Airbus Procedures and callouts
 

Hello!

I have a question concerning the fma callouts on the 320. According to fctm:

1. When we engage the autopilot is it right to say : ap1 on ? That's what is written in bold letters in the manual

2. If we get a clearance : when ready descend... And we dial the altitude in. Do we call out : FL100 blue?

Thanks so much!

Both is what i do, so far no trainer has complained...

But, coming from the boeing the second case is really a bad gotcha...

As I understand it you call all FMA modes changes.
With Colour when armed. Blue or Magenta
Without colour when active. Green or white.
As written in our FCOM PRO_NOR_SOP_FMA

What does your company manual say about the callouts? I'd do it the way they want it done.

I'm fairly new to the type, but wish Airbus would drop the FMA callouts. I don't see how it accomplishes much.

We flew without any FMA callouts nor checklists between after start and parking checklist for years. Now we switched to the OEM SOPs and of course we follow them, but do know how useless they are for our operation. The switch to OEM was dictated by cost, not by safety merit.

No FMA callouts?
FCU is fiction, FMA is the Truth

Big fan of calling everything (as per our SOPs)

Most companies on this side of the pond do not call out the FMA. I don't gain anything from calling out the FMA that simply reading it doesn't give me.

FMA is one of the most important things when flying Airbus FBW aircraft, that's why is also included in the "golden rules".

Reading FMA aloud accomplishes three things:

1. Forces you to actually read the FMA as opposed to just taking a glance over it.
2. You get two sensoric inputs: visual and audio (by listening to yourself speaking), so chances of getting the correct message to your brain are better.
3. It helps your PM to stay in the loop if he's temporarily heads down (reading a checklist, making MCDU entries, etc.).

I would suggest some advantages of reading the FMA out loud include:

1. You have to read the FMA to be able to enunciate it, so having to say it it means you have to read it;
2. Your colleague knows that you have read it;
3. You and/or your colleague may pick up an error in your read-out which could be caused by a genuine misreading or the correct reading of an incorrect FCU input;
4. Your colleague may not realise that the FMA has changed until he/she hears you say it. This will help to increase his/her SA;
5. Any standard call also serves as an incapacitation monitor. If you fail to read the FMA changes, your colleague can challenge you and maybe start the incapacitation process.

Eckhard, you have been seduced. No 4 is the only one of those that may have merit.

Probably it's because it's part of the Airbus Golden Rules. "Understand the FMA at all times".

That golden rule is fine, and actually the same on other types as well, for example boeings as long as you use the FD or AP. The need to call it out is simply an ass-covering exercise though. Although there is some bonus to it, it assures a regular wake up call when fatigued, except if your colleague decided to go raw data which does away with the FMA callouts.

Everything that you guys have said is theoretically right, except that in the real world, it doesn't really matter. Any airplane with an AP has some sort of FMA. How us is that Boeing pilots seem to do fine without reading it aloud?

My pet peeve is when the other guy reads the FMA during a radio transmission or checklist. Now I've misheard what ATC said, and need clarification. How's that for safety?

Speedwinner:

1) I call "AP2", since that's what the FMA says. "ON" and "OFF" have their specific meanings.2) We do.

Check Airman
If you are new to the bus then what you say about FMA is nothing short of blasphemy. Don't get Boeing in when flying airbus they are different design philosophies. With AP off when you pull thrust levers back what happens to Boeing doesn't happen to Airbus. Jet star Australia decided that during a go around FMA to be checked only after gear up. In poor visibility approach in Melbourne during GA pilot accidently stopped short of TOGA. PNF waited for +ve climb, PF waited to order gear up before calling FMA and the aircraft came to 40feet. Another airline with same SOP went to 14feet in IMC before ignoring FD and pulling up then following FD and again going down because FDs didn't transition to GA. They were incidents which could have been accidents and all those airlines changed back original SOPs. You may have put the switch on but you got to confirm the bulb has lit up. Unless seen on FMA it hasn't happened. Sometimes AP doesn't engage when you press so you need to check on FMA. And there is no need to set an altitude when not ready to descend.

Appreciate your input Vilas. I'm familiar with the Jetstar incident. However, did their problem stem from not verbalising the FMA, or not reading it at all? Had they read it, they'd notice MCT | GS | LOC wouldn't end well.

A Boeing will also behave unexpectedly if you don't confirm inputs via the FMA. As far as I know, only two US operators verbalise the FMA. Add that to the other CRJ, ERJ, Boeing and Douglas cockpits where nobody reads the FMA, I'm curious why Airbus still insists on this policy.

