Loss of Control In-Flight - Flight Crew training
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Surely, the student pair will have a set of course/session/endorsement/recurrency notes for reference ? If this is the case, as it should be, the pilots should be turning up for the session already well-briefed.
The pre-session instructor briefing then should be a recap and discussion session to detect any errors in understanding so that, when the group gets into the box, things should be able to move in a productive and interesting fashion.
The post-session brief should, again, be a recap with discussion, as appropriate, on things which might not have gone as well as expected. In that case, of course, a sensible session will have spent a bit of time on revision/practice at the time to get the folk up front on top of whatever may have presented a problem.
As for several hours pre-brief, after 30 minutes (unless the presenter is very skilled and interesting) I'm restless and, by 45 minutes, quite lost to the cause. Waste of time, in my view. Same views on classroom coursework - max 40-45 minutes and then a 5-10 minute break.
Sheppey, whom I have known and held in high esteem for many years, is a very experienced instructor and a mighty fine one. His views are tempered with many decades of instructional exposure ...
Or am I just an old dinosaur sort of instructor and over the hill ?
The pre-session instructor briefing then should be a recap and discussion session to detect any errors in understanding so that, when the group gets into the box, things should be able to move in a productive and interesting fashion.
The post-session brief should, again, be a recap with discussion, as appropriate, on things which might not have gone as well as expected. In that case, of course, a sensible session will have spent a bit of time on revision/practice at the time to get the folk up front on top of whatever may have presented a problem.
As for several hours pre-brief, after 30 minutes (unless the presenter is very skilled and interesting) I'm restless and, by 45 minutes, quite lost to the cause. Waste of time, in my view. Same views on classroom coursework - max 40-45 minutes and then a 5-10 minute break.
Sheppey, whom I have known and held in high esteem for many years, is a very experienced instructor and a mighty fine one. His views are tempered with many decades of instructional exposure ...
Or am I just an old dinosaur sort of instructor and over the hill ?
N4790P
Over the years as old planes are retired and new fleets are added, simulators get swapped out. Some of the sim bays at my company go back decades, and even the "newer" ones were built before the new motion programs took effect. The original sims were never programmed to represent the full range of forces that would be felt by the crew during a full stall. The new programming, while much more representative, requires the sim to make much more aggressive motions to simulate those forces. Newton's law and all that, these now increased forces were never part of the specs when the floor mounting systems were designed. I suspect this was known in advance and those involved hope that the typically over-engineering that goes into aviation related products would handle the issue. Unfortunately not. I don't know if this is a problem everywhere, but eventually the concrete around some of our sims will need to be replaced.
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Yep, but to be fair the roll rate command worked "perfectly" e.g. made it harder to recognize a stall. A conventional plane would have rolled...., dived and regained speed! A deadly trap IMHO.
Last edited by vilas; 6th Jul 2019 at 09:27.
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He took the appropriate action apart from saying 'my aircraft' and pushing the button to take over the controls?
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My biggest critique of our training over the years is that 1) they continue to try to stuff 8 pounds of training in a 5 pound sack, and 2) everything has become so scripted and so well advertised in advance that anyone going into the box who doesn't know exactly what the events will be, in what order, and what the desired response should be simply wasn't paying much attention. Way too much, check the box, reset the sim, and move on to the next event for my tastes. This approach may be sufficient to aviators who make an honest effort to keep current in the books and turn off all the automation and hand-fly or a regular basis, but not so much for the "A/P on at 500' and back off inside the marker, what's for dinner, and what should we do on the layover" crowd.
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As a consequence of this, we see a captain unable to fly a single engine return to London, asking his FO to hold the throttle and keep the speed for him....
Its all OK though, they practice their skills once or twice a year with an Approach or two in the Sim!
Last edited by cessnapete; 7th Jul 2019 at 09:46.
The extended period of roll excursions which the crew appeared unable to mitigate, during the relatively recent Airbus Wind Shear Go Around at Gib, come to mind.
The B744 Fleet appears to maintain their handling skills intact, as the superbly handled emergency, after uncomanded Flap retraction just after takeoff at JNB showed.
The central aspect of the safety notice is awareness of the aircraft’s trim condition, particularly with conventional trim systems.
Several off-topic posts imply ‘the crew must have known that ”, representing our inability to explain behaviour and awareness.
There are many definitions of (situation) awareness, generally science based, anchoring reference points are useful in discussions - what ‘it’ is, the ‘know what’ part of knowledge. This does not help understand an individual’s activities in forming and using knowledge; assessing training programmes or individual performance - ‘know how to’.
