo prop. After all, long time GA experience, in a single pilot operation, only doing the annual renewal and "pushing" all the "rules" will colour a pilot in such a favourable way as that they will have the perfect multi-crew skills, procedural and regulatory understanding and compliance, leadership qualities and future management skills that any sound airline would so desire. Above all, this persons many years of operation in light aircraft will provide a more suited candidate to the cadet who has known nothing but airline operation.

Hahaha! Well said :D

[donpizmeov]

We have 250hr cadets flying right hand seat in an A330 and cripple 7 doing the business all over the world through rain, hail and snow. So I can not believe that a cadet in a Dash 8 would have too much of a problem.
These aircraft are two pilot right? Wouldn't the experienced Captain see things going astray and take over?
Perhaps the training department needs to look at intervention training as well as its line training. If you train people properly it doesn't matter how many hours they have.


the Don

[Normasars]

Don,

That is not an apples for apples comparison I'm afraid. Let's not get into the discussion of how hard jets are to fly compared to high performance turbo props. I've flown both and can tell you from where I sit, the TP is more difficult; but that's me.

These 200-300 hr cadets on 330s and 777s are flying ILS to ILS on full automatics from gear up to taxi in. You only have to see how well these folk manage on a CAVOK day without an ILS to couple up to to see the results. SFO ring a bell. Mark 1 eyeball flying is not their forte.

Flying 4-5 sector days with circling approaches into shortish strips OCTA in regional Oz is demanding flying. I did it for 13 years in a previous life.

Anyway, we weren't there. But there is always 2 sides to every story.

There for the grace of God and all that

[donpizmeov]

Norm,


We are not talking SPIFR in a Metro, we are talking right hand seat in a Dash 8. What a great place to learn job.
For the record I have flown with 200hr cadets as they circled a 330 into OPKC and SEY. I have also flown with them when they fly the 330/340 on the visual Riviera approach in Nice. You don't need a million hours to do this stuff, you just need to be trained properly.


The Don

[yadot]

The Airbus is almost incompetent free designed. Don't compare the A330 to a Dash 8. It really highlights how bias you are. Wages do dictate where the smart end up. Many of us got into this business to finally be in a position to care for a family, whilst doing what we love. If you are a cadet, that is fine! It ain't what should be debated. 1500 hours FO. It is sad though such an uneducated statement is made. Remember, cadetships were designed to attract the smartest of candidates. Not to a) sit in the right seat of a Q400 or any aircraft for that matter. An SO position on a long haul carrier is more suitable. Any cadet that gets on here ranting about how good you are, really just shows how
brainwashed you have become in your own self! Unbelievable.

[8888]

The Airbus is almost incompetent free designed.

I suspect there are some AF passenger families that might beg to differ…

[Tu.114]

So...

Are any details known on the incident at hand yet? Was it during takeoff or landing? And what about the weather?

The few things that are out until now leave me with a big question mark over my head. It seems that YROM has a 1500m runway, so landing would most likely be done with flaps 35. This in turn makes a tailstrike during flare rather unlikely, as the negative pitch during approach with this setting would rather seem conductive to a nose gear landing. Takeoff on the other hand... from my experience, the -400 is not really prone to overrotation, and on a 1500m runway the approaching runway end should still be far enough away not to scare even a low-time colleague into yanking the nose up too rapidly on rotation.

[donpizmeov]

Yadot,

I was letting norm know that all 200hr cadets don't just fly ILS to ILS as he suggested. And if you read my post again I never said I was a cadet. I am not biased at all. Just talking from experience of many years flying pistons turboprops and jets. I would also suggest that the right hand seat of a dash 8 is the perfect place for a cadet, and that the jump seat doing long haul would be the worse place. Four to five sectors a day is where you learn the trade, not seat warming mid Pacific.

The don.

[Square Bear]

PX run a Cadet system for their DH8 operation in a much more hostile environment than Aus and it seems to work ok.

Maybe the success of that program has something to do with the experience level of those sitting in the left seat

[Mail-man]

Still seems odd to me that a metro with no passengers demands more experience than a q400 full of punters.....

[Tidbinbilla]

Well, we've gone from a tail strike to women pilot bashing, and now cadet bashing (yet again). :ugh:

No wonder the industry's in the state it's in :rolleyes:

Let's get back on topic.

[PPRuNeUser0161]

So jpilot, what's your real solution, more of the same???
SN

[Paragraph377]

It would be pretty interesting to see QF's data on these tail strikes, and exactly how many there have been in total. There are a plethora of possible root causes.
Is there actually a pattern emerging?
Any change in procedures?
Any change in procedural training?
Any change to standards?
Is weather or location a factor?
Changes in rostering - fatigue?
Operational pressure?

