Coagie

I don't think bean counters (accountants) get into CRM, etc. They mainly want to keep the numbers in their ledgers low.
The main reason airlines don't rely on military pilots as much as in the past, is mainly, many of them stay in the military now, where, in the past, they might just do one enlistment, then go on to a high paying commercial airline job. The US military pays much more now, and is an easier, if not better place to raise a family than 50 years ago. This, coupled with all the pilots coming out of the many flight schools keeping pilot pay down causes a shortage of military flight trained pilots availible for commercial use. Mind you, I'm not advocating military flight training be a requirement for an air transport license, I'm advocating filtering out pilots with unsteady nerves in the course of civilian flight training.
All that said, since I'm in the tech forum, I'll write "Know your equipment" should be a mantra in air transport flight training.

Coagie

Aerobat77, I think commercial pilots flying passengers should also "fullfill the mission at every price". That mission is to get the passengers back on the ground safely.

Dani

Coagie, your arguments are solely based on experience in the USA and has nothing to do with Europe. Air France pilots are one of the highest paid pilots in the industry.

Coagie

Dani, commercial aviation has long been a worldwide industry, so what happens over there, and what happens over here, have much to do with eachother. Our trends end up accross the water and vice versa. The question must be asked: If Air France has some of the highest paid pilots, why did Air France not get what they paid for on AF447? I hear that the asian airlines are paying the most now, by the way. Anyway, I'm for better training, whether it be "Know your aircraft/equipment", "basic flying skills" or filtering out jittery pilots or some or all of them. Although Airbus could make some improvments, like having the aircraft default to a safe power and pitch, when the airspeed is unknown, I have to put the blame on Air France for not properly training it's pilots in the case of the AF447 crash.

aerobat77

"Aerobat77, I think commercial pilots flying passengers should also "fullfill the mission at every price". That mission is to get the passengers back on the ground safely."

in regards to bring them safely on the ground you of course are right- but i meant with it that civilian pilots should not bring the aircraft airborne and to destination at every price. i think military pilots are trained to take a higher risk, a risk which is not wanted in civilian aviation.

but its not the case in regard to this accident.

gums

Salute!

I am compelled to comment here.

There are many aspects of flying the neat fighters, with their vastly expanded flight envelopes compared to the "heavies", but the basic lesson here is simply "airmanship" and training.

The big advantage we lite pukes had over the folks that have never stretched the envelope was to see an unusual flight condition and then learn how to get back into controlled flight. And then there is the "pinball wizard" phenomena we have seen the last ten or so years. It deeply disturbs me.

I fully understand the "system manager" concept and trust me, the fighter folks have had to do this for the last 30 years or so, especially the single-seat guys as I was. Nevertheless, when Otto goes "able sugar" or the gauges do not indicate the actual altitude or airspeed or....., then it's back to "needle-ball-airspeed" and help from a standby attitude indicator and so forth.

There is no substitute for airmanship.

I do not subscribe to the position of at least poster here than continues to maintain that the jet did exactly what it was designed to do. Maybe aerodynamically, but not the human interface and some questionable control law reversion sequences.

enuf, and I'll cool down later. Somebody get me outta this tree!

Lyman

CONFiture

I think what Dani means.....("pulling procedure"), is the last ditch consensus to keep the a/c aloft: "Tire, Tire, Tire..." Likely that is not in the book, as he says. If he means the apparent pilot induced climb, I don't know what he means.

Coagie

Aerobat77, military pilots are trained to not wreck the millions of dollars worth of aircraft they are flying. This helps in civilian passenger service in that, if the aircraft isn't wrecked, there is a good chance that the passengers survive. Again, I don't think pilots need to be military flight trained to be good, and I believe some changes in training are needed and to filter out pilots who don't perform well under pressure. I bring up the military as an example of training that tends to filter out jittery pilots. In the age of automation, it's even more important, because a higher percentage of the time, when a pilot's skill is called upon, it's a pressure situation. HAL can handle the routine stuff.

jcjeant

Hi,

Coagie
From a Air France spokesman (Chief flight operations Mr Schramm) it was a crew with maximum competency on the AF447 flight deck
Seem's that the maximum competency level can be sometime low at Air France
Mr Schramm was fired from his position few days ago .. after the stalinist purges at AF .....
Laughable
Vol Rio-Paris: réactions au rapport du BEA sur la catastrophe - YouTube

TTex600

Gums, needle ball and airspeed and a standby gyro would do nicely if only the Airbus had them. EVERY thing you mention is computer generated on the Bus. At least they are on the A320. Once you lose faith in the instruments due to whatever , like say maybe bad airspeeds, it's quite hard to find anything real to grasp.

Lyman

Everything you mention was available on the aircraft well before the accident, BUSS, Horizon, etc. The disconnect between the manufacturer, who offered them, the Line, which chose not to fit them, and the beanies, who did not want them, led to these deaths by an inexplicable interdisciplinary ignorance.

Call it: Piss Poor Interdisciplinary Resource Management

RatherBeFlying

The military single seat fighter pilots get lots of training in air combat manuevering -- and get lots of experience getting the airplane back in control from muffed maneuvers. A few have to punch out.