Their golden rule says to understand the FMA. I needn't say it out loud to understand it. Everything you've said about input vs output is true, but that applies to just about every AP system out there, which is why they all have some sort of FMA.

Ok. But as it says the simple commands on and off are used for AP and ATHR etc. so the command ON is related to the ap. So I think "AP 1 ON" is the appropriate command isn't it? Sure we read what the fma says. But according to the book the it is the ON command. Or do they mean if I fly manually?

:) what do you say after arming the approach mode and engaging the other AP?

You're absolutely right mate! Thanks!

Check Airman
All the three incidents were avoidable by following manufacturer's recommendations. What one airline does or Boeing does has no priority over the design philosophy of the manufacturer. Air Blue fatal accident in Islamabad is another example of not checking FMA the captain kept dialling heading in NAV mode and when the heading went past 180 degrees he realised NAV mode and pulled to change to HDG aircraft turned shorter way into the hill.Off course there were host of other deviations but checking FMA would have prevented the last fatal blow. There is simply no point going over this. Calling FMA is not a may be item. Below is an extract of Airbus Performance and operations Conference 2011.


QUESTION6 – BRITISH AIRWAYS
Prioritizationof FMA calls versus “positive climb” and “gear up”?
AIRBUSANSWER
TheFMA is the “heart and soul” of the aircraft and should be checked first whenchanges of guidance are done. If a go- around is performed with AP ON, it isthe only way to check that the guidance will perform a go-around with specificguidance (SRS). The call “positive climb and gear up” is to check that theaircraft is climbing and thus drag can be reduced to increase the climbperformance.

Check airman
When you observe silently there is also a possibility that you haven't seen when you say loud it is a confirmation that you have seen also brings the other guy in to see you are not just rattling out by habit. When under pressure a lot of things can be missed. Air Blue accident weather was bad and was a circling approach, the captain had 21000 hrs.

Lufthansa was flying without reading the FMA until 2 or 3 years ago and they were fine like many other companies. If you fly Airbus for some time, you can even call FMA without actualy reading it.
Problem is not reading it or not. Problems start when the things are done automatically, no matter if you read it aloud

I’ve flown the same aircraft with and without FMA calling. It can’t catch everything, in that if you have the wrong mode engaged somewhere but it hasn’t changed, it still might get missed. Overall, it can’t hurt too much (Disclaimer: as a LH pilot I don’t get as much as I would on multi-sector days. I give the FO 10 mode changes on the approach and then that’s it. ;))

Absolutely. How many times have you caught yourself saying what you expected to see and 99.9% of the time will see...? The human mind works in interesting ways, especially in situations like these.

You mention rattling off FMA's out of habbit. Eventually, that gets drowned into the background noise, and you may not even be paying attention to what the other guy is saying.

To be clear, I think we all agree that it's absolutely imperative to read the FMA, but I just can't find any value in verbalising it. It doesn't help me in any way, and the other pilot has his own FMA, so it's not helping him either.

Check airman and Cak
Problem is not reading it or not. Problems start when the things are done automatically, no matter if you read it aloud
It is known as conditioned reflex. Airbus does not say FMA is a recall. You read the FMA as you see it. If you read aloud wrongly the PNF can correct it. Anything will work as long as you see the change happening on FMA, verbalisation is for confirmation by the other guy. Even if you didn't observe it at all nothing may happen to you but multiply that by number of pilots flying the airbus and something will happen and has happened. When repeatedly a way of operating gives rise to accidents/incidents it is a serious matter. A lot of thought and much more qualified people than line pilots make airplanes and procedures to fly them. A line pilot armed with only FCOM simply in no position to make changes to SOPs. The Flt Ops should consult with the manufacturer and only then make changes. If every pilot is allowed to bring in changes to SOP it will lead to anarchy. For a line pilot as Col Jessop says in A Few Good Men " We follow orders(SOP) or people die. it's that simple."

Makes sense, until you consider that maybe FMA indications are not the same on both sides. And this is something that can and did happen on Airbus...

http://s33.postimg.org/oaz2e0ogf/erroneus_ra.jpg

...and not just on the rare occasion that you do an autoland AND have a RA fault.

What about independent FMS operation?

I'm with Vilas and FlyingStone on this one.

It would be interesting to know any details behind the case of DLH changing from silent to reading out loud (is that so?).

