CRM and A320

[Venkman]

Hello all!

I am a final year student at Leeds University, my final year project involves building an A320 simulator using some project magenta software and then studying CRM on it. Basically we will be getting some professional pilots to fly the 'aircraft' but we will be setting out to confuse them, as they would in a real emergency situation then studying and analysing how they cope with the scenario.

Basically what I'm asking is, are there any A320 pilot who could recommend any subtle ways to cause a small fault with the aircraft. I'm thinking of oil pressure problems etc, and any consequences these problems may cause to the operations of the aircraft. Any real life problems will be ideal!

Thanks for your time

Andy

[shuttlebus]

Venkman,

Try: -

http://www.aaib.gov.uk/cms_resources...5%20G-EUOB.pdf

There was also a good thread on here about it... should be a good test of CRM and problem solving abilities (unless of course they have read the report and the thread )

Regards,

Shuttlebus

[wileydog3]

Have the crew takeoff from a runway where conditions are at takeoff minimums. Have the wind set 90deg to the runway at 15kts. Have a runway with an ILS for both ends.. ie runway 09-27 with an ILS serving each runway.

Clear the crew for takeoff and give routine vectors away from the airport generally on the runway heading. when the crew is about 40 miles from the airport, introduce a cabin smoke/fire. No other airports are available for landing. The airfield they just departed is now down to CatIIIB limits.

IF the crew is alert, they will put on the masks and begin working through the smoke/fire problem. IF they departed on 27, they are now west of the field and if they are quick thinking, they will declare an emergency, request the field turn on the ILS for 09 and make an autoland with autobrakes set for max. This will land the airplane, and bring it to a stop on the runway where the crew can then go through an emergency evacuation.

This scenario presents a number of problems including workload, crew coordination, automation issues, reprogramming the FMS, etc. Introduced quickly enough, there will NOT be enough time to run all the checklists and at some point the crew will have to break off and land the airplane. When this happens, they will be well outside their comfort zone and will just have to make sure the airplane is configured for landing. Also, an alert crew will ignore the usual speed limits below 10,000ft (USA) and bolt for the field. The test here is to arrive at the field able to land and not with so much speed they have to go around.

At 'my old house' we had the Capt run the checklists in emergency abnormals with the F/O flying the airplane. This works very well in that you have 1 person involved with the checklist and making decisions with the other pilot programming/monitoring the autopilot.

The scenario can take as little as :20 to run when done properly. Oddly enough we had some crews ask for holding instructions for time to complete checklists. Others (me included) just headed for the field, did as many checklist items as they could, landed and evacuated.

Good luck.

[Venkman]

Thanks for the help! Sounds like that will be a good emergency to pull Wiley! Does anyone else have any recommendations?

We are also checking to monitor the alertness of the crew by introducing subtle problems which might confuse the crew, anyone got any ideas?

[FRIDAY]

Wow This sounds really interesting.
I am not a pro so cant be too sure about whether these are worth while or not so maybe discuss with those in the know.

1:I heard of one brain teaser where after departure the aircraft has climbed through thousands of feet of cloud which also happens to be icing conditions, Then an electrical failure causes failure of pitot static heating including standby......Now a cabin pressurisation fault or smoke in cabin is forcing them down but as I understand it they are in danger as they descend through icing conditions in a rush with no accurate air data indications, so do they descend?... I heard it was a favourite on profiency checks but might be only relevant on certain aircraft types.

2:Another might be have both pilots operating under slightly different SOP's, Maybe one of them just joined from another airline. Subtle things like exterior light off at gear up for one and off at flap zero for another guy. Just generally have they guys expecting certain things at certain times which the different SOP's you have them operating under dont correspond..it migh set doubt in there minds...build it up and right through the flight to a critical item been missed. One Guy calls for after take off checks.. the other turns to him and states we dont have one ( which is a new idea for airbus moving towards quiet cockpit) or have a much abbreviated one compared to what he was expecting.
I think alot of confusion can be placed if you give them both slighlty altered SOP's or Ck-lists, which hopefully will prove they will question each other if something major is missed but none the less start the miss communications flowing.

3:Rush them a little with time critical scenarios, departure of funchal madeira in the direction where the runway end drops off into the sea. Immediately after takeoff severe fire in engine or cabin, eng shut down drills / smoke drills and Get down quick but what about the overweight landing procedure ( no fuel dump on a 320/737) onto a runway that is not forgiving with an overrun.

These are all sketchy ideas thrown together.

