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Short runway landing practice in the simulator.

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Short runway landing practice in the simulator.

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Old 12th May 2008, 00:33
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A37575, yes crews should have regular training in the simulator using a relatively short wet runway, but not necessarily to fine-tune basic handling skills.
If crews aim to fly every approach and landing accurately (professionally) then there would be little need for special ‘short landing’ skills training, as every normal landing would provide the practice. There would be some exceptions for ‘difficult’ airports or situations where there is little opportunity for practice.
What current training appears to lack is the provision of background knowledge and thinking skill for assessing situations and subsequent decision making during the approach and landing.

Many overrun accidents identify poor awareness of runway conditions or weather. Crews should be taught about the limitations of the measurement and reporting of runway conditions and wind, the potential inaccuracies, and the assumptions about the operation. In many instances, critical information is unavailable or not communicated; crews must consider this.
Regulations have hidden assumptions about crew judgement, which is expected to maintain the required level of safety where ambiguity exists.
An example of this is wet runway performance. A factored landing distance is based on a particular (unpublished) level of friction, thus where conditions are worse it is assumed that crews will adjust their behavior to maintain the required level of safety, e.g. not accept such a wide margin of error – altitude, speed, touchdown position, etc. These assumptions depend on the existance and knowledge of the adverse conditions, and the recall and use previous knowledge or experience for good judgement in these conditions. In turn, this requires understanding and adaptation of human behavior, which is assumed to be taught via CRM.

The problem originates from the industry ‘norm’; what is expected vs what is done or condoned.
Data shows that ‘pilots’ are lazy; we routinely tend to land long, fast, not brake earlier enough etc, etc; mainly due to over adequate runway length / conditions.
Thus to reduce the probability of a landing overrun we should improve the quality of normal approach and landings – technical and non technical skills. In this way, we reduce the exposure to those conditions which might catch us out due to poor information or weak judgement.

Centaurus as you will probably acknowledge, ill conceived calls are potential opportunities for error. Many calls are just band aids for industry-wide deteriorations in levels of experience and behaviour; areas in which training can help.
Calls, if used, should state (describe) the unusual, out of limit, or hazardous contribution to the situation and not focus on a normal operation.

Refs:
Managing the threats during approach and landing.
Safety aspects of aircraft operations in crosswind.
Running out of runway.
Safety aspects of aircraft performance on wet and contaminated runways.
Pprune - Avoiding an overrun: what should be trained?
Runway Overrun Prevention (AC 121.195).
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Old 12th May 2008, 09:14
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Push onitis is another matter and probably going off thread.

If I may make one last point. There are at least 2 posters perhaps giving the impression that ATC are in command of the aeroplane.

If ATC request any form of expedite it should be treated as just that ! a request ! Absolutely nothing different should be done with regards to landing technique. Only the amount of braking then becomes the judgement call.

If someone else may have to go-around behind you then that frankly has nothing to do with you. Your safe landing should be your one and only priority.
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Old 12th May 2008, 12:02
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Data shows that ‘pilots’ are lazy; we routinely tend to land long, fast, not brake earlier enough etc, etc; mainly due to over adequate runway length / conditions.
Thus to reduce the probability of a landing overrun we should improve the quality of normal approach and landings – technical and non technical skills
Agree with all points you make. Which is precisely why the accent on training should be towards learning to fly the aeroplane again and I don't mean button pressing ad nauseum which is the current thinking. The relatively high threshold speeds of jet transports make limiting runway length landings more critical than the propeller transport days of yesteryear. The amount and quality of technical study undertaken by pilots to counter the problems with wet and limiting runways is probably about the same as that for studying technical aspects of weather radar for storm avoidance - for some pilots it ain't never gonna happen, man....

So trainers should ensure the technical reading slack is taken up by solid practice in the simulator at accurate speed control and landing technique on computer generated short runways.
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Old 13th May 2008, 01:02
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So trainers should ensure ...

Many, if not necessarily most, do .. but it depends a lot on how tightly the organisation controls/limits the flexibility/initiative shown by individual instructors.

I'm just glad I went through the mill in the days when "over-training" was the norm
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Old 13th May 2008, 01:22
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8che, I'll be the first to agree the Air Traffic Control does not "Control" me. When I was in university, a good friend was killed because he let ATC overrule his own good judgement.
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Old 13th May 2008, 10:51
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Barit1,in fairness to all the great ATC folks out there, you may want to share the details.
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Old 13th May 2008, 12:57
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A37575

From personal experience in the simulator training industry I have observed countless cases of landing long and if the "runway" had been on the limiting length dry or wet for the aircraft configuration, an overrun would certainly have been on the cards.
This would suggest that particular simulator has a problem?

JAA-STD-1A.30 (m) or equivalent defines the requirements for both dry and contaminated runways for level C & D FFSs.

Modern visual databases ‘should’ reflect the real world for runway lengths at least. If all other parameters are correct then it should be very representative of the flight test aircraft data.

(It would be pretty pointless training this on a generic database).
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Old 13th May 2008, 14:15
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Dream Land & others - my friend had the intended field in sight, but the local declared wx was below vfr minimums. He was intimidated by this and tried to divert to better conditions, but ran out of fuel and luck.

The rest of the class thus received an object lesson: never pass up a known safe course of action simply because ...
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Old 14th May 2008, 01:00
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Blip,

In Europe co-pilot trainees with less than 800hrs TT (still very common) are not permitted to use Zero Flight Time training as you suggest. Aircraft Base Training (ie. circuits) are flown as it is felt that the Level D sims simply do not have the fidelity of the aircraft to enable students with low experience to gain the necessary skills before line training.

I'm not arguing the technique for recognition of a long landing and I agree that on a shorter runway provides the best demonstration of this. I'm just not sure that this so-called "short-field" technique exists for large jets.

To respond to you previous post about the 500ft call being there for incapacitation purposes.

You asked am I serious?.... err yes.

Listing the following actions you mentioned with a direct response.

Intercepted the final approach path, > LOC/APP/VOR autopilot modes.
Called the tower, > the PM/PNF does all RT not the PF, the recipient of the 500ft call.
Armed the speedbrakes, > at Gear Down, to be stable done at 4nm 1300ft.
Put the gear down, > as above
Progressively extended the flaps, > by definition of a stable approach this should be completed.
Set the correct MCP Speed, > again completed with final flap selection.
Called for the check list, > surely done earlier than 2miles
Responded to the checklist items correctly, > done earlier than 2miles out!
Probably already acknowledged the landing clearance. > PM/PNF does that.

My point is and rather more the point a TRE made to me about the 500FT call is that providing you are operating to the SOP on a stabilised approach - in theory its the last call before Minimums that will be made that requires a response from the PF. Therefore the last chance to gauge any incipient incapacitation.

You can argue the toss about when and if you'd notice. Does a meak "check" mean something is wrong etc... but according to the Boeing trainers thats where it came from!
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