Airbus becoming too "Pilot-Proofed"

[VH-Cheer Up]

Chimbu chuckles:
if you don't learn to fly before getting in a (airline) jet you will never learn in an airline jet.
Yesterday 21:54

Ain't that the truth!

[Like This - Do That]

Is that problem something that could only be confined to an Airbus (or any other FBW) aircraft?

I mean, would not a similar too-low thrust setting have resulted from putting a TOW that was 100 tonnes light into a Boeing FMC?

You mean like putting metric units of fuel into the tanks but reading Imperial? Must have been an Airbus at Gimli too ..... errr hang on!

[Nuthinondaclock]

Kyle's Brother

Nicely put there Chuck. I'm not so impressed with Ms Divine's article though. I can't see where she's got any facts to support her arguments. I thought Mr Sandilands summed it up fairly well, though I think he might also be a bit protective of HIS turf. Pretty funny really.

Ben Sandilands writes:

Miranda Devine expanded her repertoire of hate filled kultur war persecutions of people who offend the decent common sense of ordinary conservative Aussie battlers or anyone who likes native trees this week to Qantas and its dangerous computer driven giant Airbus un-American monster jet.

This was in the same journal of record that sold wrap around faux front page ads extolling the A380 airliner and Singapore Airlines on the occasion of its world debut into service between Sydney and Singapore on 25 October 2007.

‘Too late to reboot in the air’ is typical of the journalistic genre that panders to the anger and bewilderment of slower witted less well educated conservatives.

It manages to mash the Air France AF447 disaster, involving an Airbus A330, into a diatribe about Airbus in general, computers in cockpits, Qantas, and the largest airliner yet built, the A380, which Qantas was the third airline to put into service last October.

The diatribe gets it almost totally wrong.

Disgruntled passengers on the new Qantas A380 luxury superjumbos have started calling it the A3-Lately or the A-180 (as in degrees), because of delays as long as eight hours.

And, according to one Qantas insider, premium business passengers are demanding to be on the old Boeing 747, saying there is "absolutely no way" they are travelling on the Airbus A380 because of the unreliable departures.

Miranda, only eight hours late! After a year in which a Qantas international departure anytime in the 24 hours after it was scheduled to leave was interpreted as unparalleled punctuality by a besieged management this is proof of a massive improvement.

Another passenger reported an A380 flying to LA earlier last month had a faulty fuel gauge which showed a full tank halfway into the flight.

If there isn’t a full tank somewhere in any jet flying non-stop to Los Angeles when it is halfway across the Pacific you can look forward to diverting to Honolulu for more fuel, or completing the journey to nearest land fall in a very large inflatable raft.

You made it up, didn’t you? Passengers don’t get to read fuel gauges.

Just like you heard second or third hand, if not dutifully noted directly from the same publicist, your joke about the A-180, or the A3-Lately, the same guy who has been dribbling this nonsense into the ears of the aviation media for months and who tell him to p-ss off.

You are so easy.

There appear to be issues with plane layout as well. According to one flight attendant, when Russell Crowe was travelling in first class in the A380 recently, he complained about the noise from people walking up and down a set of stairs next to the first class suites. (The actor did not return a call yesterday.)

Crow is a smart dude.

The A380 is so quiet first class passengers could hear any clatter nearby. A barrier has since been erected to stop business class passengers using the stairs to access first class toilets.

The barrier has been there from day one. If you had paid attention to the voices in Boeing the complaint is that passengers in 1A can hear passengers fart in 99A. This is untrue. Extensive testing of this claim by aviation media verifies that you can only hear them over short distances.

And while pilots who fly the A380 say they are confident in the planes, the Air France A330 crash last month and other recent incidents involving high tech Airbuses have sparked concerns about over-reliance on technology which has essentially "pilot-proofed" aircraft.

Really. A380 pilots told you that? Not old 707 pilots? Or are you just gratuitously smearing the A330 accident all over the Qantas A380?

Here are some facts. Since 1995 when the A330 went into service the fatal accident record for Boeing 747s is nine crashes, the Boeing 757 four disasters (not including 9/11) the Boeing 767 three disasters (9/11 excluded) and the Boeing 737 with a total of 27 crashes with one or more on board killed.

The Boeing 717, 777 and Airbus A340 types have not had a fatal crash in their entire services lives to date.

The only other fatal accidents to ‘computer dependant’ Airbus models have been four since 1995 to single aisle A320, or 8 since entry into service which compares remarkably well against the 737 family since that year, even since before that year, despite their being a larger number of the single aisle Boeings in service.

