Difficulty on first few flights (a320 line training)

[Toruk Macto]

I would have been lucky to know were to sit in the thing with 400 hours .

[Fursty Ferret]

I've 2000 hours on the A320 and still feel brand new!

[Ranger One]

Originally Posted by WhySoTough

but I personally see that my performance isn't great, and that it's generally quiet tough.

I'd just like to chime in to compliment you on your attitude there; I'd much rather see honest self-criticism than cocky overconfidence at your stage. Stick with it, and don't be *too* hard on yourself!

R1

[Uplinker]

WST.

Don't stress, your experience is normal - especially one with only 400 hours flying a big shiny jet. Everything seems to happen at light speed compared to a Seneca !! In a big jet, you must make corrections early and not let the aircraft deviate from the flight path without correcting it, otherwise, it can very quickly get out of hand.

The way the human brain learns something new is that, initially, it uses it's entire conscious mind to think about and supply answers for the new experience. This is why you may feel that you have very limited capacity at the moment. However, after a while, your brain will learn to do a lot of the donkey work automatically, without you thinking about it.

I would warn against overloading yourself by trying to learn everything about the route. Just find out whether there is anything unusual about your departure and destination; if ATC tend to keep you high or fast on approach for example - and if so, how to deal with it. Make sure you know your company's SOP's, your cockpit set-up drills, (after engine start, after landing etc.), how to operate the aircraft, and how to calculate a descent point. Also, try to know the flight paperwork that you as F/O will have to fill out. A trainer will not expect you to know everything, but if you can come across as generally competant, and are not having to be 'spoon fed' about absolutely everything, you should be OK.

If you don't recognise the full name of a VOR, you can ask ATC what the 3 letter code is - no shame in that - I do it and I've got 7,000 hours !! Usually, though if you look at the PLOG/Flight plan, you will be able to spot the three letter code they mean, and if not 100% sure you can just confirm it with your trainer - "KRH is that?".

If you were doing a driving test, your examiner would not expect you to be able to navigate a route from memory, but they will want to see that you can operate the car safely - it's the same thing with aircraft.



Good luck !

U

[A-3TWENTY]

i used to spend the whole night before flight looking at the details of the flight. .

Then You slept for the whole flight and everything run well and peacefully

[cav-not-ok]

LOL

obviously you need to get the 8 hours sleep before flight

[catpinsan]

Develop your own list

Develop your own 'Knowledge List'. It's better done over a period of time, but decent template could be produced in one or two self-brainstorming sessions. A good starting point would be the Company LOE or equivalent (Supy/Observer?) form. If there's time then a briefing from a friendly pilot slightly ahead in the list would be good before every series of flights. It's useful to know which 6 charts you might invariably need to use out of the 65 terminal charts for airport XXXX. Going through the motions of making your own 'route guide' helps, even if you do not ever look at it again.

Learn to use your documents well, if you don't know it, fine, but if you cannot find it in 3 minutes flat, that's a no-no with me. And then there's electronic documentation . . . a whole new story, yet to find an ending.

Topics could broadly be along the lines of:

Airplane Type SOP, non-normal/abnormal/emergency 'memory items'
Limitations
Variations - RW change at the last min for T/O or Ldg - have your own memory jogger or 'chklist'.
Dep Dest and their Alts (+enroute too)
Peculiarities of route and Alternate Airports (which you may never really visit- terrain, unusually higher minima, One way RW, lack of ILS approaches, to name a few)
ATC procs
Special Ops and others: RVSM, MNPS, PBN, TCASII - from a line flying view
Emergency procs, memory items, ATC-emerg procs
A good geographic orientation - awareness of ETP
Ops Manual Part A - review of Company Procs - (guaranteed to promote slumber but this doc v v important) - such as AOM (aerodrome operating minima's), AWO (all weather ops as applicable to you) - DTLs (Duty TIme Limits) etc.

The above is just to point you in the right direction and by no means exhaustive. A good method is to keep a pocket notebook or notecard (or smartphone) handy and note down every relevant item that comes to mind.

And like many a wise person has said throughout this discussion - take yourself seriously but only just, rest up well, and do not overload yourself - all that Captain or Trainer is looking for is that you know what you're doing and you're self critical enough to realise where you have to work up.

Cheers!

