A 320 No Flex Indication

[Boyington]

In an A320 if Flex temp in inserted in the PERF T/O page but is not displayed in the FMA, like for example Take-off without FDs do we have to give TOGA even if the Flex temp is indicated in the Upper Display Unit during the take-off roll?

[vilas]

No FD take off is flying with basics. There will be no FMA whatsoever. But FADEC will set take off thrust as entered in MCDU and will be displayed on EWD. Thrust check is anyway done with EWD. Why would you do TOGA which also won't show on FMA?

[pineteam]

Until not so long ago, our SOP requires to use TOGA in case of takeoff with no FD even so it was not required by FCOM... I don’t know why but it was mandatory to use TOGA. Not required anymore in the new SOP.

[Goldenrivett]

Hi pineteam,
I don’t know why but it was mandatory to use TOGA

There have been several incidents / accidents where crews really :mad: up by not simply setting TOGA during a take off when FLEX had not been inserted.

https://aviation-safety.net/database/record.php?id=20140313-0

[Boyington]

I was not talking about a condition where the Flex Temp is not inserted in the Perf Takeoff page. Then I agree TOGA has to be set.
What I was asking is this:
Flex Temp inserted in the Perf Takeoff page but FDs switched off. In this case the Flex Temp is indicated in the Upper Display Unit in the engine parameters. I think Vilas has answered it.

[CaptainMongo]

Hi pineteam,


There have been several incidents / accidents where crews really :mad: up by not simply setting TOGA during a take off when FLEX had not been inserted.

https://aviation-safety.net/database/record.php?id=20140313-0


Not setting flex was the least of that crews problems.

The crew had the wrong departure runway programmed. The crew recognized it late. The crew should have told tower they were not ready for TO and reaccomplished the before take off checklist. Instead the crew shorcutted SOP, chunked the new runway in, didn't reset V speeds (thus no V speeds on the PFD) didn't set flex and most certainly didn't confirm the departure procedure from the new runway.

As if all that is not enough, the Captain should not have aborted the take off 10 knots above V1.

[vilas]

Golden
The link you sent is a horrendous act of piloting. They didn't know anything. The only thing to prevent such incident is to remove these guys from the cockpit. Because another day even with FDs they will forget to enter flex and same thing will happen. To cover up their ignorance you may have to do every takeoff TOGA.

[Check Airman]

Strongly disagree vilas. Without doubt, this crew messed up, but terminating any pilot that makes mistakes is not the way forward. I've spoken to a pilot who was involved in an almost identical incident at a very large A320 operator. You didn't hear about it because the PF followed ECAM actions and selected TOGA.

[vilas]

Check Airman
You have the right to disagree. What I meant was till the pilot is trained to safe level of competence. Just because a big operator did it doesn't justify an incident. In airbus there is unambiguous warning about take off thrust not set. The procedure is to simply advance the thrust levers to TOGA. It cannot be considered a complex procedure. Pilots are humans they make mistakes nobody has any problem with that but the particular accident is full of nonstandard actions by the pilots. Mistakes compounded by mistakes. FMGS work is two man operation, then independent check by the other pilot and then lack of knowledge about what to do on take off run when the thrust is not set. Anyway the aircraft was airborne, now to rejecting take off was an insane act. Imagine the pilot dealing with a complex procedure at his level of competence. If you are comfortable with your family travelling with a pilot with this level of competence what objection can I have.

[Check Airman]

I misunderstood your original post. I agree that the accident was the culmination of a series of pretty serious errors. I assume they got a fair amount of retraining before going back to the line.

(As an aside, looking at their ages from the report, they should both be at or near retirement now)

The CA responded to the ECAM by saying "they're set". He seems to have thought that the ECAM was telling him that the levers were not properly seated in the detent, which would explain why he simply moved it down then back into FLEX instead of TOGA.

I only mentioned the size of the other operator to indicate that both crewmwmbers had significant experience in type.

[pineteam]

We had a case where the crew rejected the take off for a minor thing then vacated, did the Before take off check list again, reset both FDs prior to apply take off power and yet rejected the take off as the FMA was not showing “A/THR” in blue. Now the fact they decide to reject the take off is openned to debate. But only after that incident, I learned that “ At Takeoff, if the thrust levers are set back to idle, the A/THR disengages and cannot be rearmed until the aircraft becomes airbone.” From FCOM - Auto Flight- flight Guidance - Autothrust. I found this information very important and it would have prevented an unnecessary rejected takeoff if the crew was aware of it. But I won’t blame them,I was also unaware of that; I always thaught that by just resetting the FDs was good enough to recover everything, well not really.

[Sidestick_n_Rudder]

“ At Takeoff, if the thrust levers are set back to idle, the A/THR disengages and cannot be rearmed until the aircraft becomes airbone.” From FCOM - Auto Flight- flight Guidance - Autothrust. I found this information very important and it would have prevented an unnecessary rejected takeoff if the crew was aware of it. But I won’t blame them,I was also unaware of that; I always thaught that by just resetting the FDs was good enough to recover everything, well not really.

I must admit I have learned that only after jumpseating on a low speed RTO followed by a subsequent takeoff. Was a big surprise to me - they really should teach this stuff in type rating training

[Denti]

At Takeoff, if the thrust levers are set back to idle, the A/THR disengages and cannot be rearmed until the aircraft becomes airbone.” From FCOM - Auto Flight- flight Guidance - Autothrust.

