I started in BOAC with 312 hours, ex-RAF trained N.S. pilot, and it was over 3 years before I even got near a pilots' seat again - aircraft had radio operators, flight engineers, navigators, as well as co-pilots in those days, and although I would have wished it differently at the time, in retrospect I was eventually well pleased that I had chance to 'learn my trade' watching all the other professionals as I quietly beavered away being employed as a navigator.

thanks basil

I was wondering if the term ''firewall power/thrust" was used. but I dont' know how to get max power without pushing them full forward to the stop.

IIRC, on the 744 but not the Classic you can push the thrust levers fully forward. On the Classic you could, e.g., have an N2 overspeed or overtemp.

I gave myself some wiggle room with the qualifier "pretty much". ;)

AI made up for the lack of a stick shaker by making stall warnings very clearly audible, and by making it much harder to stall the aircraft in the first place (unless you dump autothrottle below 100ft, before some bugger brings up Habsheim again!).

I've read the South African report and nowhere does it say that the crew firewalled the throttles but, nowhere does it say they didn't firewall them!

Out of curiosity could someone post what sort of assumed temperature they would have been using at a 5558 feet airfield with a temperature 8 degrees above standard for the height. a 14mb qnh above standard and a light and variable wind. 9the conditions at the time) also what sort of rtow would have been used

I suspect that there wasn't a huge amount of extra thrust around to play with.

Maximum thrust can be obtained by either a double press of the TOGA switches, or pushing the thrust levers forward, although in the latter case one must also disconnect the autothrottle or they will roll back when you release them.

The EEC calculates the maximum thrust, taking into account the maximum EPR, EGT, N1, N2 and N3, together with the ambient conditions.

The engines are operating very close to their maximum rating out of JNB and there is very little more available. It looks as though the thrust was increased at 18:36:51 to what is probably the maximum available, although the thrust increase would have been small.

The crew were faced with an unknown problem which had not been anticipated by the manufacturer and for which there was no QRH item or procedure. It was only the handling skills of the F/O, together with the support of the captain that saved this aircraft.

I don't know the F/O but I have observed the captain for many hours on the simulator. I always came away from our sim sessions wishing that I had half of his ability.

Dave

Without getting overly technical, wouldn't the thrust be in 'Hold' mode, so you can firewall the levers and they'll stay there?

Yep, they should be in 'HOLD' from 65 knots on the takeoff roll until VNAV is engaged or another thrust mode is selected.

28L and Airbubba.

Thanks. You have jogged my memory ( perhaps I shouldn't have ditched those manuals?). My answer re advancing the thrust levers only applies after VNAV engaged (400ft????).

Dave

For the technically minded, and for myself as I am old and easily confused. From the 744 Tech manual or as it is now known... B747 FCOM Vol 2.

During takeoff prior to lift–off:
• with speed less than 50 KIAS, pushing a TO/GA switch activates the
autothrottle in thrust reference (THR REF) and advances thrust levers to
the selected reference thrust limit. If the autothrottle is not active by 50
knots, it cannot be activated until above 400 feet
• at 65 knots, autothrottle annunciation changes to HOLD

After lift–off:
• if an engine failure occurs, the pitch command target speed is:
• V2, if airspeed is below V2
• existing speed, if airspeed is between V2 and V2 + 10
• V2 + 10, if airspeed is above V2 + 10
• if a TO/GA switch is pushed before the reference thrust limit changes to
climb:
• takeoff derates are removed
• A/T in HOLD, autothrottle annunciation is THR REF
• at 50 feet, LNAV activates when armed. Roll commands bank to track the
active route
• at 400 feet, VNAV activates when armed. Pitch commands the current
airspeed. Autothrottle sets the selected reference thrust and annunciates
THR REF

What are the criteria for getting a medal?
 

General discussion, not wishing in any was to distract from crew's achievements but let us assume that something happens, you do something, you get a happy outcome. Do you get a medal because you survived?

