Mixed Fleet Flying for A380 and A320

[C152R]

Will QF follow suit? Interesting times ahead.

https://www.airbus.com/en/newsroom/press-releases/2021-10-mixed-fleet-flying-for-a380-and-a320-approved-by-japans-civilMixed Fleet Flying for A380 and A320 approved by Japan’s Civil Aviation Bureau

[PoppaJo]

I wouldn’t have approved that. Wrong fleet types. Both have nothing in common when you start to look at systems.

777/787 yes. Commonality is there.

A320/380. Most certainly not.

[neville_nobody]

MFF also enables airlines to interchange differently sized aircraft at short notice without crew-scheduling difficulties, allowing them to better match aircraft capacity to passenger demand.

So you drive to work thinking you are in a A380 going to the USA but end up in a Short Haul Sector Flying a A320. How much system knowledge of both aircraft do you need to be safe? You are also halving the amount of Sim exposure you get as you will only be doing it at half pace unless they want to double the amount of Sim people are doing to compensate for MFF.

[Veruka Salt]

I wouldn’t have approved that. Wrong fleet types. Both have nothing in common when you start to look at systems.

777/787 yes. Commonality is there.

A320/380. Most certainly not.

About as similar as A330/A350 mixed flying I’m familiar with.

[Ollie Onion]

I flew on an A320/A330 fleet, wasn’t rocket science.

[Torukmacto]

Need to stipulate auto lands or late one night after a long day you do a nice 320 flare forgetting your in the 380 today .

[Potsie Weber]

Need to stipulate auto lands or late one night after a long day you do a nice 320 flare forgetting your in the 380 today .

I don’t think you’d get up to initiating the flare before hitting the ground.

[FlightDetent]

About as similar as A330/A350 mixed flying I’m familiar with. To underline the irony, that is a single type rating with differences training. Not MFF from the regulatory viewpoint.

[FMS82]

Very interesting. Not sure I see the obvious commonality, but if 330/350 mixed fleet works, this may be fine as well.

[lederhosen]

I think this makes a great deal of sense. This is not a common type rating, but allowing crews who have both ratings to fly both types. My airline had a dispensation for some senior pilots to alternate (not daily) between Boeing and Airbus during the period when we were introducing a new fleet. This is actually a lot easier due to the way the Airbus fly by wire handling works. ANA won't be typing all their A320 pilots on the A380. But those that they do can fly more and certainly carry out more landings flying the minibus, rather than the limited experience provided by operating back and forth to Hawai, which was what I heard their A380s were mainly doing.

[krismiler]

Enough mixed fleet pilots have messed up ZFW and speeds with A330/A340s, hopefully the differences should be more obvious here.

It's probably doable with an A380 pilot going onto the A320, especially if he flew the baby bus on his way up the career ladder. Probably not such a good idea the other way, especially if the pilot concerned has no heavy time.

[OMAAbound]

I wouldn’t have approved that. Wrong fleet types. Both have nothing in common when you start to look at systems.

777/787 yes. Commonality is there.

A320/380. Most certainly not.

I didn't know the "Take-Off" and "Land" buttons were different in Airbus'?

OMAA

[Ascend Charlie]

You want Mixed Fleet Flying, we used to move between single-engine helicopters, twin-engine helos, then hop into a light twin aeroplane.

Never got confused whether to Land and Stop, or Stop and Land. There was a little confusion, though, where the Baron and the Chieftain had their gear and flap handles on reversed sides.

[BewareOfTheSharklets]

Swiss used to have Mixed Fleet Flying between A319/A320/A321/A330-200/A330-300. IIRC they had a separate fleet of senior crew who did MFF on just the A330s and A340s.

[ahramin]

Lets be serious here.

1. Any pilot that can fly either a 380 or a 320 well can fly both well at the same time. The TEM skills required to fly different types are the same ones required to fly one type.
2. Many pilots struggle to fly one aircraft well.
3. A pilot who struggles to fly one aircraft well will have a more difficult time flying two different types at the same time.

It all comes down to training. My most recent sim partner had the SOP down so well that every single checklist response was letter perfect. Unfortunately this meant that every time we did landings without the autothrust the checklist response for "Autothrust" was "Speed", despite the FMA being blank. Two different instructors saw this and said nothing. If a training department can't teach the basics, it's unlikely that the pilots will fly well, MFF or not. We used to change aircraft type every six months and after each switch the incidents went through the roof (including multiple aircraft climbing through 10 000' without pressurization). The solution decided upon by management was a stern lecture to the struggling pilots in question and an in increase in the quantity of poor training.