clandestino

then tell me why, after taking over 10 different licensing exams with the FAA that this was never mentioned in 33 years of flying...until after the fact of course?

tell me why the A300 didn't have a placcard saying not to cycle the rudder back and forth?

sorry pal, a plane that will come apart with any control movement needs either a better limiter or a placcard. I've flown planes with both.

all the paperwork in the world after the fact means nothing...lawyers covering their respective company's a$%$


as to the bradley bit...that was an interesting near crash...have you flown into or out of BDL?

Let us not forget - there was a tumultuous thread on this board a few months ago regarding whether one should cross the Atlantic Ocean after a massive gear retraction problem.....

Maybe I'm not following, but is it correct to say that the B757 does not have Transformer Rectifier Units to provide DC power? All DC comes from the batts which have to be constantly charged to keep up? Just wondering.

rcl

If it is like the 767 (which I believe it its) then yes there are t/r's which supply dc. When the standby power selector is moved to the bat position then the batteries (both main and apu on 767 300 er) supply the standby ac and dc buses as well as the battery and hot battery buses and the chargers are taken out of the loop.

Thanks. I guess the plane I fly would need a total AC failure, including the Air Driven Generator, to actually have such DC issues, it's hard to imagine all this happening with both AC gens online.

rcl

The 757 and 767 electrical systems are almost the same. Hydraulics are different. Both have T/Rs in auto and switch to battery when bat is selected for standby power. An inverter supplies the standby ac bus. 30 minutes is the estimated life of the battery in bat mode.

11 years ago when I first got on the 747 I was trained ! never to use the rudder in an upset or UA, it was purely for use eng out and for X-wind T/O and LDGs, after the A300 incident nothing in our training manuals changed.

The 747 has always had a limiter but never a placard, correct training meant we knew when to use the rudder.

tell me, did the 747 flight manual state in the limitations section that you can, not should, but can only use the rudder for engine out and x winds?

I recall the 747 that managed to survive a violent upset, tearing off part of the elevator or was it stabilizer, to manage an emergency landing at KSFO.

Can't tell, I never took a single FAA exam. However, one of the lessons drummed into me during my PPL course was: never, ever rapidy cycle any flight control at any flying speed, on any aeroplane as you might get into resonance with something or other and get your flight control surface ripped off the airplane, sometimes together with the large parts of the airframe clinging on to it. Why FAA licensed flight schools fail to teach their students this fact of life is way beyond me. Perhaps Richard L. Collins hit the nail on the head when he wrote about proliferation of stall/spin accidents among the PPLs:

I am sorry if my original question came across as ironic or rethorical, it wasn't meant to be. Here it goes again: do you have a notion of what divergent oscillation is? You certainly should as it caused a lot of aircrews to come to grief, not just AA587.

Perhaps Airbus tought that every pilot knows that. Disclaimer at the beginning of my A320 FCOM says that this manual is not intended to teach the crew how to fly but rather to enable experienced crew to operate the related airplane type safely and proficiently.

are you saying the american airlines crew that died weren't experienced?

let me put it this way...we want to prevent accidents don't we?

I'm glad your private pilot course taught you all about this stuff.

But why didn't the FAA approved course teach these American pilots about this?

Why wasn't it included in any FAA course that I attended? (expostofacto not included)

Why haven't any US made planes fallen out of the skys with rapid cyclical rudder movememt?

why did the similiar A310 lose a piece of rudder and make an emergency return to Cuba?

glad that I don't fly the 'bus

The AA587 A300 was delivered from the factory with a patch on the vertical stabilizer because of delamination. It was at the base of the stab on the leading edge right where it separated from the aircraft that day. Since using those supposed wild alternating rudder applications just because of some wake turbulence would have probably killed any FA in the back out of her seat why did he elect to do it that day and why would the captain allow it?

If that vertical stab had failed initially at that patch can you imagine the wild yaw induced before it separated? Dead pilots always seem to be the least expensive way to settle an accident investigation.

Don't forget, rudder pedal position is NOT rudder pedal force. There was no force data on the FDR.

Also don't forget, the yaw damper had been written up and re-racked before the fatal flight.

perhaps it should have, but it isn't too well known that an aircraft's certified maneuver speed only protects against full rudder deflection in one direction NO aircraft is protected from sudden control reversal----even with rudder limiting---you can take off the tail/wings of any plane [even below Va] if you try to

411A, you are speaking out of your arse. Every airline in the US has had a string of accidents at one point in time or another. To sit here and blame AA procedures is in extremely poor taste. We have a training program as good as anyone else's - not without faults, but just as good none the less. The accidents AA has had have all been preceded in the past, and some will unfortunately reoccur in the future.