[ReverseFlight]

WhySoTough,

The way my instructor / examiner used to get the point across to me : on a piece of paper, draw a small inverted triangle. You are at the pointy bottom end and projecting your awareness forward within the confines of the small triangle. You are now at a stage when you are not projecting yourself far enough ahead, so very quickly you fall behind the aircraft.

Now draw a larger triangle from your pointy end and widen the sides. Here you are projecting yourself ahead more and widening your awareness of what's coming ahead. You need to think about "what's next" all the time and know in advance exactly what will happen before it actually happens.

As some posters say, it doesn't happen overnight. It takes practice and, above all, confidence in what you are doing. Work hard at it and I promise you it will yield good results.

[Andrén]

If you don't recognise the full name of a VOR, you can ask ATC what the 3 letter code is - no shame in that - I do it and I've got 7,000 hours !! Usually, though if you look at the PLOG/Flight plan, you will be able to spot the three letter code they mean, and if not 100% sure you can just confirm it with your trainer - "KRH is that?".

Something that helped me with the radio was to get an app that would write the full name of the VORs so I put them in the app before my flight just to have seen the names before the flight.

I think the app was called "name that nav" or something.

Or you could try and take home some old en-route charts

[Discorde]

WST:

This article is orientated towards simulator work on the B757/767 but some of it may be helpful to you as your career progresses.

Concentrate on the essentials initially ('must know' stuff) then as you gain experience add the 'should know' and 'nice to know'.

Good luck!

[neboskreb]

Originally Posted by Fursty Ferret

One of the best comments I've read here.

Flight Directors are suggestions, not commands.

Indeed, FDs are just an aid. What I found about FDs is that in a crew where SOPs and CRM are proper - the need for Flight Directors is little.

Such need arises when one crew member is doing something that the other didn't expect, and the FDs is the aid to bring them back in sync. Most of the time, the "intervening" crew member would be the Captain, and the "lagging" crew member would be the cadet, so the Captain would tell him "follow the flight directors!". Should they've followed their PF/PM roles properly, the Captain would say "adjust speed" rather than adjusting the knob himself.

Unfortunately, many Captains are feeling free to "correct" their peer by intervention, which isn't a good practice (unless he does some hazardous ****, of course). Letting him do his job as good as he can would be more productive, reducing the need for flight directors. Flight directors is not a workaround for poorly trained crew but for poor CRM - in my humble opinion.

[giggitygiggity]

Originally Posted by neboskreb

Indeed, FDs are just an aid. What I found about FDs is that in a crew where SOPs and CRM are proper - the need for Flight Directors is little.

Such need arises when one crew member is doing something that the other didn't expect, and the FDs is the aid to bring them back in sync. Most of the time, the "intervening" crew member would be the Captain, and the "lagging" crew member would be the cadet, so the Captain would tell him "follow the flight directors!". Should they've followed their PF/PM roles properly, the Captain would say "adjust speed" rather than adjusting the knob himself.

Unfortunately, many Captains are feeling free to "correct" their peer by intervention, which isn't a good practice (unless he does some hazardous ****, of course). Letting him do his job as good as he can would be more productive, reducing the need for flight directors. Flight directors is not a workaround for poorly trained crew but for poor CRM - in my humble opinion.

This thread is seven years old so probably not much use in digging it up again... Although I’ll bite.

A word of warning to anyone reading this in 2019:

Please disregard this advice and listen to your instructors. If you’ve got the FDs up and flying manually, in the airbus, you should follow them. If the aircraft is in THR IDLE and you’re heaving it round the base turn visually, you’ll soon end up in at best, a meeting with the base captain and at worst, on the front page of the paper. If the FDs are on and A/THR engaged, not following them ‘as they’re suggestions’ is a dangerous situation to be in. Why do you think they ask you to turn the FDs off during a TCAS RA? To ensure the auto thrust is in speed mode. On an ILS (or fully managed approach to touchdown) you are given a bit of slack with the FDs as you should have ensured speed mode is active as part of your landing checklist, but giving this as general advice is ill considered.

Perhaps read the Air France Tel Aviv A320 report and then reconsider whether your advice, that was supposedly directed to a 400hr FO, was actually good general advice, or simply reveals your under confidence and lack of knowledge of the A320 flight path automation.

[hans brinker]

Originally Posted by giggitygiggity

This thread is seven years old so probably not much use in digging it up again... Although I’ll bite.

