ADF v. GPS
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Peter
I hope you don't mean me. I never dispute that autopilot is a wonderful tool, even a basic wing leveller allows one to relax in the cruise and spare some capacity to manage the flight.
However in the case mentioned, ie Cork, it had nothing to do with the accident. I know you don't hold people who fly for a living in any regard, but hand flying for an hour or two is no big deal, a pain in the backside perhaps but not an issue. A good crew will assist each other, take a shot each in the cruise if it's a long trip etc etc. Indeed the practice that hand flying gives means that their manual flying skills will be first class, and shooting approaches manually second nature.
Sadly in this case poor decision making seems to be the cause. Three approaches to an airfield they were never going to get in to legally, ignoring the approach ban, refusing to divert and continuing below minimas all point to blatant pilot error. The interim report just published also mentions the power levers being brought into the beta range whilst airborne. Lethal. It also mentions the Captain operating the power levers whilst the FO flies. Again this shows poor judgement and a disregard for basic CRM.
I hope you don't mean me. I never dispute that autopilot is a wonderful tool, even a basic wing leveller allows one to relax in the cruise and spare some capacity to manage the flight.
However in the case mentioned, ie Cork, it had nothing to do with the accident. I know you don't hold people who fly for a living in any regard, but hand flying for an hour or two is no big deal, a pain in the backside perhaps but not an issue. A good crew will assist each other, take a shot each in the cruise if it's a long trip etc etc. Indeed the practice that hand flying gives means that their manual flying skills will be first class, and shooting approaches manually second nature.
Sadly in this case poor decision making seems to be the cause. Three approaches to an airfield they were never going to get in to legally, ignoring the approach ban, refusing to divert and continuing below minimas all point to blatant pilot error. The interim report just published also mentions the power levers being brought into the beta range whilst airborne. Lethal. It also mentions the Captain operating the power levers whilst the FO flies. Again this shows poor judgement and a disregard for basic CRM.
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Yes the AP does reduce workload Peter.
Approach bans were brought in for a reason. They do work.
Have you actually read what they did?
http://www.aaiu.ie/upload/general/13...2011_005-0.PDF
There is nothing to think about if your given an rvr of 300/350/500 and your CAT I only. If you have an AP or not.
Then to be given 350/350/400 and to continue to go around at 100ft agl. off a CAT II runway which lighting is all I can say is impressive.
Then have another shot when it was 350/350/350 and bust it this time by 110ft
Then have a go again when its 500/400/400 again to bust mins by 100ft. then to unfortunately crash off the Go-around. Which I might add even if you do have a AP would be disconnected as soon as you pressed the TOGA button
For those that don't know CAT I is 550m RVR and CAT II is 300m.
I really really can't see how an AP would have changed matters Peter they should have never left the hold.
All IR pilots both professional and private should have a bloody good read of that report.
O and I don't think using either the GPS or ADF would have effected the out come in this case.
Approach bans were brought in for a reason. They do work.
Have you actually read what they did?
http://www.aaiu.ie/upload/general/13...2011_005-0.PDF
There is nothing to think about if your given an rvr of 300/350/500 and your CAT I only. If you have an AP or not.
Then to be given 350/350/400 and to continue to go around at 100ft agl. off a CAT II runway which lighting is all I can say is impressive.
Then have another shot when it was 350/350/350 and bust it this time by 110ft
Then have a go again when its 500/400/400 again to bust mins by 100ft. then to unfortunately crash off the Go-around. Which I might add even if you do have a AP would be disconnected as soon as you pressed the TOGA button
For those that don't know CAT I is 550m RVR and CAT II is 300m.
I really really can't see how an AP would have changed matters Peter they should have never left the hold.
All IR pilots both professional and private should have a bloody good read of that report.
O and I don't think using either the GPS or ADF would have effected the out come in this case.
Last edited by mad_jock; 13th Feb 2012 at 19:24.
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Yes I agree it was lousy decisionmaking, minima busting, etc. They should have diverted right away.
But I don't accept that a crew flying by hand is - for any given level of competence - going to be as fresh as one assisted by an AP.
Aviation is full of cases where people do apparently stupid things. I bet most of them would not have made them in an armchair. Perhaps not even AF447?