I was trained and until today operated in line with the OEM's procedures. During my 2 or three jumpseat rides in Lufthansa cockpit (fully approved i.a.w. all the books by the way) I was, however, rather impressed with the - then silent - way of doing things.

Vilas' comment about the inadequacy of FCOM, FCTM and one's personal experience as a basis for "improving" SOPs is words of gospel!

@ vilas
Conditioned reflex is much more obvious with PM response CHECKED. I bet that most pilots respond with CHECKED totaly automatically, unfortunately.
I am not saying that reading aloud FMA is not good or vice versa. There is no best practice. And I am sure that AIRBUS procedures makers are not the smartest guys in the world, as also BOEING or EMBRAER guys are not. Airbus just chose that philosophy.
And since Lufthansa switched to Airbus procedures, they put some of their guys into the Airbus' team for procedure design. As I ' ve been flying for years according Luftica rules, some modifications much closer to 'old' Luftica procedures are already visible. We will see what future brings.
But I can tell you that Luftica procedures were way more precise then the Airbus' procedures.

@FlightDetent
Regarding the change in procedures, some Lufthansa instructors told us that it has something to do with the insurance but probably somebody has some more accurate info

Not having flown for lufthansa, but with a similar set of silent SOPs in another airline in germany, i heard, and believe it too, that the main reason was the same as for us, cost, not safety. It costs quite a lot to update each and every manual with your own SOP, airbus charges a very high amount for that kind of work, and especially with airbus apps like the flysmart-suite you have to buy the airbus service, there is no way around it. From what i heard LH had a standards department that developed their SOPs which employed around 120 persons, which could be let go by the switching to OEM procedures.

Well, talk to the airbus test pilots and you come to the conclusion that mainly lawyers write their SOPs. And yes, they have to consider the worst possible trained pilot on the line as well, which means of course that their set of SOPs is aimed at the worst possible pilot on the line.

Now, each carrier has a slightly different operational culture and company philosophy, SOPs should represent those. Using SOPs that everyone, from the top down to the last cadet, thinks as stupid, makes them pretty bad as nobody really gives a rats ass how you follow them. Currently i follow the flight managements advice to simply fly every approach in every condition below FL200 as raw data, as it saves a ****load of nuisance calls.

Cak
If you buy a car and you use it against the manufacturer's recommendation you have paid the cash so you can say hell with all that. Sure! but when there is a break down or an accident do you expect insurance company to bail you out? Airbus as a manufacturer will be happy from business point of view if you have your own procedures because it lets them off the hook. About lawyers writing procedures is a load of bull****. It's like a pilot writing as a constitutional expert. Can he?

@ vilas
I am not saying that somebody should act against procedures. I am just saying that Airbus chose that principle and it's not neccessary the best one. If somebody has a team of people doing procedures based on some other philosophy, I cannot see why not.

what is the qualification of those people that is lacking in the manufacturer? Procedures are based on design philosophy of the aircraft.Nobody has access to that without consultation with the manufacturer.The incident of JetStar had it been an accident relatives of passengers would be justified in dragging the airline to a court of law.

Airbus designs the aircraft, however, they do not operate them (except their fleet of Belugas). And even with the best reporting culture in each airline that operates them, and we all know that especially in Asia nearly no reports are filed, they have only second hand knowledge of its operation.

Interestingly enough, airbus never audited us, not even when we had vastly different SOPs (which had no negative influence on safety level). Unlike boeing, who audited us at least every two years, quite often more frequently. Apparently airbus is not really interested in getting first hand experience in normal line operation from their operators.

And in every accident relatives will drag the airline into court for every reason available. That is the reality they have to face anyway. Be it for a difference in SOPs, but usually for bad training and not following the SOPs that were in force and justified by the airline (which has to justify it, the OEM doesn't have any economical risk in that point) and approved by the authority. If a pilot isn't aware of the FMA he is a risk, no matter if he just (automatically) said "checked" or not.

There is one time where the FMA calls are a great help, and that is during initial training, both in flight school and during initial type rating. Later on they just become automated "nuisance" calls, which the aircraft could do by itself if they are that important.

Rubbish:----it's called Airmanship from Professional Aviators, cross checking and monitoring to keep us ALL safe.

It's also to helps make sure BOTH Pilots are in the same loop going the same direction the same way...... Don't you want the PM awake, watching and keeping you safe? He might just save your butt one day.....in fact it sounds like it will happen soon enough.

Just do it and stop being so precious...