The MD80 debacle was NOT AA's fault, it was an FAA-mandated directive that came about after the whole SWA/FAA friendly fiasco, and they decided to crack down. AA was affected the most due to their big # of MD80s.

Cali was pilot error, no doubt. So was LIT. So was USAir in LGA - twice. So was DL in DFW, twice. So was CAL in DEN. Anything else? Pilot error can and will happen again. AA's pilot error record is no different than any other US airline.

I guess AA 1400 in STL (emergency landing after left engine exploded due to start valve open in flight, loss of hydraulics, single engine go-around) was just plain dumb luck, not pilot skill.

Get a clue.
73

there is no hard evidence that the rudder reversal was caused by the f/o. all the dfdr records is rudder movement, NOT rudder pedal movement. and with past problems with A300/A310-series aircraft and their tails, most folks do believe that blaming the pilot vs the aircraft manufacturer was the way to cover this up.

also glad I'm not on the 'Bus.
73

regarding our ORD 757. I've said this before and I'll say it again:

NO pilot in their right mind would continue a flight on battery power alone. Because of that, there is more to this story than what's in the report. Our pilots followed the Boeing-style QRH to the letter. Now there is an imminent change coming in the next revision. It is my belief the QRH led them down the wrong path, leading to battery discharge.

Regarding comments on poor system knowledge - the CA was an experienced and highly respected 757/767 ground instructor for years, who probably knew 757 systems as much as Boeing engineers. Highly unlikely he would have not known what was going on.

aa73---I made no mention of pilot actions just the fact that a low airspeed wont protect against rudder reversal--no matter how it was accomplished anyway I never really blamed the pilot--just the training thereof AA should have known that--somebody there should have

aa73,

Regardless of what 411A has said – the post you quote from seems to be missing as I write this – we seem to be getting more heat than light from several of you American cousins on this thread.

You and sevenstrokeroll add no credibility to your arguments by resorting to cheap shots at a foreign (to you) manufacturer. Many of us have been involved in aviation long enough to know that non-American aircraft do not have a monopoly of accidents involving structural failure.

We also understand that all airline training departments are fallible, even in Europe and America. At worst, they fail to hand down well-documented lessons that previous generations of their own crews – and even more likely the crews of rival airlines – have learned, often at great cost. It's part of the human condition, and as an old fart I observe the traditional tendency for young whiz-kids to think that history is irrelevant.
For what it's worth, I well remember doing my sim and base conversion on the B707 with AA at DFW in 1975. The jammed-stab arrival from Waco at a busy DFW was interesting, even in those days of a flight-engineer, but no complaints.


Don't know the Seven-Five, but electrical systems seem to evolve considerably on a given type; perhaps to an untidy complexity where it's impossible for pilots to understand all the possible implications of an obscure failure. Even if the fault indication(s) have been correctly identified, it may be that the EICAS/ECAM and QRH seem to suggest different courses of action. Load shedding MIGHT extend battery life. If in doubt, land within 30 minutes... But, by the time you've worked your way through the drills, most of the thirty are already gone.

It follows that unannounced further failures on final approach to a strange airfield – maybe cockpit lighting and EFIS failures at night – are likely. With the best will in the world, you may not know if you're going to get lift-dump, anti-skid, or which thrust-reversers might work. [Not suggesting this all applies to the B757.]

As any thinking pilot or F/E who routinely flies more than 30 minutes from the nearest suitable aerodrome – but on a route not requiring ETOPS equipment – will tell you, a 30-minute guarantee is not enough. Perhaps we should be installing batteries somewhat bigger than fitted in a large automobile or truck?

Some 757s can draw stby power from both the main and APU batteries. AAs are configured only to draw from the main, hence the 30 minute theoretical limit.

As far as working the problem taking a bulk of that 30 minutes, If you have a failure of the normal powering of the stby buses, it seems wise that you'd start pointing the aircraft towards the closest good airport, while you noted what was working and what wasn't (determine which stby bus was affected) and worked the very short checklist . . . Stby Power Switch - BAT, and called the ground engineers for an additional inputs.