The ATSB report will no doubt be interesting. And there is never only 1 contributing factor.

[Stink Finger]

I guess you definitely won't be getting those jets in any hurry,,,,,,, if ever.

[mustangranch]

Hey stink finger,

Maybe you should refer to this......

How Qantaslink bent a jet with a 3.6g hard landing | Plane Talking (http://blogs.crikey.com.au/planetalking/2010/05/14/how-qantaslink-bent-a-jet-with-a-3-6g-hard-landing/)

Seems cobham have issues too.

[Stink Finger]

Hello Mustang,

Already having an aircraft on an AOC and banging one up is very different to banging more than one up, that you are presently operating and going to CASA hat in hand and asking to operate bigger.

Cheers

[drivez]

To be fair the the Q400 is notorious for tail strikes. Read any operators SOP's and you will see numerous call outs and advice to avoid them. On a flap 15 landing you can quite often be approaching at 2/3 degrees nose up, if not slightly more depending on weight, and considering 6 degrees is the point at which the manual says you are likely to be risking a strike it's not a great deal to play with in the flare. Especially when you try for a greaser and just keep squeezing back, not a good idea at all! Hence why you see many pilots actually adding a little bit of power in the flare to just cushion the "landing". I'd be very surprised if anyone who flies it, regardless of experience, hasn't had at least one pitch reminder during a F15 flare.


The Q400 is a fantastic aircraft, with a fair bit of automation, but be under no illusion, it's not a jump in, press some buttons and fly away aircraft, you have to watch it like a hawk and constantly fly it, not manage it, or it will bite you on the arse.

Unfortunately that probably distracts from cadet bashing, but alas.

[RENURPP]

While I don't support the view that Sunstate are not capable of operating jets, its a bit rich to drag out 4 year old (approaching) one off heavy landing, in an attempt to discredit another operator to support the opposite view.
QF/Jetstar/Virgin/Tiger/Alliance and Airnorth (How many have I missed) have all had their turn in the spot light.

A single tail scrape is not a huge issue. If they are continual and ongoing, well that might attract some attention.

[LongLats]

So jpilot, what's your real solution, more of the same???
SN

I can't speak for jpilotj, but I don't think anyone here is going to find a solution for a problem deep seeded in an airline's training and possibly recruitment process here on PPPRuNe, especially without any hard facts. So bit of a tall order to ask of it don't you think Soup Nazi?

I think what jpilotj was getting at was that the blame can't be immediately directed straight at QLink's trainee program. FACT: the training pilot that banged the tail had just under 1000hrs. While that's not a huge amount, it's more than a lot more than what people suggest when someone brings up a trainee.

[mustangranch]

Renurpp,

Im sorry if I have offended you in any way. It was merely one of many incidents that immediately come to mind. Yes for sure I could have reeled off many others.

Point being is we aren't perfect and we don't know all the facts. As many have said the Q400 is very difficult to land, and if it is flap 15, you have no play in attitude for sink rate.

I think it is best we all stop pointing the finger and blaming people, and start working together to make our industry safer.

I hope for everyones sake, we all keep flying what we enjoy doing and keep getting paid enough to be happy.

Hope those concerned on the tail strikes are ok.

[AviatoR21]

Adding power helps with the sink rate as long as you close them straight away afterwards.

[Ned Gerblansky]

If you sieve through the preceding posts, and take out the competitive BS, the truth shines through. Airlines today MUST be also training organisations. Pilot managers MUST convince the CEOs that mere compliance is insufficient, and that the "getting of wisdom" is both instruction based AND experience based.

Classroom based "led discussion" can turn an incompetant, under-confident candidate into a calm, thinking captain. The "A" & "T" in ATPL discriminates between people who can fly an aeroplane, and those who can lead and inspire an entire crew. Guided experience can stop them from slamming into a mountain.

As Douglas Adams wrote " The trick to being able to fly is throwing yourself at the ground, and missing."

Please miss.

[In the Soup]

DutyofCare,

You're a fricken peanut yourself! And the irony of referring to a level of education? You yourself must have missed the basic english lesson.

You're in the wrong place you spanner.

[BlackPrince77]

Tailstrike > Qlink bashing > pilot bashing > cadet bashing...............PPRUNE in a nutshell

[LongLats]

Tailstrike > Qlink bashing > pilot bashing > cadet bashing...............PPRUNE in a nutshell

All we need now is some face bashing. I reckon we should all meet at YSSY and throw some haymakers to settle all our internet rage once and for all. Meet at noon, terminal 3 on Wednesday the 29th for the ultimate av-brawl.