Yes I really need visual approach practice at 2 am body clock time........:mad:

Hand Flying
 

You do not meet RVSM requirements while hand flying therefore one would hope no one operates an aircraft in manual flight while in RVSM airspace except under an emergency situation.

The way it works in HKG you're descended out of RVSM airspace not long after the FIR boundary.

A hand flown, high speed descent, is of considerable training advantage, providing a muscle memory for aircraft handling which is considerably different to the 30 seconds of flight per sector, most pilots do at VAPP. It also helps with speed brake panache, understanding the inertia and pitch moments, hopefully relative to a little pax comfort. And of course, for A320 drivers, when you're left high and dry by ATC, the full application of speed brake is only available with AP off.

The culture of over-speeding in HKG was a shock to many new arrivals with Airbus experience. There were legendary, serial offenders and the eventual solution that ended up in the manuals was the approach to overspeed and overspeed. Basically and comically a "managed" overspeed whereas a few hand flown descents and looking at your AH if in a managed descent mode would avert an overspeed long before it was threatening. And no, HKG airlines do not fly the aircraft hard and fast, so having worked for airlines that did, and over speeding was unheard of, the culture and technique here was inappropriate.

So, to answer propaganda's question on HF descents and raw data flying, the system is not terribly supportive with unrealistic operational restrictions that present a negative training exposure. So the fear the system has for pilots hand flying on the line is manifesting itself into a wider reluctance to enable First Officers to practice their hand flying.

Some will say that's what the sim is for but they are not the same as aircraft handling in real time. Apart from small IRS track errors and convective turbulence which often trouble a cadet, the aviation exposure of an MPL is low and there is a genuine fear with hand flying a real aeroplane that needs to be overcome. Coupled with an aversion by many line captains to expose their operation to training 150 hour pilots in big jets and you have a crisis that is not well understood by leadership.

Anyways, not relevant here and I'll let it drift back to a CX thread.

Flew with a newly checked out MPL some time ago over a couple of days and noticed that the AP was on at 200ft and off at 500 on approach. Asked why he is reluctant to hand fly and he just stated "To Hard" and he gets adequate practice in the simulator.

Different generation I guess.

JY.

Too hard hand flying an Airbus???? It's basically flying itself anyway!!!

Heard a story some time back about an ex-USMC Top Gun instructor flying the A320 in Oz who would turn everything off at 10000'. Everything - FDs, autopilot and autothrust. No matter what the weather. All approaches was exceptionally flown.
When asked if he flew like that on a line check he said that he did. When asked what did the check captain say he replied "Not a f@#$k'n thing".

Hey, ex-usmc top gun instructor...feeling better now?

Semper Fi !:ok:

Sorry for bringing up an old thread:

Just read an interesting post in regards to the different opportunities between KA and CX.

18 sectors per year as an FO in CX, is completed in just over a month in KA. A recent ATPL "cadet" with 1500 hours (1300 Jet time), with a landing every 2 hours (650, with 50% of those done by captain), would have done 325 landings. Sure maybe 10 of those were hard (firm) landings, but there are still 315 standard landings. The long debate whether MPL/Ab initio cadets can "fly" the plane shouldn't be a mystery. Each time you hear a western accent on 121.6 after vacating a runway, it's highly likely a "cadet" just landed the aircraft.

EDIT: Yes, I am a cadet product.
Edit 2: misused "hard" for firm landings.

A, WTF are you talking about??

B, read A.

You are saying that it is ok to do 1 hard landing in every 10!!!

God help us...

I stand corrected. Should have said firm and within operational limits instead of "hard".

Edit: 10 in 315 is around 3 in 100.

I can assure you ASRs and QAR indicate a small amount of actual hard landings.

Hey Crash-bandicoot, "firm and within operational limits" on 3% of landings on a widebody is still unacceptable. Shows where we are headed with experience levels worldwide on WB, and management "well, it'll have to do, won't it?".

In this case, Capt placed in unenviable situation...personally, I would not have placed these conditions in FO's lap with (her) experience level, a decision made before ToD briefing...Penang + cb's.

CX had 15kt Max x-wind for FO when I was there decades ago. Dragon same?

20kt. Firm landings...do you consider the autoland firm? Every half year we practice autoland and every time I am reminded that is an Airbus (320) definition of a landing which I consider firm.

I believe we all have different opinions on what is firm and what is hard.

Crash was a great game Btw.

Cheers

The auto-land is safer and smoother at touchdown than a cadet for the first year or so. :}

As it should be I suppose but Mr Crawford eat some humble pie.

Crawford, the fact that you think that a firm landing is acceptable makes me want to never give a landing to a cadet again...

It's about time you realised that this job is not all about you. It's about the captain who is responsible for your actions. And that aside, where's the pride in your so called career??

I feel for the FO in this event. A great operator who will have a great career in KA, and that's because that person feels responsible for what happened and will strive to ensure it never happens again, in other words, realises that it's not acceptable to accept a "firm" landing as normal.

Be calm and let others operate
 

hope not to drift too much but we have a certain demographic group who is quite nervous when they operate.
At times ridiculous.....

Is that your Management pilots?
Or do you mean cadets, poms, Amhericuns, Asians, Aussies, Kiwis or who?
Sorry if I missed the subtlety of the inference, but I am intrigued...

5 pages of rubbish and the aircraft didn't even need a gear change apparently. Not like the recent little CX 2.2G landing.... Oops. I don't think it was a cadet landing this time.

most JFO's doing base training are cadets these days but, more to the point, WTF were they thinking doing base training in those conditions???

No wonder a lot of the landings are crap, they never got a fair change to bed down the basics :ugh:

I think it is more a reflection on the BTC rather than the guy doing training.