[Dani]

How comes that you emphazise CRM together with A320? Do you still believe that A320 is somewhat not pilot friendly or does distract crews too much from their flying capabilities?

Airbus are very forgiving aircraft, also during an emergency. Remeber the Helios and just think what would have happened in a A320 - probably nothing except a short "ding" - "ECAM action".

I do not underestimate the enorm complexity in software architecture of an Airbus. Because this aircraft is so forgiving, lots of crews become reluctant and unaware. Heavy failures with electronical failures combined can become a problem, but just because people are less trained to fly a conventional aircraft.

btw there is no major difference in CRM anymore between Airbus and other modern equipment, B777, EMB170, Falcon 900...

Dani

PS: Venkmann, why did you build an A320 sim? There are so many products off the shelf. Or you could use a "real" sim for your study. Is this a technical or a psychological study?

Subtle failures are nowadays mostly recognized by the system itself, giving an advisory and pilots getting attention subsequently. The danger of subtle failures has remarkably reduced due to modern cockpit technology.

[Sean Dell]

Try a night time departure out of LHR and then introduce an electrical failure (AC ESS bus etc.) which results in the loss of 5 of the 6 screens.

Or simply fail both MCDU's with unsucessful reset.

[FlightDetent]

Choose something simple that is inhibited by Ecam during take off. Generator trip off and/or failure is perfect. After departure issue a stream of instructions to change frequency, climb clearance, vectors, direct to, separation headings to take one pilot out of the cockpit.

As the failure appears during clean-up sequence watch them fly, communicate, configure, perform ECAM actions, start APU (not in the checklist).

[Non Normal]

Can't comment on A320 confusers, but someone has brought out a Flight Sim add-in for A320 - it might save you having to build it, if CRM is tha main part of your study, as opposed to building a sim.

I do think that it is difficult to study CRM effectively and realistically in anything less than a "proper" sim though - even in a "proper" sim, there's quite a bit of shorfall in comparison to using the actual aircraft (for a start, everyone know emergencies are simulated). Of course it would be a rather expensive exercise to study pilot interaction/CRM in a motion sim (or even in a fixed base "proper" sim).

Also remember that the very presence of observer(s) can skew the individual's behaviour quite substantially (so-called Hawthorn effects)...

[Venkman]

Thanks for all your input guys!

Dani, the reason for using the A320 inparticular was down to the fact that we already had 1/2 a simulator built from a previous project. Just to confirm, we are not operating on a MS Flight Sim just using a monitor as I do at home! (Geek!) We are physically building a sit in cockpit to create a more realistic environment. The decision was not based to target the A320 as being unreliable or any other reason. The project is half simulator (technical) and half CRM based, 2 teams of 2. I am on the CRM side and wanting to understand how crews monitor aircraft, use of SOP's and alertness amongst others.

Thanks for your interest in our work.

Andy

[shuttlebus]

A word of warning for your test.

I have just finished a round of test exercises in an engineering related discipline involving a number of parties.

Make sure that your participants are briefed on the objectives of the test and that all the background details are sorted out.... beforehand.

Our first exercise was a painful lesson in simulation vs real time. You need to make sure that you don't surprise the participants with something new, or you will suffer from comments of "...but in real life, this would happen..." or "... we would do this....".

In your case this wil cover everything from interaction with the cabin crew (confirmation of secure cabin) to interaction with ATC. If these issues are not sorted out, suddenly exercise planning can get seriously muddled with exercise objectives and the whole lot comes crashing down.

The participants are having to react to the scenario and make decisions that are not relevant - "OK, lets assume assume the cabin is secure", or "... normally, we would get this info from ATC, what do we use in this instance...". Telling the crew to make it up will not be a satisfactory answer and will dilute the learning experience.

I would let them fly the simulator and get used to it before throwing them in a the deep end with the emergencies - say one or two sectors. That way the "house-keeping" will be sorted out and you can actually test for your objective - CRM.

This approach will also split (and I take this from your last post) the sim test bit from the CRM test bit.

Best of luck.

Shuttlebus

P.S. I'll bail out now, so to speak, and let the professional pilots comment on whether this is good advice or not....

Another edit:

Another useful point is that during the initial briefing you remind everyone that it is a learning experience and unlike their normal sim scenarios, NO-ONE IS MARKING THEM! It is a test of the system (CRM), not the individual.

We made this very clear at the start of every exercise - we didn't care if the participants detroyed anything or not - it was a test of the comms and decision making.