From there you could figure out if you think you could land within the life of the battery, and if not maybe conserving battery by going back to AUTO.

bubbers 44 is right about the rudder problems...thanks for posting it.

as to the LGA crashes of USAIR...there is more to that/those than meet the eye.

the 737-400 that went off the end...I hope you will recall that boeing redesigned the rudder trim after the accident.

though certainly the pilot didn't help matters that day...I knew the copilot and heard the whole story.

also the F28...that crash is interesting because another F28 in canada crashed due to similiar circumstances and the information was not passed on properly.


chris scott...I have had the pleasure of flying 2 british built planes, one japanese built plane and numerous US built planes. All were very,very strong planes. And the rudder didn' t come off.

so don't tell me I am picking on a foreign manufacturer. I am picking on a particular type of plane though.

Chris Scott - no cheap shots from me at a foreign manufacturer. But you will continue to get heat from a lot of us AA folks simply due to the fact that the NTSB investigation NEVER was able to determine whether the f/o manipulated the rudder the way he did. And our training program never had us resorting to rudder only during a wake encounter. Unusual attitudes, yes - ailerons supplemented with rudder. But not just a wake encounter. And due to the history of the Airbus' rudder/tail problems, it is very suspect.

Sevenstrokeroll---again, NO AIRPLANE!!!!! is certified for sudden complete control reversal--NONE..none whatsoever:=

animus

and what if the rudder came apart first causing the wild movement instead of the blame being placed on the dead copilot?

SSR,

It doesn't matter the cause of the oscillations only the effects:\---even if a magical djini did it---and I don't blame the pilots if it were really SOP at AA then I blame the training--- I've always thought the co-pilot was unfairly blamed as he was following procedure:ugh:

PA

AA had an MD80 that was literally rolling over, due to wake vortices, on initial takeoff in DFW. High AOA portion of takeoff. FULL aileron was NOT effective in stopping/countering imminent unusual attitude at low altitude.

ONLY by applying opposite rudder, in this relatively low airspeed, high AOA scenario, was the aircraft saved.

When the airleron's not working for you- the rudder will/can save your ass.

This was the basis for AA's AAMP training.

I too, believe what was recorded on AA587's FDR was NOT caused by the feet of FO Sten Molin.

KC135777

Why in the chicago 757 incident did the engines not shut down using the fire handles? In most aircraft pulling the handles will shut of fuel and hydraulics going to the engine, with a cable operated mechanism. How does this work on the 757?

The AA Little Rock accident: I was flying around that monster storm at the time of the accident. It was the worst storm I have ever seen from an aircraft with constant lightning (you could read a paper) shooting everywhere. This one deserved at least 20 miles distance. Nobody had any business being anywhere close to this storm. So untill this day I'm still wondering: what the hell were they thinking?????

Long day, wanna get home, fatigued to the bone, ugly weather everywhere, support not to be seen. Delays measure now in multiples of hours, passengers in full revolt, FA’s swamped, overloaded and needy. If you don’t make this landing, the rest of yer month goes south, won’t make the guarantee, probably have to make it up with another three-day trip somewhere in the off days. So much for your five-year olds’ school play. And God help you if you break the airplane, lotsa trees die for that paperwork.

The MBA touts who now write the rules we all live, die, and make our mortgage payments by, well, something has gone terribly wrong here. You want safety? Talk to the six-figured idiot-savants who control the money and write the plan, funny how they always come out spanking clean, and barring that, at least several millions in recompense to crawl back into the miserable holes they impossibly came from.

Not that I’m bitter or anything, it’s just that I really love my job, flying commercial jets is a very romantic occupation, the women on my crew would be lining up at my hotel room door, if they weren’t so damned dog-tired from flying eighteen hours a day.

I also hear some pilots fly turboprops in Tahiti, and life is tropical and good, in a Pina Colada kinda way. Would anyone happen to have a line on that employment?

AA 587 did have PEDAL POSITION recorded
 

Some misinformation was posted earlier.


Posted by “AA73”, slot #95, dated 29Oct, re’ AA587 12Nov01:
Posted by “KC135777” in slot #105, date 29Oct:
Hmmmm, No Pedal Position recorded????
That item (Pedal Position) was surprise for everyone: the sensors for Pedal Position had been retrofitted prior to that mishap; from AAR-04/04, pgs 3-6 [the Pedal Position is plotted on page 6]

I'm not saying that and I have never said that, but as Collin Powell recently observed: "Experience is helpful but it is decisions that count". The last captain of PH-BUF was very experienced. So were the captains of TC-GEN, YU-ANA, N651AA and HB-IXM. It is a pity that no one will ever be able to benefit from their experience. It seems that crew involved in KORD runway excursion were very experienced but that didn't prevent them from draining their battery inflight.

