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automation...civilian vs military attitudes

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automation...civilian vs military attitudes

Old 25th Apr 2015, 15:37
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automation...civilian vs military attitudes

"What's it doing now?", and essentially "I wish I was mechanically connected to the flight control surfaces", is something I have heard often from some civil aviators. But never from military aviators. Do I know too few of them? (I count 3). Any ideas?
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Old 25th Apr 2015, 20:01
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Cause fast jet pilots know if they were "mechanically connected to the flight surfaces" they would be dead! Without the automation they are unflyable. They are designed to be aerodynamically unstable.
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Old 25th Apr 2015, 20:12
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Military pilots can bang out if it starts going awry!
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Old 25th Apr 2015, 20:20
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The Tornado was a transition aircraft, fly-by-wire, stable, with mechanical back-up links.

The principle behind the Tornado FBW system was very simple - the stick acted as a manoeuvre demand device. Simply put, the more you moved it, the higher the rate of turn in that plane the system tried to give you. If the system detected motion the pilot hadn't asked for, e.g. a wind gust, it tried to remove that. It was smooth,but perhaps lacking in 'feel'. The mech. back-up was pretty rudimentary (e.g.no rudder) and intended only as a 'get you home'.

The auto pilot was very simple and only used occasionally whilst the pilot was busy doing something else.

The real problem the civilians have is with the automation e.g. autopilot, not the FBW, in my opinion.

Essentially civilians can still disconnect all the auto systems and fly it manually, just like mil. do, but they don't

Why not?
Company policy
Unwillingness to fly manually
Inability to fly manually

Your question should be directed towards the those points, which will vary considerably from company to company and pilot to pilot.
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Old 25th Apr 2015, 22:21
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Thats pretty broad brush to state that civilians have a problem with automation, Fox. Perhaps you'd like to justify that?

In most airlines, the stress is on using the APPROPRIATE level of automation. Most of us are fully capable of hand flying a complex STAR amongst busy traffic at 4am after 13 hours on duty. But would it be the best professional decision to choose to do so?
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Old 26th Apr 2015, 00:15
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No insult intended ShotOne. The OP refers to those who do have problems, and that is where my comments are directed. Large numbers don't have problems and use automation,as you say, correctly and to enhance Flight Safety, not diminish it.
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Old 26th Apr 2015, 01:50
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A percentage of ex-mill pilots I work with struggle with mode confusion when disengaging or reinstating automatics and poor hand flying abilities with raw data and visual flying. It's not to the extent of the civilian world where experience levels and training seem to be less than what they were a decade ago and MPL like candidates have zero flight time experience to fall back on. So if some experienced ex-mil pilots struggling I'd suggest this points to airline training system modelling themselves on manufacturer recommended minimums. Airbus is probably a good example.

Having seen a number of airline training systems, by far the best for automated aircraft was starting an endorsement process and building up the automation as the course progresses. Perhaps issues aren't totally eliminated such as mode confusion, but the pilot should have the skills to confidently disengage or engage automation, put the aircraft in its desired state and proceed with the flight phase accordingly.
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Old 26th Apr 2015, 07:07
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All the types I have flown have recommended maximum use where possible, but with an expectation that you maintain handling skills from time to time.


We have very sop driven use of automation though
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Old 26th Apr 2015, 08:43
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Following the magenta line.......

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fbQB72-4WQ0

A very candid self appraisal by an airline training pilot.
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Old 26th Apr 2015, 09:49
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Well those USAF pilots who managed to turn a perfectly serviceable C-12 in the cruise at 12000ft into a smoking hole in the ground in Afghanistan about 2009 weren't too hot on automation or hand-flying either. In the space of three minutes they managed to:
1. Select the wrong autopilot mode for climb (VS instead of FLC)
2. Failed to monitor decreasing airspeed and increasing AOA.
3. Failed to apply correct recovery when stall warning sounded (they kept autopilot connected and tried to recover using the autopilot)
4. Failed to apply correct recovery technique when aircraft flicked into a spin (they pulled back on the stick).

The USAF report is available online - you can google for it as well as I can if you are interested to read the full report.
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Old 26th Apr 2015, 15:55
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Bit unfair on those comments...