There is not a scintilla of correlation between the computer systems used in ALL modern airliners, not just Airbuses, and fatal accidents, other than a series of incidents, like the Hudson River splash down where the computer generated flight envelope protections made the job of the pilots involved less distracted than it would otherwise have been.

Boeings limit pilot inputs to the critical flight control surfaces too. But they give the boys more to ‘feel’ with a traditional control column between their legs. Boeing is currently trying to get its much delayed Dreamliner 787s into the air for the flight testing of what is not just an airliner largely made out of plastic, but more dependant on computers than anything Airbus has yet attempted.

The angst about Airbuses, especially the A380, is that they are EUROPEAN and this is bad, wicked and immoral, despite the fact that the European industry makes half the engines on the 737s, and the critical rear pressure bulkhead on every 787, and the US industry makes around 40% or more of some Airbuses and the 787 is largely made in Japan and final assembled (once Boeing sorts out its act) in America.

Around the world, aviation experts and pilots are debating whether planes are becoming too automated for pilots to control in emergencies, in which computers override pilots.

Essentially pilots are flying a computer in the sky. "And sometimes things go wrong with your computer," says the A380 captain Barry Jackson, president of the Australian and International Pilots Association. "It's pretty hard to reset something in the air."

Captain Jackson clearly isn’t as smart as Russell Crow, but he does know his aircraft, and he also knows that pilots like himself reset computers in flight without drama in Boeings and Airbuses somewhere every day.

Is your note correct, or did he screw up?

The problem with the A380 fuel gauge was a design problem that Qantas engineers have since developed a maintenance procedure to prevent.

Actually it was mostly about keeping the tanks clean.

Investigators of the Air France Airbus A330-200 flight 447 from Rio to Paris which disappeared on May 31 with 228 people, have been looking at technological malfunctions, beginning with the plane's speed sensors, combined with stormy weather, as the cause of the crash. The A330 is typical of the fly-by-wire aircraft that use electronic systems to control the plane rather than hydraulic or mechanical devices.

Miranda, they all use hydraulic systems and mechanical devices as well as computers.

The Australian Transport Safety Bureau has also been investigating recent incidents caused by computer glitches on high tech planes.

Since about 1990, when glass cockpits appeared on the first 747-400s.

Your references to the Melbourne incident with the Emirates Airbus A345 (that didn’t begin climbing until it was 292 metres past the end of the runway) gets it completely wrong.

If it wasn’t for the flight envelope protections found in that type of jet the rebuilding of Keilor Park and the air crash Royal Commission would be among the headlines of these days.

The computer control issues in aircraft are important and there is a serious discussion going on in relation to how the essential aerodynamic realities of flight must never be put out of mind by pilots flying today’s jets.

It makes the investigation of AF447 relevant to most airlines where management is no longer connect with the flight standards concerns of those that fly and maintain their fleets.

Think of this disconnection between pilot training issues and the cost fixations of airline executives as a metaphor for Fairfax and a management that sees professional journalism as content provision, and allows the sort of drivel you write to get into print.

Saucer of milk, table for two?

[neville_nobody]

Spruce Goose et al, I 100% with your theories when it comes to Boeing aircraft as they are designed as aircraft. The issue is that the Airbus design philosophy is totally different. You don't just turn it off and fly it easily. Experience learnt in conventional aircraft is applicable to Boeing but not necessarily to Airbus

[Transition Layer]

"A-180" and "A3Latey" are so last week...

The new name for the A380 is Sarah-Jessica Parker.

High Maintenance and f*cking ugly!

[DutchRoll]

Well said Nuthinondaclock!

I agree with BJ's comments, but Miranda is taking 1 + 1 and telling us all it equals 5,724 regarding the Airbus. For all we know at the moment, this accident could've been just pilot mishandling of an otherwise completely survivable system failure. We just don't know yet.

Most of the incidents she strings together are completely unrelated, and her column is riddled with distortions. All this coming from me, a Boeing pilot!

I'm not saying everything is perfect, and there are certainly problems to be resolved. However we as pilots have to deal with the technology as it advances. Geezus, even the bloody Tiger Moth has its vices (yes I'm actually endorsed on it) and has left a considerable number of pilots buried beneath headstones, and you don't get much more "stick-and-rudder" than that! If pilots don't like it or are finding it hard to come to grips with, then it's time to retire.

[Obie]

Ah, Yes!...the DH 82...scared myself sh*tless the first time I spun it!

Them were the days that separated the men from the morons!!