And even if these crazy pilots did proceed with the approach (as they did) to Cork, if they had an AP which actually works they could have flown with it, tracking the LOC/GS down to about 50ft. Stupid and illegal yes, but it would have worked out fine.
It is not a matter of whether I hold people who fly for a living in regard or not. Actually I do very much and have always enjoyed flying with such pilots because I can usually learn something from them. What I don't like is (some) people being pompous about it.
But I don't accept that a crew flying by hand is - for any given level of competence - going to be as fresh as one assisted by an AP.
Aviation is full of cases where people do apparently stupid things. I bet most of them would not have made them in an armchair. Perhaps not even AF447?
And even if these crazy pilots did proceed with the approach (as they did) to Cork, if they had an AP which actually works they could have flown with it, tracking the LOC/GS down to about 50ft. Stupid and illegal yes, but it would have worked out fine.
It is not a matter of whether I hold people who fly for a living in regard or not. Actually I do very much and have always enjoyed flying with such pilots because I can usually learn something from them. What I don't like is (some) people being pompous about it.
I always remember the 'limitation' which applied to one F-4 aircraft I once flew:
"Autopilot must be used with caution. May cause random +4G pitch moments"
I don't think anyone ever used the autopilot in the F-4 even when it was allegedly serviceable. Even on the few occasions we flew airways.
I don't think we had ADF, let alone GPS. Just INS and TACAN.
"Autopilot must be used with caution. May cause random +4G pitch moments"
I don't think anyone ever used the autopilot in the F-4 even when it was allegedly serviceable. Even on the few occasions we flew airways.
I don't think we had ADF, let alone GPS. Just INS and TACAN.
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Crazy as it sounds sometimes if your knackard hand flying perks you up. Gets your hormones running and mind working relieves the bordom. It actually forces your SA up a gear as well. Until you have done 6 days in a row flying 4-8 sectors a day starting at 6am then moving after three days to starting at 11am finishing at 9pm or later you can't know the feeling and thats not ment to sound pompous.
So after they have flown two approaches with no deviations to note on the report your solution would be to have an Autopilot and then to decend down to 50ft (and they had aready been down to 90ft) which is 150ft below thier mins in a 7 ton TP travelling at about 130knts? And to be honest you and I don't know if it would be fine.
But did they not send a bloke along to supervise you and deal with that sort of thing?
So after they have flown two approaches with no deviations to note on the report your solution would be to have an Autopilot and then to decend down to 50ft (and they had aready been down to 90ft) which is 150ft below thier mins in a 7 ton TP travelling at about 130knts? And to be honest you and I don't know if it would be fine.
I don't think we had ADF, let alone GPS. Just INS and TACAN.
??
The EGNOS and WAAS ground stations provide correction information to the transponders on the GeoStationary satellites. You don't receive the ground station information directly.
The EGNOS and WAAS ground stations provide correction information to the transponders on the geostationary satellites. You don't receive the ground station information directly.
My (wonderful) Garmin had EGNOS reception selected ON; today I'll try ith with EGNOS reception selected OFF and see whether I get similar accuracy.
GPS satellites are in lower orbit (20000 km) than geostationary (36000 km). Given that many vehicles in the GPS constellation were in orbit a long time before EGNOS, I can't really see that a direct satellite-to-satellite link would be feasible - or that the US would welcome other nations' systems doing so.
Anyway, 'tis all magic and beats the pants off ADF!
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you cannot complete a published RNAV, GPS, GNSS, WAAS, EGNOS approach using such basic GPS equipment. You also as an operator require approval from the FAA or CAA together with the correct equipment before conducting these approaches.
What you can do legally is fly a non precision approach as a GPS overlay, providing you have monitored ground based information i.e. an NDB or VOR needle displayed.
What you can do legally is fly a non precision approach as a GPS overlay, providing you have monitored ground based information i.e. an NDB or VOR needle displayed.
Fly Conventional Gear
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In the US to fly GPS approaches all you need is IFR GPS...
As far as autopilots are concerned the crucial difference is that most people on here fly single pilot IFR, for which an autopilot is very useful (although I have managed almost 3 hours without one on a number of occasions...). For multi pilot obviously they are not as important.
As far as autopilots are concerned the crucial difference is that most people on here fly single pilot IFR, for which an autopilot is very useful (although I have managed almost 3 hours without one on a number of occasions...). For multi pilot obviously they are not as important.