Sir, you are still evading the answer! For the third time: do you know what divergent oscillation is? I'm not asking you to explain it, a simple "yea" or "nay" would suffice. Perhaps it wasn't emphasised during your trainning but I'm certain it gets mentioned in my 2003. edition of FAA Pilot's aviation knowledge handbook. Also it is part of JAA ATPL syllabus. Why some people fail to heed a good advice is beyond me.

What rudder problems? He was writing about fin being repaired before the aeroplane being delivered to AA. It is completely irellevant as NTSB analysis found that fin failed during extreme sideslip, at load that heftily exceeded the ultimate design load. Ergo it took more than its fair share of punishment before parting with the aeroplane. And since you've mentioned the Air Transat incident, had the rudder of N14503 came apart before the fin failed, chances are that we wouldn't have an accident to discuss.

What information? That it is unwise to take off with upper wing surface contaminated with ice? If you had read the full NTSB report on LaGuardia accident, you would have known that this fact was known from at least 1930ies and it was made part of a lot of aeronautical regulations. And yet we've had that infamous Iberia thread here.

Well, then there's a piece of Airbus trivia for you: A320's speedbrakes retract automatically upon aplication of TOGA power.

What I'd like to know is how did they manage to get themselves into such a violent wake vortex in the first place. Is the report available? Or at least an ILAFFT story?

It is tragic that someone needed the broken fin to realize that the rudder is not primary roll control surface. But it is beyond tragic that some pilots still don't accept the fact that this procedure has proven itself to be lethaly wrong. Especially so on swept wing twins with wing mounted engines.

So we have come to the point at last! NTSB comes out with probable cause and recomendations on how to avoid similar occurences in the future and here we have PPRuNers that know better than NTSB's experts but don't tell us what their superior analysis came out with. All we get are oblique hints unsupported by the known facts. For my part, I'll be glad if they're actually not rated to fly anything that isn't powered by Microsoft.

clandestino

YES

OK, so how come it wasn't in the PHAK books before the crash?

Collin POWELL is not an expert in aviation. Do you recall his presentation to the UN with the artists conception of portable BIO Weapons Labs? OOPS.

Collin POwell's endorsement of obama...ah yes, Obama was in diapers during the Cuban Missile Crisis. McCain was in a navy attack plane. Experience doesn'T matter....I guess duty honor and country don't matter either.

Why not publish the dissenting opinion of the NTSB board member?

I take it you learned to fly this century and not the last one.


heeding advice after the fact...makes good sense...last time I checked 2003 was after the crash.

as to icing...the point was planes without leading edge devices are more prone to problems than those with leading edge devices. the crash in canada and its resulting information was not passed on to US operators of another funky european plane.

rudder not primary roll control...really...gee Orville taught that to me. have you ever been locked into a wingtip wake vortex? can you name any jet transport that crashed in wake turbulence?


sorry boys and girls for leaving the idea of the 757 ORD. i don't like american airlines, but I won't have the clueless lead us down the wrong localizer.

Collin Powell is not an aviation safety expert indeed. Nevermind his character&deeds, my opinion is that his statement:

...is very true for life in general and aviation safety in particular. It was only fair of me to credit the author properly.

I'm unable to verify that tere were even PHAK books before 2003. edition. However warnings about dynamic unstabillity and pilot induced oscillations can be found in any aerodynamics handbook worthy of its name, even decades before AA587. As Marlene Dietrich commented about the matter that has no connection with flying, but I find it relevant nevertheless:
So is your point that we can be more carreless with wing ice if our aeroplane is slats equipped? Also it seems that I have to spell it out: I don't like oblique hints! If you think that Dryden accident had some sinister connections with Roselawn, way don't you say it out loud?

I'm fiery supporter of avoidance-is-easier-than-recovery theory. That's why I always warn ATC I need 2mins separation behind 757 when cleared to line up behind one at LHR and LGW. I have never encountered wake below 4000AGL and certanly have never been locked into one.

Irelevant. Newton's and Bernoulli's laws haven't been amended since the first issue or had they area of aplicability changed. Those who learnt to fly 100 years ago and those who made their first solo yesterday had to obey the same laws to stay airborne. Anyway, you've got even the millenium wrong.

All RB211 from the first -22B on the Tristar to the latest Trent have electrically operated HP and LP fuel shut off valves and spar valves. The spar valves are powered by the battery for safety, I suppose the case where the crew will knowingly deplete the battery, but still have main DC bus power was not envisaged in the design case.
The B777 even has special spar valve batteries to cater for this case, so perhaps they though of it?