[The Bunglerat]

Re the thread title, "Airbus becoming too pilot-proofed," I can offer this perspective: my first jet type rating was Airbus, and I couldn't have picked an easier type to do it on. Fly-by-wire is brilliant - when it works as it's supposed to. No trimming required, constant auto-thrust even when "hand-flying" the thing - not that you could ever really call it that, as you can disconnect everything on the glareshield and yet hand-flying on the sidestick is really just like flying with permanent control wheel steering engaged (just a small flick of the wrist to point it where you want it to go, and it'll sit there all day long until you point it somewhere else). Weight and sheer physical size aside, it was far easier to fly than most of the clapped out bugsmashers I'd flown for years prior to it, particularly for the fact that I'm reasonably computer literate, and didn't have any major issues with the automation.

In contrast, my second (and current) type is one of Seattle's finest, and after the joys of fly-by-wire, quite frankly I found it bloody hard work! I had to use back-pressure in the turns again, and having to trim the bastard?!? Strewth! No automation means no automation. If you're gonna disconnect the autopilot, so too the auto-throttle. In other words, you really have to FLY the damned thing. Needless to say it came as quite a rude shock. However after clocking up some time on type now, I can say with hand on heart that I am a better pilot for it. I still don't hand-fly as much as I could, but in saying I'm better off, it's because I can't afford to be anywhere near as lazy as I was on the Bus. If I take my eye off it for just a moment, it could be off and running (particularly during descent with a big tailwind up the clacker, as VNAV PATH is next to useless at times). That said, I still love the Airbus, and would go back to it in a heartbeat if I didn't enjoy working where I am so much. It's a great machine that does many things way better than aeroplanes beginning with "B," but the trap is that it can also turn you into a rather lazy pilot if you're not careful. At least the Boeing keeps me honest.

[oicur12]

A lot of the skills required to fly a Boeing are simply not required when flying an Airbus.

And the opposite is also true.

Maintaining raw data, manual thrust skills like an ace when flying an airbus might make you feel all warm inside but such skills will rarely, if ever, be required. Move on, get over it. Unless your airline places an order for a bunch of 727's or DC-9's, as much fun as that would be.

[QFinsider]

What suprises me is that as pilots we seem to relish the dumbing down of our profession. People do not naturally adapt to 35,000 feet, move at 1000kph and cope with temperatures at -56 deg C. It is an environment very like the sea. Unforgiving and quick to extract a price on the foolhardy. Whether it is is boeing or airbus (and I have my own view) surely recognising that the man in the left seat or right are as valuable as the latest whizz bankg gadget.

A well trained pilot is the final chance to avoid a catasptophic disaster. We as people are falllible. As professional pilots we all know this and try to mitigate it. Experience is important. Why is is that in aviation, it is deemed less relevant when compared to say a CEO how experienced a pilot is? The better trained, respected and experienced a pilot, surely the better the safety outcome.

To rely on a programmed set of outcomes to with the exclusion of the human being may make for a reduction in training budgets. To assume though that training and experience are big costs, trying having an accident.

[Obie]

Can we delete the second post above? I'm getting eye ball bounce!

[AnQrKa]

"The better trained, respected and experienced a pilot, surely the better the safety outcome."

A well trained pilot will provide a safe outcome.

A "better" trained pilot will provide beyond a safe outcome.

Why would a company pay a premium on training result B when result A is fine?

[blow.n.gasket]

To better prevent the ever increasing number of holes in the swiss cheese Risk model from lining up?
Pilot's are more and more becoming the last line of defence in the management mindset LCC inspired cost cutting era.

Let's face it ,it doesn't take all that much training to pass a Command Instrument Rating test.

However what makes a good Captain?
I believe one of the fundamental requirements is Risk Management and more importantly Risk recognition.
A lot of this comes under the subject of Situational awareness.
I believe a lot of this is learned "on the job" and can't really be taught effectively. You can teach the basics ,but it is very hard to put an old head on young shoulders.

What I believe to be one of the biggest risks to young rapidly expanding airlines (sound familiar) is lack of flight deck experience when it comes to recognising a risk before it turns around and bites you ,forcing you to use some rarely used skills barely covered in your endorsement training.

Look at Qantas 10-15 years to command, numerous years in the back seat followed by a number of years in the right seat prior to migration to the left seat.All this time being exposed to countless years of "Aviation experience". A lot of training/learning by osmosis there not to mention 3-4 Sims a year along with countless route checks all multiplied by 10-15 years worth. As a result the training section as a pretty good idea about the strengths and weakness of a Command Trainee prior to commencement of their training.

Look at the experience of some of the LCC carriers in Australia to date. Rapid expansion with some very inexperienced pilots obtaining commands in as little as 2-3 years.
What will that do for the younger pilots coming through the system as far as exposure/learning through osmosis is concerned.What sort of a "picture" does the training section at these Airlines have of a Trainee if they've only done a couple of sims prior to Command training!
Yes there are some experienced pilots in LCC's but the level of experience will tend to be patchy for a long time to come for the reasons outlined above.