This difference aligns with training knowledge, explicit and tacit, where the factual aspects are easier to teach from books, etc, but the tacit depends on activity, self learning, interaction.
Broadly, awareness is ‘knowing what’s going on so you can figure out what to do’.
How do we determine what is going on. This is classic high level HF, often simplified with a reference point.
One post - ‘knowing where the stick is’, must be considered in relation to some norm, a point of reference. e.g. the seat position, any change in reference could affect the sense of position. Conventional aircraft use force-feel more than position as the primary reference. Zero force = the aircraft is ‘in trim’, but not for all situations; understanding this is central to awareness in abnormal situations.
e.g. training sim, with AP engaged induce a lateral out of trim - fuel imbalance; fail the AP.
As an instructor observe; as a student learn from experience. The normal reference zero force / stick central has changed, how quickly are pilots able to recognise this and adapt, and how, and why. What if trim was unavailable.
How do pilots gain this experience.
Another aspect of this thread is the divergent view of training standards; this too could be ‘relative’.
‘It’s not as good as the old days’ (I was there), but if our reference is biased by the experiences of intervening years, how can we relate then and now. Like ‘policeman are getting younger’, time passes quicker in later life - relative to age.
With high reliability aircraft there is reduced need for the evaluative know-what; complex systems are difficult to teach. There is more benefit - safety value, cost effectiveness in teaching use, application, know-how to manage the normal operational scenarios and use all available technology, both increasingly complex. Not so for the rare failures, these are real surprises, but relative to what.
Not the same as we the ‘oldies’ faced (different reference), but new, emergent, unforeseeable, unexpected by regulation, and thus not trained for situations.
What are the norms for these aspects - defined by regulation / trading standards, how might they be identified.
Instead of looking at training - ‘what should be happening’, flying the line and seeing ‘what is happening’ provides a better reference; an old-fashioned ‘line check’ or what ever the modern term for that its.
Then consider what has been seen ‘down the line’ and how that should be referenced to operational need, but against what norm. The fewer to number of incidents the more difficult the task, but not necessarily a safer operation.
The norm could be awareness of this, or at least continuing to look at real operations, not training.
Several off-topic posts imply ‘the crew must have known that ”, representing our inability to explain behaviour and awareness.
There are many definitions of (situation) awareness, generally science based, anchoring reference points are useful in discussions - what ‘it’ is, the ‘know what’ part of knowledge. This does not help understand an individual’s activities in forming and using knowledge; assessing training programmes or individual performance - ‘know how to’.
This difference aligns with training knowledge, explicit and tacit, where the factual aspects are easier to teach from books, etc, but the tacit depends on activity, self learning, interaction.
Broadly, awareness is ‘knowing what’s going on so you can figure out what to do’.
How do we determine what is going on. This is classic high level HF, often simplified with a reference point.
One post - ‘knowing where the stick is’, must be considered in relation to some norm, a point of reference. e.g. the seat position, any change in reference could affect the sense of position. Conventional aircraft use force-feel more than position as the primary reference. Zero force = the aircraft is ‘in trim’, but not for all situations; understanding this is central to awareness in abnormal situations.
e.g. training sim, with AP engaged induce a lateral out of trim - fuel imbalance; fail the AP.
As an instructor observe; as a student learn from experience. The normal reference zero force / stick central has changed, how quickly are pilots able to recognise this and adapt, and how, and why. What if trim was unavailable.
How do pilots gain this experience.
Another aspect of this thread is the divergent view of training standards; this too could be ‘relative’.
‘It’s not as good as the old days’ (I was there), but if our reference is biased by the experiences of intervening years, how can we relate then and now. Like ‘policeman are getting younger’, time passes quicker in later life - relative to age.
With high reliability aircraft there is reduced need for the evaluative know-what; complex systems are difficult to teach. There is more benefit - safety value, cost effectiveness in teaching use, application, know-how to manage the normal operational scenarios and use all available technology, both increasingly complex. Not so for the rare failures, these are real surprises, but relative to what.
Not the same as we the ‘oldies’ faced (different reference), but new, emergent, unforeseeable, unexpected by regulation, and thus not trained for situations.
What are the norms for these aspects - defined by regulation / trading standards, how might they be identified.
Instead of looking at training - ‘what should be happening’, flying the line and seeing ‘what is happening’ provides a better reference; an old-fashioned ‘line check’ or what ever the modern term for that its.
Then consider what has been seen ‘down the line’ and how that should be referenced to operational need, but against what norm. The fewer to number of incidents the more difficult the task, but not necessarily a safer operation.
The norm could be awareness of this, or at least continuing to look at real operations, not training.