How about saying you get a medal if you got a happy outcome and 80% of the guys in the sim afterwards did not. Or, perhaps the 80% did what you were trained to do and deserve a medal, you did something different, that happened to fit this occasion but was actually against the odds. Right result, wrong action. No medal?

Of course we all admire the true masters who take actions that cover all the most likely causes AND a few unlikely ones as well without having to guess. When playing bridge sometimes you have to "take a view" as to how the cards, lie, I always admire those who manage to delay their decisions until they they have the facts. I guess it is the same for you guys, but you do not always have the luxury of time.

Yes, I think my conclusion is 'Anyone who survives the scrutiny of a pprune thread gets a medal whatever they did!' Well done!

As an old and long retired safety pilot once said to me: As long as you do not have any better ideas, follow the procedures. For incidences not covered by procedures, you have to come up with ideas, and the list gets larger the longer you fly.

Any question?
 

That´s basic standard, if there is any evidence that the AC is close to a stall.
Less pitch and max PWR.
They did it, fine.
(My time on controls: 10.000hrs)

Firewall Power/Air Florida Accident
 

First, may I salute the fine airmanship of the BA 74 crew in SA. Firewall power (thrust lever position) was the right choice in response to stick shaker. Perhaps there was no steady amber LED indication because in-transit amber is really a "disagreement" "light", right?, (with the commanded position)? The LED's were doing what they were commanded/programed to do: on ground, see reverse and retract? Thus, no LED amber airborne until the reversers shook out their unlocked indications?

Next, the attempt by airrabbit to defend the Air Florida Crew who did not "firewall" is passionate for some reason but not correct imho. I disagree with most of his points entirely. Also, I have a direct unknown connection with that accident. Let me elaborate.

First the background. Air Florida was primarily a prop operation with little airplanes that was allowed to blossom rapidly under deregulation into jet operations that it had no experience with. Thusly, they hired Western Airlines to do their FAA manuals and training in LAX in the B-737 simulators IIRC. (I don't think they were in-house at that point). I had been through that program a year before, and was back getting a 727 rating (sorry, was nearly 30 years ago, remembered it wrong yesterday.) The instructors in the program were shell-shocked, knowing that fingers might point back to them in their extremely crowded out-sourced training offerings. Many times the older sim would break disrupting airlines sim schedules, throwing every airline into chaos, requiring them to break the training up into chunks separated by weeks of idle time waiting for a cancelation or adequate period to come up.

So, there was, in my mind, a training question. Western's training was first rate, and most of their instructors were excellent. But many times, an airline could get a box period, but no instructor, so they would put in their own guys to run a mysterious box. Was it quality training? I dunno....:=

But let's examine rabbit's argument from authority: i.e; the F/O was a former F-15 pilot with the Air Farce bla bla bla. Who cares? Are we flying F-15's here? No. Many fighters didn't even have anti-ice I was told by my co-pilots who flew em. But it's possible, that the first officer was the only one with any appreciable jet time at all in that cockpit.

Noise doesn't equal power (ref: the CAM analysis). If you forget to turn on the engine heat, as Air Florida did, and you've been taxiing along in clutter, getting blasted by the aircraft ahead of you for take off, not only is your PT2 sensor going to ice up, but also fan blades will turn into baseball bats. They certainly weren't clean fans and rotors anymore. Saying they had 75 percent power based on noise is highly speculative. I becha they didn't even have 50 percent. How do I know this?

Because it happened to me one night in a bizjet. I had a knot-head for a captain on a dereg operation, who refused to turn on the engine heat in moderate snowfall situation with a long taxi to t/o. He told me: "Don't turn them on till we hit the clouds." I protested: "That's not right" pointing at the engine instruments. Both EPRs started bouncing all over the place from the snow being blasted up by the taxiing aircraft we were following. But his Airworthiness wouldn't budge, having only a prop background previously, so he didn't know the significance of it, and since CRM hadn't been invented yet, the trip was "Bossman/Boy" the whole month.