At the end of the day AnQrKa if the bare minimum legislated amount of flying training is as you put it :
"will provide a safe outcome.
A "better" trained pilot will provide beyond a safe outcome.
Why would a company pay a premium on training result B when result A is fine"

Why does Qantas continuously put itself at a competitive cost disadvantage by training to standards way above and beyond to what you and obviously LCC Management believe to be safe enough?

[teresa green]

On good advice, I was told that the S/O on a aircraft that had a incident in the last 12 months (and I am not just talking Australian incidents here) got off the A/C and promptly resigned on the spot. No the problem was not his fault in way he simply could not handle the stress, it does NOT make him a wuss, he was simply in the wrong job, but how the hell did he get to S/O in the first place? If you go thru GA or the Armed Forces, this is when you find out if the job is for you. The first time you scare the sh$t out of yourself, is when you know how you react to problems, the first time you really get to know how you behave under stress, get to know yourself, (and I am talking about that airy fairy stuff you hear from head shrinkers) and most importantly if the job is for you. I don't know the history of this person, not even if male or female, but wonder how they got that far in a job that was not suitable for them in the first place, and how they were not weeded out, for their own sake, to say nothing of their PAX, and wonder if some go into flying just to please parents, or think its good money, with plenty of time off, and damm the consequences, and this is where GA and Armed Forces are usually the buffer, and I am NOT suggesting former cadets are remotely suss, most are good at what they do, but consider that it would be easier to slip thru the net, than those from GA or Armed Forces, and this could become a problem, if training starts in a sim, not in a paddock.

[Transition Layer]

5 sentences and one paragraph in 306 words...nice work for a 71 year old.

Makes it hard to take you seriously TG.

[rogerexplosion]

There appear to be issues with plane layout as well. According to one flight attendant, when Russell Crowe was travelling in first class in the A380 recently, he complained about the noise from people walking up and down a set of stairs next to the first class suites.

Thanks russ, so the plane is so quiet you can hear people walking.

...... its an aeroplane what do you want?!!

[The Professor]

"Why does Qantas continuously put itself at a competitive cost disadvantage by training to standards way above and beyond to what you and obviously LCC Management believe to be safe enough?"

What makes you think QF training standards are way above and beyond those of an LCC? Just because more simulator sessions are available to command trainees does not mean the product is any better. Do you not think that the "quality" of the training also carries weight?

"Why does Qantas continuously put itself at a competitive cost disadvantage"

Because they have done so for a thousand years and like many large incumbent airlines the staff have an entrenched mindset that makes change very difficult.

This is why Jetstar came along.

[lowerlobe]

What makes you think QF training standards are way above and beyond those of an LCC? Just because more simulator sessions are available to command trainees does not mean the product is any better. Do you not think that the "quality" of the training also carries weight?

This post by The Professor shows the current management theory of running a successful business necessitates and indeed justifies the slashing of costs regardless of the effect they have....

The Professor has just told us that training such as sim sessions are a luxury and we can reduce it to whatever minimum level a pencil pusher deems adequate.This, it appears should be calculated purely as a cost figure arrived at by some accountant and not by training and experience....

So he finishes by telling us that because 'quality' training is more expensive we should have no problems reducing it to a minimum....

I have a question for you Professor....what do you think of the revelations of the person who headed Sydney Ferries before he was pushed out the door.It seems as though used his business credit card to pay for personal expenses such as furniture,private school fees etc....

Is this the sort of management style that you endorse while at the same time cutting the cost of everything else?

[breakfastburrito]

There was a recent Airbus incident that ties the theme of "pilot proof" & training together.
VH-VQT Missed approach Melbourne


From the report

The investigation is continuing and will examine the following areas:
• flight crew endorsement training
• flight crew transition and check to line training
• aircraft operating procedures
• provision of information to flight crews
• company reporting procedures
• aircraft system operation and maintenance.

Perhaps the good Professor could cast his eye over the report & conclude that there is no correlation between the quality of training & an RPT aircraft ending up at 43' RA above the runway with the gear up, flaps in the missed approach configuration & the aircraft in approach mode at 175 kts indicated.
Lets flip the cost & quality of training argument from one of cost of providing to training, to one of the cost of NOT providing the training (j* would have simply ceased to exist had the unthinkable occured).

[Normasars]

Here we go again.

The JQ/QF "my dick's bigger than yours."

I purposefully didn't visit this site for a month or two and decided that I would sneak a look and guess what?

Fcuk All has changed.