AF447
You guys are missing the truth as the crew were totally unprofessional as they had spent the day sight seeing in RIO including a helicopter flight instead of resting. The Skipper was more interested in his girlfriend than ensuring the safety of his aircraft during the crossing of the ITCZ which possesses the most dangerous wx that I have experienced. PM was apparently one of those guys whom, if in BA, would have been classed as coordiniated enough to master the handshake and was on his 90 day recency trip. Neither of them up front knew how to use the radar and successfully cross the zone whereas all the other aircraft that night made safe decisions. Extremely tired, frightened and in the middle of the night not having adequate training and with uncertified, defective pitots they didn't stand a chance. It's significant that Air France brought in a group of experienced, well qualified foreign pilots to sort out their typical French arrogant establishment.
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Whether an action was deliberate or not, conscious or not, is another question...but an action is an action. Side-sticks do not put themselves in the aft-most position by themselves, but they require AN ACTION to be put in such position.
You guys are missing the truth as the crew were totally unprofessional as they had spent the day sight seeing in RIO including a helicopter flight instead of resting. The Skipper was more interested in his girlfriend than ensuring the safety of his aircraft during the crossing of the ITCZ which possesses the most dangerous wx that I have experienced. PM was apparently one of those guys whom, if in BA, would have been classed as coordiniated enough to master the handshake and was on his 90 day recency trip. Neither of them up front knew how to use the radar and successfully cross the zone whereas all the other aircraft that night made safe decisions. Extremely tired, frightened and in the middle of the night not having adequate training and with uncertified, defective pitots they didn't stand a chance. It's significant that Air France brought in a group of experienced, well qualified foreign pilots to sort out their typical French arrogant establishment.
Unbelievably poor airmanship.
I also ask why on earth EVERY pilot, supposedly qualified to fly an airliner, does not know how to use the weather radar, if he does not he is not, in my opinion, fully qualified at all.
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'Tis a fine line indeed between blame and fact finding. For example, is the statement: "Well, Capngrog sure screwed the pooch on that one", affixing blame or stating cause? Without identifying the cause (Capngrog screwed the pooch), how can we possibly understand the event and formulate procedures to prevent a recurrence? Tiptoeing around an assessment of an event should not be tolerated. Facts (cause) must be stated plainly, and one must not be required to "read between the lines" to reach an understanding of the facts (cause). If Capngrog's otherwise mediocre reputation is sullied by stating that he "screwed the pooch", well, then, that's life.
I believe that the AF 447 flight deck crew made many errors on that fateful night, and these errors must be plainly stated so that they will understood and not (hopefully) be repeated ... with a further loss of life.
Just my opinion.
Respectfully,
Capngrog
I believe that the AF 447 flight deck crew made many errors on that fateful night, and these errors must be plainly stated so that they will understood and not (hopefully) be repeated ... with a further loss of life.
Just my opinion.
Respectfully,
Capngrog
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They’ve been banging the Upset recovery gong ever since AF. Every bloody sim now, boom, some crazy attitude.
this whole magenta line children thing is fairly bogus really. BA have taken and trained low hour cadets since the 60s and have they had any crashes attributable to it ?no.
And as for whoever is on about hand flying up to RVSM....yeah great idea....NOT. For a start my pet cat could follow the FD in what will be many staright lines - and don’t suggest raw data - it would be a bad call to try that in the busy TMAs we operate in, not to mention putting your often tired workmates workload through the roof.
You have to balance flying practice with operational safety/ common sense.
I do think every sim should have loss of airspeed and raw data ILS though .
this whole magenta line children thing is fairly bogus really. BA have taken and trained low hour cadets since the 60s and have they had any crashes attributable to it ?no.
And as for whoever is on about hand flying up to RVSM....yeah great idea....NOT. For a start my pet cat could follow the FD in what will be many staright lines - and don’t suggest raw data - it would be a bad call to try that in the busy TMAs we operate in, not to mention putting your often tired workmates workload through the roof.
You have to balance flying practice with operational safety/ common sense.
I do think every sim should have loss of airspeed and raw data ILS though .
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And as for whoever is on about hand flying up to RVSM....yeah great idea....NOT. For a start my pet cat could follow the FD in what will be many staright lines - and don’t suggest raw data - it would be a bad call to try that in the busy TMAs we operate in, not to mention putting your often tired workmates workload through the roof.
You have to balance flying practice with operational safety/ common sense
You have to balance flying practice with operational safety/ common sense
Start with what you're comfortable with, and work from there. It needs to be backed up by a company that values and encourages manual flight. If not, they often put so many restrictions on hand flying it gets useless.