So, trying to keep my crappy job, I obeyed, and told him, "O.K, I'll just set them to N1, since the EPRs are frozen." (Flight 90 was firmly in my mind.) But in hindsight, I should have mutinied and walked off and quit, because we lost an engine due to broken N1 blades and 275,000 dollars later, he got fired, and I got a checkride from hell. But we could've been killed.

Rabbit makes a conclusion that the Air Florida F/O was looking at the wing talking about 1/4 inch of ice, etc. Anyone who's flown -200 Boeings knows he's probably talking about the windshield wiper and it's visible bolt on his side of the aircraft. You can't determine ice thickness on the wingtips from that distance.

And most people in the industry fully agree with the NTSB accident board findings. Especially the part where the F/O doesn't see nine o'clock on the N1's and repeatedly questions the Captain on the power he's applied for takeoff. The Captain, having no real jet experience, and no CRM training to draw on, creates the Captain Blye Cardinal Sin: "

"My I.Q. goes right up with my seniority number!"

Conclusion: There is just no excuse for making a FUBAR this big. If your F/O is unhappy, you should defer to his paranoia if you don't have experience in the particular operation. Go ahead and push them up guys! You can't damage the JT8D-9 Pratt unless you exceed RPM or EGT!

Note: They did push them up shortly before impact; too little too late. But on the runway, after the PNF (Pilot Not Flying) "80 kt" call, at WAL the training was to say: "Check", then "power's good" by the non-flying pilot, IIRC. This was what the F/O was looking at and pointing at, not flight controls that he was handling! If there was a flight control problem they would have aborted. But if there was a disagreement on where the power was set it could have been rectified if the Captain knew to look at N1. He didn't, despite the F/O pointing, saying, "look at that thing".

I am repeating the off-the-record assessment of the men who trained these guys to the best of my memory. They marched upstairs while I was there, in a briefing room and checked their version of the Air Florida AFM Vol 1, cold weather ops and confirmed that Flight 90 was directed to have engine heat on takeoff with visible moisture and temp under 10 degrees TAT on the Rosemont Probe. But even the crew failing to do this right, the instructors were incredulous that the F/O said: "We're going down, Larry", and the Capt said: "I know".

"Push the power up dummies!" was the critique of their sim instructors at LAX.
And if you accidentally overboost, who cares? Those old buckets will warp before the rotables fly apart (engine casings will warp slowly before failure). Never sit there with a negative rate of climb.

Do something! :ugh:

Crunch

Air Florida Flight 90 - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Crunch. ditto

sadly, the DC9 crash at CLT in microburst showed a go around, but not at full go around thrust. firewall power wasn't applied till too late...even full power (toga) wasn't applied...then there were the visual illusions.

the business about nine o'clock is so darn interesting. so many people haven't figured out the great wisdom in the design of our instruments and no one told them. it is the thing that is out of place that will kill you...don't read when you can scan. I still remember looking at the engine instruments of a B36 (movie "Strategic Air Comman") but one gauge out of place caught attention.

maybe we are all alive, due to air florida screwing up so badly. but where do we get the idiots out there? I flew with one guy...atis said: freezing rain. he wanted to go saying he couldn't see it. I opened my side window (direct vision window) and stuck my hand out (we were on the ground of course) and I showed him the little ice crystals on my hand.

idiot.

just as we all mentioned in the kentucky crashand the madrida crash about ''killer items", pilots need some "save my ass'' actions that almost always work.

firewall power is one of them...or at least on older jets it would save your ass...as the JT8D would produce firewall power for 8 minutes without damage...after that...oh well.

I believe the auto slat retraction is to prevent damage from forward thrust, to the inboard leading edge flaps after reverse thrust is selected. In this case, it would suggest that the rigging on the thrust reversers sleeves may have been incorrect; allowing retraction of the leading edge inboard flaps as the
aerodynamic loads increased on the reverser cowls.