Computers in the cockpit and the safety of aviation

[john_tullamarine]

The checkie concerned also had an Access database for the contents of his refrigerator ... sad case ... but a nice bloke in spite of his addiction to inappropriate uses for computers ...

[BOAC]

Leadsled - it doesn't really matter what you call it!

"needs a lot more information."

CPH/734/04(?05?)/CAVOK/'keys punched' (if that's better) by PH.

Old story, so no ILS freq or g/a 'available' in those days. IE No need when a quick 'review' brief is preferable. Back in the days I referred to earlier when the kit was viewed as 'PFM' by the starry-eyed trainer managers.

[4Greens]

An important requirement is unusual attitude recovery training. Unfortunately this cannot be adequately covered in the simulator however sophisticated. This is because there are no physiological effects such as 'g' forces. This needs to be practiced on a real aircraft. Most ex military pilots have had this type of training and would probably agree on its value.

[A37575]

this cannot be adequately covered in the simulator however sophisticated. This is because there are no physiological effects such as 'g' forces

The vital skill in unusual attitude recovery training is the recognition of the situation by simply looking at the flight instruments. If the aircraft is at 135 degrees angle of bank and 30 degrees nose high attitude then if the pilot has been properly trained he will know that certain actions are necessary to get right side up. This is easily taught in most airline type simulators. Certainly in the 737 simulator I use, the instruments will also show a complete barrel roll although of course the simulator doesn't move.

While it would be nice (?) to have a simulator that gives you a gut wrenching vomit inducing 3G manoeuvre, it isn't going to happen. If you know how to recover from aforesaid manoeuvre in IMC by observing the flight instruments and correcting via the flight instruments then that is better than just reading it from a book. To say that it is dangerous to teach unusual attitude recovery training simply because the G forces can not be replicated, is nothing more than negligence - leaving the student or whoever, right out on a limb and the unfortunate passengers too. It is similar to saying it is too dangerous to teach you how to swim but I'll teach you how not to go near the water..

[Tmbstory]

Computers in the Cockpit and Safety of Aviation

A37575:

Unusual Attitude Recovery:

In my experience I did not notice any significant postive or negative "G" loadings. Maybe we were too busy!

Tmb

[4Greens]

A37575 : I'm still trying to find where I said it was 'dangerous to teach......etc

The word dangerous doesn't feature in my post.

[4Greens]

No reply to my last post.

It would be useful to combine type simulator training in unusual attitudes plus small aircraft limited panel instrument training to get used to the g forces involved.

It may also be an issue where complex failures are not dealt with in type conversions. Did my conversion to glass cockpit and was operating on the line with limited understanding of what you did when the lights went out.

Training and/or lack of it is a major issue.

[alf5071h]

4Greens - “An important requirement is unusual attitude recovery training.”

I would not disagree that unusual attitude recovery training is an important subject, but what is the exact relevance to automation / computers?

It may be more beneficial to look at the reasons for the loss of control.
If there have been system failures, then why did they fail, and how did the crew manage these failures given that in most, if not all circumstances the aircraft is still flyable – rule 1 fly the aircraft.
‘Loss of control’ accidents without system failure appear to have elements of non normal operation, surprise, and hazards of physiological disorientation – these are not failures of technology or the aircraft.

Thus, the higher priority for training might be related to how pilots manage system failures, how they fly an aircraft in a degraded state, and how they manage themselves when dealing with the unexpected or when challenged by weakness of human physiology – always trust the instruments.
It would better to avoid the hazardous situations, rather than relying on recovering from an upset, if indeed it is recognized / recognizable.

[BOAC]

We are, as alf says, drifting a little from my initial 'pointer', but it does seem that if airlines concentrated on training for low speed recoveries, including significant out-of-trim scenarios in G/As, most of the situations would be covered.

[4Greens]

We are getting there; more and relevant training required.

[Capot]

I was working on the ramp at Bahrain in the early 70's when a Qantas B707 (I can't remember the variant) landed after a major upset on route. We disembarked the passengers, all very subdued and shaken, and got them off to the hotels we had organised.

In the cabin, we found evidence that something had gone wrong, including soap still stuck to the toilet ceilings. One of the passengers had told how her baby had "flown" a considerable distance from her seat row to another, without injury. We reckoned that this was in negative "G".

As I recall,, the flight crew said that Captain's Flight Director had indicated a increasing bank which the AP did not correct. The action of disengaging it and applying a manual incremental correction put the aircraft out of control, because the Director was wrong in the first place. I'm sure that someone knows what really happened; that story is very probably wrong.

The point of the post is that the Captain told us that he had eventually brought the aircraft under control again at 6,000 ft, by simply going back to his basic single-engine training using the basic panel, yoke, rudder and engine controls and taking the action he had been taught for "recovery from unusual attitudes". That would have been a laconic over-simplification, of course.