Not totally so,I've done it both ways,Airbus and the butchered style in other countries and seen failings in both.In Asia ,total Airbus procedures,constant talking to where call outs were made without even looking.The butchered versions,similar in that calls were missed.Im in agreement with CHK Airmen,too many needless calls,resulting in way too much chatter.Calls need to be made for what is" not" there.Bottom line,do it the way your SOPs are written,that's what your paid to do.The Airbus can be successfully flown both, and various ways,depending on how the SOPs are written.Some SOPs are written and initiated better then others,been there,done that.The Airbus "standard" SOPs are nothing but a starting point for any operator.

This can happen in any airplane. Doesn't seem to be worth the extra blabbering that Airbus recommends. I'd like to believe that I'd notice and start diagnosing the problem before I've had time to waste calling the FMA out.

It'd be interesting to see what would happen on a line flight if one guy called out flare at 600ft. Would the other person notice, or just reflexively say "check"?

Completely agree. In my mind, it actually goes against Airbus philosophy to make the calls. Think about the cockpit design. If everything works as it should, there are no indications- all lights, ECAM messages etc are off. The lack of an indication is good. Your attention is drawn to a positive indication, to alert you that something is amiss. The sudden positive indication gets your attention. It'd be much harder to spot a FAULT light if every button had an ON light illuminated all the time.

Same thing with callouts. Better to remain silent, and raise the alarm when something goes wrong, instead of making an announcement every time the airplane does as it's told.

Hi Check Airman.

I have been flying Airbus for 11 years now, and before that, four different conventional (i.e. non computerised) turbo prop and jet aircraft types.

What I find with Airbus is that sometimes the procedures might seem superfluous, but then one dark and stormy night, something bad nearly happens and you go Ah, THAT is why we have to do that. For example; what does LAND (green) on the FMA tell you?

You say you are new to the Airbus, and my guess is that you have probably never seen anything go wrong with one. So your mindset is 'why call it, it is never wrong?'. Well, calling the FMA is for a number of reasons.

1. You are verbally confirming a mode change.
2. You are communicating with the other pilot. (who is supposed to then read his/her FMA and say 'checked' if it agrees)
3. The FMA is the output of the aircraft systems, and should confirm the input(s) that have been made.
4. Unless you read the FMA out loud and the other pilot reads theirs and says checked, how do either of you know that each FMA says the same thing?
5. You are also confirming that the other pilot is aware of what is going on and has not for example become fatigued or incapacitated.

Trust me, reading the FMA out loud is a very sensible thing to do. By NOT doing so you are

1. Ignoring Airbus SOPs
2. Not keeping the other pilot in the loop. Unless you read the FMA out loud, and the other pilot reads theirs and says checked, how does the other pilot know you have read it correctly. And how do you know the other pilot has read it?
3. Possibly not reading it yourself
4. Confirming the aircraft will do what you have asked it to do and confirming the selections you have made. (I still see some pilots look at the flap lever instead of the E/WD to confirm the flap setting).

One day, something might happen to you - or not happen that should have - and you will get that cold sweat feeling of 'bloody hell that could have ended badly', and you will realise why Airbus are flown the way they are. Don't assume - always check.

Don't resist the Airbus, fly with it. It is a wonderful machine.

PS beware of saying what you expect to see rather than what is displayed in front of you. The other day during a control check, the other guy said "full left" as I was holding full right rudder. I said "are you sure?" he said "yes full left" Then I pointed to the rudder position read out on the F/CTL page. He looked for a moment, confused, and eventually said "....Oh err sorry, full right."

Check Airman and Pakehaboy
The only point you both are harping on is pilots calling without checking and that is as wrong as can get. It is not a call you read it, Check airman you are new to the bus and yet you are assigning the manufacturer recommendations, the evidence of accidents and opinions of experienced pilots to dust bin just because you are unnecessarily uncomfortable with some thing that is routinely done by thousands of pilots across the globe. If pilot can call FMA mechanically without actually reading it then this pilot will never check it doing silently. In the first case there is chance of other guy noticing the error but when done silently the other guy is not even in the loop. And a neophyte saying airbus procedure goes against airbus philosophy I don't find anything more ridiculous than that. You are not immune to committing mistake made by other experienced pilots. Flight control check you are supposed to check full up aileron with spoilers but since spoilers are not called the pilots failed to notice that spoilers were not moving and that caused the incident in Luft Hansa where maintenance had cross connected the wires and captains side stick banked the aircraft to opposite side. The co-pilot landed the plane.