Thanks, that is something i have not experienced and that was not really covered in the typerating i did. I learned something today.

[Metro man]

If you change the departure runway, the PERF page will prompt you to confirm the original speeds. As soon as you enter a new speed into any field the original data, including the FLEX temp is removed.

Often this occurs in a high workload situation and inserting the FLEX can be missed. Always check your FMA and if FLEX is not displayed simply go into TOGA.

A derated take off would be a different matter where the speeds assume the engines aren't giving full power and TOGA could give controllability issues with an engine failure.

[vilas]

Whilst on ATHR functions, Thrust lock has gone modification on CFM engines. It should have been there from the beginning. Following MSN numbers have this. MSN o138-0148, 0301-0335, 0249-0250, 0440, 9761 using ID button on the thrust lever will result in thrust lock. The thrust will not go to climb. Below from FCOM:

The Thrust Lock function is activated when the thrust levers are in the CL detent (or the MCT detent
with one engine out), and:
‐ The flight crew pushes the instinctive disconnect pb on the thrust levers, or
‐ The flight crew pushes the A/THR pb on the FCU, or
‐ The A/THR disconnects due to a failure

[Goldenrivett]

Hi vilas,

"In 2012 Airbus reported several in-service occurrences that drove a need to make changes to automation to ensure that aircraft did not take off with less than the required thrust (Airbus Industries, 2012). Despite the current system providing a warning to pilots that:
“ENG THR LEVERS NOT SET”
With the expected pilot action to simply advance the thrust levers from FLEX/MCT to Take-Off Go-Around (TOGA) position (Fig.3), this was not occurring and now the system will automatically give TOGA power after 8 seconds."
See FCOM PRO-ABN-70: ENG THR LEVERS NOT SET.

Some humans' flawed logic defies Airbus logic - the fact that there is not a separate "TOGA" button to press. The TOGA button logic is incorporated into the TLs being advanced to the TOGA position or the FMGCs having been programmed correctly and in the Take OFF mode with "FLEX" inserted and TLs set to MCT gate.

From Human_Error_to_Complexity (https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Karina_Mesarosova/publication/268802467_From_Human_Error_to_Complexity_Transferability_of_ Western_Based_approaches/links/5475fc6f0cf29afed6132fe6/From-Human-Error-to-Complexity-Transferability-of-Western-Based-approaches.pdf)

[vilas]

Yes I am aware of that later MOD. It is a smart modification. They have even a warning when ambient temperature increase beyond selected FLEX. I prefer airbus GA design of advancing thrust levers to TOGA for all occasions. Unlike B777 (possibly 737NG) where in the air you trigger the button and on ground you push the livers and rotate without FD and reset in the air. This caused Dubai accident. The button can also be inadvertently pressed. Pilots during type rating need to be taught to slam the thrust levers to stop and not nurse them to TOGA. After all you are just selecting maximum acceleration schedule. The incidents where pilots remaining in approach mode during execution of GA is due to wrong technique.

[IcePack]

The software in modern aircraft is there to help. Obvious but when the software is not doing what you expect, it is imperative you understand the reason. On the ground stay there until you understand the problem. Had this type of indication on the 330 a few times, taxied to a safe spot & worked out what was going on. Then departed. Except once when even the engineers couldn’t see why the thrust & v speeds were not being presented. Went the next day after an fmgc change. Apparently something had gone very wrong in it which could have caused lots of other probs. They went silent when I asked why had not the good one taken over.

To many pilots just press on not understanding what is wrong & as in this case end up in the sticky stuff.

[vilas]

Modification Operational Impact No.151852/P12367 brought about this new software.

New FADEC Logic at Takeoff:
At takeoff, if the flight crew sets the thrust levers below or to the MCT/FLX position although the
FLEX mode is not armed (FLEX TEMP value not entered in the MCDU or FLEX TEMP value
below the Outside Air Temperature), the “ENG THR LEVERS NOT SET” ECAM caution is
triggered (“ENG FLEX TEMP NOT SET”, for aircraft neither equipped with the FWC H2F3 nor
subsequent standards). This ECAM caution requests that the flight crew set the thrust levers to
the TOGA position.
With the new ECU Software Standard 5BS, if the flight crew does not set the thrust levers to the
TOGA position, the FADEC will automatically select TOGA thrust after 8 s.

With FWC H2F5 and subsequent standards, the “ENG 1(2) STALL” ECAM caution changes.
The stall detection range is increased in high-power stall conditions.

With FWC H2F6 and subsequent standards, the new “ENG SAT ABOVE FLEX TEMP” ECAM
caution is available.
This caution appears only in flight phase 2 (between first engine start and first engine takeoff
power). This caution appears when the flexible temperature (FLEX TEMP) is below the ambient
air temperature (also referred to as Static Air Temperature (SAT)) minus 10 °C. Then, the flight
crew must check the takeoff data.

With FWC H2F6 and subsequent standards, the new “ENG 1(2) REV INHIBITED” ECAM
caution is available.
Maintenance personnel activate this caution via the interactive mode to inform the flight crew of
the inoperative status of the thrust reverser due to maintenance action.