The bean counters will not accept training regimes where trainees throw around heavies the same way gums has done in his fighters. Preventing structural failures is a pretty good reason Plus retrofitting bang seats would be almost as expensive as a structural failure.

Lyman

Not wanting to disrespect the civil way in, I will say that a military pilot, heavy or fast jet, has a stubborn sense of mission. This includes focus, confidence, and training to the mission.

As a civvy, the chances of washing out are remote. Not to mention that the soldier pilot has a strong background in teamwork, and chain of command.

We should consider putting a stop to giving every child a prize just for showing up. And re-instating proper reward for high performance.

Odds?

Coagie

Just filtering out the slack jawed, spastic student pilots would help a lot and not add much to training costs. I agree that real time, push the envelope, training is too costly, but trainers can get creative. Changing the training from producing the most pilots, to more unshakable pilots, that can recite procedures and memory items is feasible.

Dani

Confiture and Lyman, after the second case (AF471), it seems obvious to me that AF had some sort of informal procedure to pull whenever there seems to be something wrong with speeds, attitude, altitude or one of it's expected trajectory. It is not possible that it's always AF that experience such bad luck while all others don't. The THY incident leeds me to them same conclusion, while they all support my observation in my cockpits (I told you some tales).

While most of you try to discuss other factors that might have contributed to the accident (missunderstanding of automatics, traps in man machine interface), you lose the sight to the obvious. Remember Occam's rasor. If it barks like a dog, it smells like a dog and it walks like a dog, it might be dog.

RetiredF4

Before the thread drifts to the area civil v. military pilots, grant me (as an old military pilot) a few remarks of caution here.

Where the sun is shining, also shades can be found.

Imho there are excellent civil trained pilots (and i hope most of them) and there are some, who would be better off to leave the industry.

There are excellent military pilots in their military job, the below average and most of the average ones are washed out of flying during training, during the job on the line, and sometimes due to accidents. Money is not a player, skill and dedication to the job does the magic.

To assume, that a military trained pilot would automatically be a better civil pilot, is not true. Some would not cope with the new task, would not be happy with the new job and the restrictions it comes with. There are others, who adopt well and fly happy until their retirement.

What makes the difference?
Some of the points had been anounced already here and in another thread. The military system in choosing only the best suited to get into sthe system and even then phases out those, who cant cope with the speedy (time restricted) and in depth academic and flying training. You get only a few chances to repeat a test or to do a recheck after a failed flight, after that you are out. That makes him a highly qualified military pilot. You can not buy into becoming a military pilot, you have to earn it by talent and performance.

The civil system today has no structures and no bones. Who ever has the money, can learn and train in some flying shack and try again and again to become a pilot, and if he does not run out of money he will get a licence, buy a type rating and some hours, and end up in a cockpit. It is mostly a question of spent time and available money, not much one of talent and detication. Even if this pilot is below average, he will find some company in some world on this planet who will employ him for few bucks and sell tickets to passengers. If this guy is lucky, he may become a average pilot someday, but he will never be outstanding. And the danger will be, that he stays below average. Fortunately thats only the shadow, there is lots of sunshine as well.

Most airlines hire on the free market and are not connected to any kind of training system, how will they know what kind of pilots they hire? The spent bucks will be the main motivation for preselection and hiring.

It is therefore not a question of military or civil, it is a question of preselection, training, supervision and continuos training on the job.

The two discussed systems can learn from each other.

aerobat77

so to say it straight and level : they steered AF447 in an area with high convective acitivity where pitot tubes became blocked and some systems ( mostly AP and AT) became inop. also the stall warning is designed not to warn at IAS below 60kt so becomes useless at very high AOA or blocked pitot tubes.

after that a pilot introduced pull was made and a basicly flyable and responding aircraft with also responding engines was put by pilot action in a conventional stall without a spin and was held in this stall for more than three minutes until impact .

that should be the essentials of the final report when i understand right...

AlphaZuluRomeo

@ RetiredF4
Side note: depends where... Agreed with the overall

@ aerobat77
No offence intended, Sir, but in two of your previous posts you should replace "when" [EN] (time notion) by "if" [EN] (condition notion), even if both are literaly translated "wenn" [DE]

/off topic

ChristiaanJ

AZR, lets keep US politics out of this, shall we?

ChristiaanJ

I feel a slow urge coming on to pull out what's left of my university course notes ("stability and control" was supposedly my 'final' subject, got me my first job on Concorde systems).

"Aircraft pitched up to and beyond stall AoA, THS trimmed to fully nose-up, SS - and presumably elevator - being held NU, plus TOGA"
Seems to have been a 'nice and stable' configuration, all the way down.
I wouldn't call it a "deep stall", but it was certainly 'stable'. Why?

From my own very limited flight training - a long time back...., I still remember a full 'power-on' stall, mushing through the air nose-up, but going down at a rate of ft/min.... (sounds familiar?). Throttle back, stick forward, and the conditions keeping us in that 'semi-stable' state were gone, and the nose would drop, and we were back to a more normal state of flight.

Sure, a Piper Cub and an A330 are not the same aircraft.
I would have hoped these pilots had been treated to at least a few "power-on stalls" during their 'ab initio' training, and somehow have retained the memory.... as even I have.
Seems I'm wrong....