IGh...just curious what amount of rudder displacement occured with those pedal movements..I don't know the airbus, but that amount of pedal displacement at relatively low speed doesn't sound like a tremendous amount..granted the rapid, cyclical inputs are puzzling...have only observed one pedal left-right or right-left rapid input and that is engine failure drills in the simulator after V1 when the wrong rudder is applied just prior to rotation..then its oops...other way and hold the pedal displacement..never to and fro. Timbob.

Hopefully back to thread here....

Has AA come out with any changes to QRH procedures yet? When they do, would someone please post.

APC and Rudder Response
 

TB, in slot #113, posed a question about the special characteristic of that -600 modelThese pilot-readers are mostly focused on PILOT-factors, the engineering weaknesses sometimes get less attention on such forums.

Aircraft Pilot Coupling is discussed in that AAR-04/04, on pgs 150-2,From AAR pg 24 you can read about magnitudes, here's the point:

Standby bus off
 

Why anybody would want to turn this discussion into a crazy AA bashing contest is beyond me, but here's a quote from my 757-200 QRH. Sorry I can't render all the Boeing typography. The dotted lines below step 3 an 4 stand for 'end of checklist'

STANDBY BUS OFF

message:STANDBY BUS OFF
condition:one or more of these busses are not energized
.AC standby bus
.DC standby bus

1. STBY POWER selector............BAT

2. choose one:

*standby power bus OFF light stays illuminated and right bus off
light is not illuminated
>> goto step 4

*standby power bus OFF light is not illuminated or right BUS OFF light
stays illuminated
>> goto step 3

3. the battery will provide standby bus power for approximately 90
minutes
---------------------------

4. standby power selector.........AUTO
---------------------------

Reality Check please........
 

Airbus vs Boeing..........and all that crap.......


In the light of the A300 accident all manufacturers provided guidance on the use of the rudder, as cyclical use of it could greatly exceed design parameters.

Think about it - it is a huge control surface designed to give way more control moment than any other - aileron or elevator; to cater for an extreme situation, where at minimum control speed, Vmca, with one engine at full thrust and the other at idle, directional control can be maintained.

It was never considered in the design that the structure would have to cope with full deflection in one direction rapidly followed by the opposite. To go rapidly from Full Scale Deflection in one direction to FSD in the other creates a force way beyond the design parameters.

The NTSB and all other agencies associated with the A300 accident came to the same conclusion, that sufficent loads were generated in the manouevres involved that resulted in the fin detaching itself from its mountings. If replicated in just about any other transport category aircraft, the result would be the same.

The repercussions are simple - we (professional pilots) all fly aircraft that have limitations on handling. Rudders have the greatest amount of gearing compared with other surfaces and have the highest risk of being over extended. Full control input followed by full opposite input may exceed the structural integrity of the aircraft.

I think it is quite amazing that such lessons are only being learnt in the 21st century- one hundred years after we first learnt to fly.

Interesting comment, wrong conclusion.
Boeing positively knew about large powered rudder abrupt cyclic movements a long time ago, circa 1950's, with the original B707.

Large airline training departments as well, as nearly all of these airlines had B707 aircraft in their fleets.

Page forward many years, the old hands in the training departments(s) retire, new young turks in charge who, quite frankly wouldn't know a B707 if they saw one (let alone having actually flown one), introduce an abrupt control 'advanced' :rolleyes: maneuvering training program...and find, through the inappropriate use of the powered rudder, severe structural failure, and much loss of life.

The majority blame for the loss of the AA A300-600 rests squarely at the doorstep of American Airlines, and nowhere else.
Minority blame can be attributed to the specific aircraft design.

Absolute Rubbish!

These statements are in direct conflict with the conclusions of the Accident Report (Aircraft Accident Report NTSB/AAR-04/04). In particular, read the evidence given by other AA flight deck crew who witnessed this FO previously performing "aggressive" rudder inputs in similar circumstances. When questioned, the FO defended himself by saying that "the AA Advanced Aircraft Maneuvering Program directed him to use to rudder pedals in that manner" (page 12 if you are interested).

Read the goddam Report before sprouting such rubbish. A lot of perople died in this accident and if you don't understand what happened then their sacrifice (both the lives of the crew and passengers) are wasted and we are doomed to repeat history.

Please sick to the facts. We don't need a bunch of clowns going around sprouting self-opinionated or other political bull**** to try and change history so those extremely valuable lessons that we in the professional aviation community have learned at enormous human cost are simply denigrated.

I had this training program inflicted upon me in the late 1990's during sim training.

Probably a matter of interpretation by the sim instructor but I repeatedly raised the BS flag and questioned whether such agressive rudder deflection was appropriate in an airliner. I was assured that it was.