A word of warning to anyone reading this in 2019:

Please disregard this advice and listen to your instructors. If you’ve got the FDs up and flying manually, in the airbus, you should follow them. If the aircraft is in THR IDLE and you’re heaving it round the base turn visually, you’ll soon end up in at best, a meeting with the base captain and at worst, on the front page of the paper. If the FDs are on and A/THR engaged, not following them ‘as they’re suggestions’ is a dangerous situation to be in. Why do you think they ask you to turn the FDs off during a TCAS RA? To ensure the auto thrust is in speed mode. On an ILS (or fully managed approach to touchdown) you are given a bit of slack with the FDs as you should have ensured speed mode is active as part of your landing checklist, but giving this as general advice is ill considered.

Perhaps read the Air France Tel Aviv A320 report and then reconsider whether your advice, that was supposedly directed to a 400hr FO, was actually good general advice, or simply reveals your under confidence and lack of knowledge of the A320 flight path automation.

Could not agree more. I prefer V/S over open CLB/DES while manually flying with the AT on, because I will at least have some speed protection, but the training department seems to dislike teaching V/S.

[sonicbum]

Originally Posted by hans brinker

Could not agree more. I prefer V/S over open CLB/DES while manually flying with the AT on, because I will at least have some speed protection, but the training department seems to dislike teaching V/S.

Gobal speed protection :

If FDs are engaged in CLIMB or OPEN CLIMB mode or EXP CLB  and the flight crew does
not follow the FD bars to maintain the commanded climb (pitch too low and autothrust in maximum
climb thrust), the aircraft accelerates.
Both FDs disengage when VMAX+4 is reached (VMAX being VMO, VLE or VFE). If the A/THR is
active, it reverts to SPEED mode and reduces the thrust to recover the speed target.
A triple click aural warning sounds.

FDs are engaged in an OPEN mode in descent with the AP not engaged.
If the FDs are engaged in DES, or OP DES mode, or EXP DES  and, if the flight crew does not
follow the FD bars to maintain the commanded pitch, the aircraft decelerates (insufficient descent
rate and idle thrust).
If the airspeed reaches VLS-2, both FDs disengage. (If speedbrakes are extended, the FDs
disengage between VLS-2 and VLS-19, depending on the position of the speedbrakes).
The A/THR, if active, reverts to SPEED mode upon FDs disengagement, and increases thrust to
recover the speed target.
A triple-click aural warning sounds.

[Smythe]

Concentrate on the essentials initially ('must know' stuff) then as you gain experience add the 'should know' and 'nice to know'.

This seems to be great advice. You seem overwhelmed and all over the place. Narrow your focus to the essentials, let the other stuff fall into place. One day, the pieces will click into place, and the logical progression will make sense, and so will all of the bits and pieces of knowledge you have accumulated.

Ask a lot of questions, that is good. Appearing to have a lack of confidence, or too much confidence, not good.

I had an excellent instructor in the sim. After a few, what I thought were excellent approaches, the instructor suggested the procedure on full motion. Great I thought!. Unknown to me, he had the tech add a 30 kt crosswind and an iced runway....result....teeth rattled and a balked landing...
learned that you always are learning.

[hans brinker]

Originally Posted by sonicbum

Gobal speed protection :

If FDs are engaged in CLIMB or OPEN CLIMB mode or EXP CLB  and the flight crew does
not follow the FD bars to maintain the commanded climb (pitch too low and autothrust in maximum
climb thrust), the aircraft accelerates.
Both FDs disengage when VMAX+4 is reached (VMAX being VMO, VLE or VFE). If the A/THR is
active, it reverts to SPEED mode and reduces the thrust to recover the speed target.
A triple click aural warning sounds.

FDs are engaged in an OPEN mode in descent with the AP not engaged.
If the FDs are engaged in DES, or OP DES mode, or EXP DES  and, if the flight crew does not
follow the FD bars to maintain the commanded pitch, the aircraft decelerates (insufficient descent
rate and idle thrust).
If the airspeed reaches VLS-2, both FDs disengage. (If speedbrakes are extended, the FDs
disengage between VLS-2 and VLS-19, depending on the position of the speedbrakes).
The A/THR, if active, reverts to SPEED mode upon FDs disengagement, and increases thrust to
recover the speed target.
A triple-click aural warning sounds.

Yeah, I know. Should not have used "protection", I should have said that if you are hand flying visually and select V/S instead of open descend/climb the AT will maintain your selected/managed speed if you reduce pitch down, and similarly, it will maintain speed if you reduce pitch while you climb.