Both pilots were on their first MC-12W deployment and were inexperienced in their roles on the mishap sortie. Their limited recent experience was compounded by the fact that they had not flown together in the past…Inexperience would have made the Mishap Pilot less familiar with the MC-12W, affecting his visual scan and instrument crosscheck proficiency, and making him more susceptible to task saturation while tracking his first target on his first mission. This delayed detection of the pitch, the decreasing airspeed, and the imminent stall. During spin and spiral recovery, inexperience likely caused him to pull vice relax the yoke, and delayed prompt reduction of power. Finally, it was also the Mishap Mission Commander’s first flight as a newly qualified certifier who was just completing his second month of his first MC-12W deployment. This explains his delayed intervention in both preventing the stall and recovering the Mishap Aircraft. Limited weapon system experience is common with MC-12W combat operations due to the high rate of crews temporarily assigned to the platform. This is a result of known program risks.
and:

The MC-12W program was started in 2008 to field immediate Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance capability for combat operations in Iraq and Afghanistan and went from contract to first combat sortie in 8 months. This urgency led to several aspects of the program not being normalized, which created increased risk, particularly aircrew inexperience and lack of instructors in the combat zone. Most mission commanders are deployed with approximately 20 hours of MC-12W primary flight time. Additionally, numerous aircrews, known as “flow-throughs,” are loaned to the program from other weapon systems for 9 months and then returned to their primary airframe, creating continuous inexperience in the program…With 20 percent of the aircrews rotating in and out of Afghanistan each month, it is not uncommon for pilots to fly together for the first time on a combat sortie, such as happened in this mishap. Unfamiliarity hampers crew coordination, and the Mishap Mission Commander was slow to intervene in this mishap. The result of this program risk is inexperienced MC-12W pilots deployed in combat, and inexperience substantially contributed to this mishap.
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Old 26th Apr 2015, 17:28
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Familiarity - or lack of it - with the aircraft is one thing but most of those points are basic flying skills pertinent to any platform.
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Old 26th Apr 2015, 18:06
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Both the mishap pilots were ex-multi-heavy, so I don't think there was confusion possible over stall/spin recovery actions (some fast jets do require stick fully back for spin recovery)

From the accident report:
Training in the often unpredictable weather experienced in Afghanistan cannot be replicated at Beale Air Force Base, where it is largely clear all summer and has mild winter weather
Horsecrap. I taught at an airline training school in AZ, and we overcame this problem by deploying to the California coast to fly real IMC in the fog. Beale is only 100 miles from said coast, they could do it if they wanted.
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Old 26th Apr 2015, 19:23
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"Do I know too few of them"...? Well, aside from the pilots of the MC12 above, there's also the crew of the RAF Voyager not so long ago. Setting aside the serious lapses of professionalism which caused the event, the actions of both pilots during the recovery displayed very poor knowledge of the flight control system -to the extent that many days after the event, the Captain apparently remained convinced he'd done nothing wrong!

It's a pity that the OP chose to frame this as a military versus civilian issue because I strongly agree with his underlying point. These issues are not always well trained. Simulator sessions which would be a perfect opportunity to do so are mostly used for regulatory box-ticking with the emphasis very much on testing rather than training.
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Old 26th Apr 2015, 19:27
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As a former sim instructor, I agree completely. We worked very hard in our sims to bring in realistic training which provided feedback in a blame-free manner, but that was 20 years ago...
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Old 26th Apr 2015, 21:14
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Trim Stab

Originally Posted by Trim Stab
Well those USAF pilots who managed to turn a perfectly serviceable C-12 in the cruise at 12000ft into a smoking hole in the ground in Afghanistan about 2009 weren't too hot on automation or hand-flying either. In the space of three minutes they managed to:
1. Select the wrong autopilot mode for climb (VS instead of FLC)
2. Failed to monitor decreasing airspeed and increasing AOA.
3. Failed to apply correct recovery when stall warning sounded (they kept autopilot connected and tried to recover using the autopilot)
4. Failed to apply correct recovery technique when aircraft flicked into a spin (they pulled back on the stick).

The USAF report is available online - you can google for it as well as I can if you are interested to read the full report.
Well Trim Stab, what a completely fatuous and pathetic argument.. do you think that by quoting one (military) case study then you have proved a point? You are very wrong.

How about AA 965 in Cali in 1995..?? The report is online, as you are so keen to point out. A sad case of automation confusing the civilian crew, causing the deaths of 189 people with a perfectly serviceable aircraft. I could quote more but won't sink to your pathetic depths. Believe it or not it has happened to both civilian and military pilots and will continue to do so.