I have found one short record of this incident describing it as a "steep dive and recovery", but I'm sure it was a lot more than that. The aircraft was, according to the same record, written off due to structural damage. My memory was that a Boeing team spent 2 - 3 weeks crawling over the aircraft and found little damage, after which it was ferried away. That would have been consistent with the way Boeings were built, but I guess the record is right and it was finally written off.

I think about that incident occasionally, usually as I get on board an Airbus.

[Clandestino]

Originally Posted by John Tullamarine

is it reasonable to expect the modern (ie younger) pilot to be able to maintain the manipulative and situational skills of yesteryear as well as keeping on top of increasingly more convoluted and complex electronic systems ?

Well that's certainly how certifying authorities see it: use all the neat gadgets as they're supposed to be used, but bring the aeroplane safely back to earth when they turn their electronic backs on you. Reasonable? Absolutely! Easy to accomplish? Hell, no! It takes dedication, time and hard work to get to the point where you're comfortable with any level of automation, from maximum to zero but also balancing at that point is not an easy feat. Whoever claimed that airline pilots have an easy life, lied.

As for the unusual attitudes, if nothing else, ASN database of control loss cases can make me fan of Airbus "it's better to prevent UA than to try to recover from it" approach. Most of them are airframe or flight controls failures and in a few cases where control was lost at the altitude that would allow recovery, it was spatially disoriented crew that brought the ship in UA in the first place and I think that chances of such a crew recovering the aeroplane are very, very close to zero. To set the record straight: my opinion is that FBW Airbus pilots absolutely do need to be trained in unusual attitudes and proficient in manual flying (manual thrust too) because a) protections can fail b) one can stay clear of protection activation area and yet wreck the aeroplane (GF, Armavia).

And if you go practicing unusual attitudes in real aeroplane, don't go in anything that isn't aerobatic and don't go without parachute. The aeroplane I flew on my basic aerobatics course (as part of my CPL ) was recycled into beer cans following wing failure at root. Both instructor and student still fly today, with their logbooks showing number of landings lagging by one behind the number of takeoffs.

[justanotherflyer]

If a Captain trusts the FO to fly the aircraft - has faith or belief in the person, then is there any difference in the nature of ‘trust’ in automation?

JT's response:

Of course not, as a philosophical matter ... however, a pragmatic concern with the above statement relates to the competence with which the Captain can take over from a deteriorating situation (whether F/O or A/P) and save the day ... ?

Providing that the Captain understands and recognises the practical limits of competence of either his/her F/O or A/P ...

I wonder if this interesting question about different kinds of trust isn't worth exploring a little more, though. I suspect the trust we give to technology could well be of a different nature than that we give to other humans. Perhaps the error (if such it be) of assuming they are the same, gives rise to subtle dangers.

Let's say the GPS in one's car says the route takes the next turn to the left, but the spouse in the passenger seat insists it's in the opposite direction. Which way will you turn if faced with a snap decision?

(disclaimer: I don't have a GPS in my car - not that sad!)

[john_tullamarine]

Let's say the GPS in one's car says the route takes the next turn to the left, but the spouse in the passenger seat insists it's in the opposite direction. Which way will you turn if faced with a snap decision?

That depends ...

(a) married men know (or, with progressive marital wisdom (tuition ?), eventually will come to know) the correct answer.

(b) single chaps probably will waste some time debating the pros and cons of the question and may even foolishly opt for the electronic option.

[Capot]

I thought I was alone until I saw a cartoon with a couple sitting in a car half-submerged in a river; there's a crossroads just behind them and she, the passenger, is saying to him....

"For God's sake, haven't you learned that when I say 'Left', I mean 'Right'".

[alf5071h]

Trust is discussed in the reference below – beware, it’s a heavyweight scientific review.

The similarities in the characteristics of trust with some aspects of decision making and experience (naturalistic decision making, experts vs novices) are interesting.
“… high-trust individuals may be better able to adjust their trust to situations in which the automation is highly capable as well as to situations in which it is not.” Judgement - airmanship?

This suggests that trust may be a facet of experience, and thus the training issue (as ever) is how to 'teach' experience.

How do we achieve progressive marital wisdom? Experience.
How do we learn … that when I say 'Left', I mean 'Right'? Experience.

It’s not that we need more training; it is the need to concentrate on that which is relevant to experience - trust in automation, by knowing how to learn / remember / recall, and by acquiring know-how which appears to be a central component of experience.

Trust in Automation: Designing for Appropriate Reliance.

[4Greens]

For the readers of this thread the FAA are now looking into requiring some form of unusual attitude training in aircraft.

[Tee Emm]

For the readers of this thread the FAA are now looking into requiring some form of unusual attitude training in aircraft

Reinventing the wheel. We did UA training in Tiger Moths in 1950...including spinning under the hood and it wasa real canvas hood which allowed no peeking outside.

[BOAC]

4Greens - does that mean that there is none at present? We've been doing it in the UK for at least 5 years on recurrents.

[4Greens]

BOAC not sure what your recurrent training is. If you mean in the sim, the FAA are talking about actual aircraft training. The sim doesnt give you the physiological difficulties of disorientation etc.