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In the US to fly GPS approaches all you need is IFR GPS...
Same under EASA, actually.
EGNOS is nothing to do with this. EGNOS (WAAS in the USA) applies to LPV approaches only (GPS lateral guidance with a GPS synthetic glideslope). Currently the UK has just one of these, in Alderney, AFAIK.
And for private ops, there is no regulation (UK, EASA or FAA) specifying which navigation source should be used at any particular phase of a flight.
All that stuff about monitoring an ADF (etc) while flying an NDB approach using a GPS is out of AOC ops manuals (which in any case vary according to what the local CAA has approved). It is sensible to check the ADF (like backing up a GPS enroute with VOR/DME) but it is not a legal requirement for private ops. You merely need to carry a working ADF.
Compared to a GPS, the ADF will do little more than to confirm you are pointing at say Gatwick and not Manston
Who is this Cath B? Does anybody have a photo?
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You merely need to carry a working ADF.
I have flown NDB procedures in the UK on an N-reg having such an IFR approved mounted panel GPS without an ADF onboard. Is that in violation of a regulation ?
Compared to a GPS, the ADF will do little more than to confirm you are pointing at say Gatwick and not Manston 
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I have flown NDB procedures in the UK on an N-reg having such an IFR approved mounted panel GPS without an ADF onboard. Is that in violation of a regulation ?
But I don't think the UK is the only country requiring the carriage of an ADF for IFR in CAS. Last time I looked (a few years ago) Switzerland was the same, and Germany mandated it for something like night VFR.
Equipment carriage regs are an airspace requirement so they catch all aircraft flying there, regardless of the State of Registry.
The American GPS-for-ADF substitution concession is of no value in Europe.
That said, there is no evidence that any of the countless SR20s and SR22s sold in the UK without an ADF or DME have ever been prosecuted, and everybody has known about this for a long time.
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There's a crazy amount of moaning on these forums about how NDB/ADF sucks.
Yeah, we know and we are all in agreement. Point taken.
Now why don't people get off their chairs and keyboards and actually talk to and BUILD RELATIONSHIPS WITH REAL PEOPLE and develop a Euro-wide program to get rid of this thing?
Building rapport with anonymous Internet characters ain't the best way of developing such a program.
Yeah, we know and we are all in agreement. Point taken.
Now why don't people get off their chairs and keyboards and actually talk to and BUILD RELATIONSHIPS WITH REAL PEOPLE and develop a Euro-wide program to get rid of this thing?
Building rapport with anonymous Internet characters ain't the best way of developing such a program.
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Until the very recent change by the UK CAA (to which I can't find the link right now), yes.
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Above the Clouds,
What Peter was saying is there is no regulation that requires you to be using a specific navigation aid when flying a non-AOC operation. Not that you do not require the specified instruments to be on board and working and the navaids to be working.
So there is no rule against flying an approach marked NDB while looking at your hand held GPS (although you must have a working NDB on board and the navaid must be working). Clearly you still need to follow the flight profile and if you fail to achieve that, you could reasonably by done for Careless and Reckless if you were using something clearly not up to the job. And I suspect a cheap GPS with hand entered coordinates might fit that criteria in the event of a crash that can be directly pinned on say an incorrectly entered waypoint.
The most common sensible application of this would be to fly and NDB procedure using a approach approved GPS/FMS. One would normally also of course load up the raw data as a cross check, but certainly I would be flying primarily with reference to the GPS data.
What Peter was saying is there is no regulation that requires you to be using a specific navigation aid when flying a non-AOC operation. Not that you do not require the specified instruments to be on board and working and the navaids to be working.
So there is no rule against flying an approach marked NDB while looking at your hand held GPS (although you must have a working NDB on board and the navaid must be working). Clearly you still need to follow the flight profile and if you fail to achieve that, you could reasonably by done for Careless and Reckless if you were using something clearly not up to the job. And I suspect a cheap GPS with hand entered coordinates might fit that criteria in the event of a crash that can be directly pinned on say an incorrectly entered waypoint.
The most common sensible application of this would be to fly and NDB procedure using a approach approved GPS/FMS. One would normally also of course load up the raw data as a cross check, but certainly I would be flying primarily with reference to the GPS data.