Instead of trying to score points by quoting military incidents, why not agree that all pilots from all backgrounds have suffered from mode confusion, it happens but awareness and education can help to to reduce the number of occurrences??

Last edited by Lockstock; 27th Apr 2015 at 07:04.
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Old 26th Apr 2015, 22:31
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Automation isn't the problem, it's understanding what it is doing and how to react to that, the problem with automation, and with the best will in the world is it will only do what man has programmed it to accomplish, it cannot differentiate between that which the pilot needs to know and that which they do not in abnormal circumstances.

Circumstances can be thrown up where normal fault reporting to the crew which in normal operations is acceptable suddenly could become an overload factor in critical situations.

A classic example of that, which took them 50 minutes to go through, and then they had to adjust the info the inputed to allow the aircraft to land.

http://www.flightglobal.com/blogs/wi...other-stories/

http://www.flightglobal.com/blogs/wi...th-qf32-pilot/

We had a number of checklists to deal with and 43 ECAM messages in the first 60 seconds after the explosion and probably another ten after that. So it was nearly a two-hour process to go through those items and action each one (or not action them) depending on what the circumstances were.
After shedding an $11 million dollar engine’s intermediate pressure chamber, having a continuous fuel leak that caused the port wing to be 10 tonnes lighter than the starboard wing, and addressing some 58 ECAM messages generated by the uncontained Rolls-Royce Trent 900 engine failure on Qantas flight 32 last November, Senior Check Captain David Evans inputed into a laptop’s landing distance performance application the A380′s vital signs so the computer could calculate what landing scenarios were available. The computer’s answer?

“No results could be found with these conditions.”

VH-OQA “Nancy Bird-Walton”, the flagship and first of the type delivered to Qantas, could not land, the computer determined.

Evans changed the parameters, taking out the factor for a wet runway since Changi was dry, and this time had luck, but would need more of it: the computer had generated a landing scenario for QF32 to return to Singapore. But of Changi’s 4000 metre runway 20C, the computer calculated QF32 would need 3900m, leaving a margin of 100m.

Last edited by NutLoose; 26th Apr 2015 at 22:55.
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Old 27th Apr 2015, 09:51
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Lockstock, That crash was mentioned by Trimstab to refute the OP's contention that this is a military vs civil issue. You claim to agree with him on that point (as I do). In fact the Cali accident had nothing whatever to do with automation or flight mode confusion. There are lots of others, military and civil, which any of us could have cited. The fact you picked that one suggests you either don't know much about the issue, or were just grabbing at any incident involving fault by a civilian flight crew, in your words, "to score points".

Some have tended to merge the issues of "what's it doing now" mode confusion with that of hand flying skills. In my opinion these are two separate issues; I've flown with pilots with excellent hands who are not good at reading the FMA and (less often), vice versa.

Last edited by ShotOne; 27th Apr 2015 at 19:38.
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Old 27th Apr 2015, 20:40
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How about AA 965 in Cali in 1995..?? The report is online, as you are so keen to point out. A sad case of automation confusing the civilian crew,
The crew weren't confused by automation. They lost situational awareness during a short notice change to an approach. They accepted the new approach without any appreciable consideration, leading to rushed and faulty procedures. Contributing factors were the lack of approach radar, two NDBs in the same area with the same frequency and ident and there not being a requirement to retract the speed/air brakes during the reaction to a GPWS alert. There last would probably have allowed them to clear the hilltop.
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Old 28th Apr 2015, 08:10
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Better to cite the Air France crash off Brazil - not only was there a lack of basic flying skills (select an attitude and power) but they didn't understand the logic in the sidestick controllers and the process for handing over control from co-pilot to pilot that prevented corrective action as one stick was being pulled back whilst the other vwas being pushed forwards.

The designers don't help - my current helo has a 3-axis autopilot where IAS, alt and vertical speed (all mutually exclusive) are managed through the cyclic channel - that means that with VS mode engaged (or with coupled glideslope on ILS) you are controlling speed with collective which is completely unnatural for a helicopter pilot.

Yes, you can train to understand it but if it wasn't designed in such a poor way in the first place you wouldn't have to - no wonder pilots get lost in automation.
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