Also, in the de-brief, be very careful with the "you" and "he" phrases. Once criticism becomes personal, it is hard to retreat from the blame mindset. Often a frank open discussion is the best way to de-brief the participants with everyone chipping in the learning points. Sometimes you can learn more by keeping your mouth shut!!! We de-breiefed in a round table seminar format (others were tried) and this proved to be the most constructive, as it encourages people to bounce ideas off the previous responders info....

[A330AV8R]

Try a triple ADIR Failure ....... Youl get them in for a DIRECT LAW landing ...


MAN PITCH TRIM for pitch and RUDDERS only for yaw ..... Black deck !!!!

see what happens

[FlightDetent]

For your project I advise against complicated scenarios where personal qualities would decide the outcome. Make it simple, so you have two or perhaps four "ideal" behaviours as benchmarks. This way you can judge the crew performance and analyse their actions. In my view squeezing the hell out of their minds is hard to describe and statisticaly useless.

FD
(the un-real)

[Ignition Override]

Venkman and WileyDog3:

Also tell them to assume that their family is riding in the back.

Would some crews THEN asked to go into holding, and if so, is it because they rank book theory above survival?

[Irish Steve]

Be very careful how you do this,

or you might end up getting results that don't match what you thought they would, especially if the simulation will be flown by crews that are type rated on the aircraft you're simulating.

I know quite a bit about this subject, as I spent several years working very closely with BAE research labs at Bristol on a very complex A320 like simulation that they did a number of research projects on as part of several europe wide programmes, and my responsibility was a substantial part of the PC software integration, and much of the hardware side of it, along with the integration with some very specialised eye movement tracking equipment.

It's network PC based, (it uses 12 for the basic simulation and visuals, has dual crew capability, a full glareshield fit, which operates in a very similar manner to the aircraft, and a full overhead panel that I'm going to mention in more detail in a moment, and we also had to put in throttles and other centre console items that work the way the real aircraft does, including reverse thrust activators, blocked until the simulation is happy that the wheels are on the ground.

The most important thing to be aware of, and which will cause you huge pain if it's wrong is that for certain emergencies, the crew have specific memory items that they do, and they are mandatory at the start of the analysis procedure, before they even think about going to look at check lists or ECAM actions, and if they can't carry out those mandatory items on the sim you build, if they then have to stop and think about how they are going to deal with the differences, there is then the risk of invalidating what follows.

To try and avoid this at Bristol, we ended up having to build a complete replication of the A320 overhead panel, including the dual illumination of many of the switches, and we then had to get substantial parts of it to work in the way that the A320 does, and getting accurate information was one of our biggest headaches, even though the project was being controlled and coordinated by an Airbus partner.

There are other issues as well, but these were the areas that caused most of the problems. The other issue will be how you drive some of the secondary instruments so that the failures are meaningful, if you're using Magenta and Flight simulator, while some things can be made to happen, the integration of the systems area in FS will make it VERY hard to get things to synchronise in a way that will make the analysis of what's failed into an accurate one.

The best of luck with this, I know from painful experience that you're heading off on a very bumpy road.

Another thought, if you're using FS, don't even think of going down the road of manual reversion landings, the flight model just is not stable enough to be able to do it with any degree of accuracy. Many of the other subtle failures that have been suggested here are also going to be hard to reproduce, as you won't have access at a deep enough level into the core of the simulation to make the end result accurate enough that it can be correctly diagnosed.

Many of the items suggested above are valid, but doing them won't be possible, as the underlying systems that will be affected are not dynamically modelled in a way that will allow you to control what's being displayed, so the instruments will not give information in a manner that will aid diagnosis, and getting the overhead to synchronise so that it helps will also not be easy.

If that sounds discouraging, it's not meant to, but it is intended to act as a gentle warning that some of the things that might be "nice" to do are not going to be practical at the level of simulation you're aiming at using.

Hope it helps a little

[wileydog3]

Originally Posted by Ignition Override

Venkman and WileyDog3:
Also tell them to assume that their family is riding in the back.
Would some crews THEN asked to go into holding, and if so, is it because they rank book theory above survival?

I like that approach. I will have to use that when I get back to instructing.

And yes, two problems with asking for holding when on fire... the pilot doesn't understand the problem and two, the training s/he got hasn't gotten the real important stuff across.

[Venkman]

Thank you very much for your response Steve, your comments have been taken onboard, and we'll strive to make the best job out of the resources available!