A330 handling for dummies.
Sorry for the thread creep, but if an Airbus ever does something that you weren't expecting, it is your situational awareness or your understanding of the systems that is the problem, not the Airbus. I am sick of people blaming and slagging off Airbus. Airbus make fantastic aircraft which are very safe and efficient if operated correctly, (and so do Boeing).
Every thing an Airbus FMGS does has either been programmed by you, selected by you, or is in reaction to a situation that you or the atmosphere has caused. Nothing should therefore be a surprise.
There are pilots, including some of those who have gone from Boeing to Airbus, who have clearly not taken the time to properly read, learn and understand the Airbus systems. Again, this is their problem, not Airbus's.
Every thing an Airbus FMGS does has either been programmed by you, selected by you, or is in reaction to a situation that you or the atmosphere has caused. Nothing should therefore be a surprise.
There are pilots, including some of those who have gone from Boeing to Airbus, who have clearly not taken the time to properly read, learn and understand the Airbus systems. Again, this is their problem, not Airbus's.
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Okay. Here is a scenario. Deviating 50 miles left of track for weather, using the offset function, ALT CRZ / NAV. Clear of weather. Relief captain decides to return to course, great. Does a "direct to" the next fix, which is about 150 miles down line. Airplane turns, active waypoint is that fix, "OFFSET DELETED" pops up in the scratchpad and all is well in the world.
5 minutes later I look down and notice that all my FMS flight plan predictions are dashed as if it is trying to calculate. His side is normal. "Hm". Minute or so later mine comes back, but is wildly different from his. Time estimates are now about 20 minutes off at each fix, EFOB at destination (YSSY) now showing -15,000 (minus) whereas his side now shows some ridiculously high number.
Break out a plotting chart, plot GPS position, all good and the NAV function is still working fine. Check flight plan numbers over previous waypoint vs ground speed, distance to the next fix, and fuel burn, numbers look fine. Still carry an E6B for superstition if no other reason, and found it handy at that particular time.
Tried everything we could think of to jog the system out of whatever brain-lock it was having (reset cost index, secondary flight plan, refresh direct, everything we could find in the QRH, Volume 3 or 4 etc). Nada, no change. "Hm."
Passed the waypoint. Waypoint sequenced but same discrepancies persisted. 20 minutes later, they crept back together, minute by minute. Soon, they matched up. Fuel calculations went haywire and then came back together, and all matched our manual running calculation. All was once again well in the world.
During this entire sequence there were NO ECAMS, no alerts of any kind, nada. No systems faults shown on the maintenance menus, no status page items, no scratchpad messages, nothing, zip.
Tell me how in the hell that was something we caused by "lack of knowledge" and I'll buy you a beer. Said "relief" captain was a TRE by the way, and I'm no slouch myself.
BTW the maintenance engineers had no clue, couldn't find anything wrong. Just pulled the boxes out and re-racked them for lack of any better solution. Was fine on the way home.
5 minutes later I look down and notice that all my FMS flight plan predictions are dashed as if it is trying to calculate. His side is normal. "Hm". Minute or so later mine comes back, but is wildly different from his. Time estimates are now about 20 minutes off at each fix, EFOB at destination (YSSY) now showing -15,000 (minus) whereas his side now shows some ridiculously high number.
Break out a plotting chart, plot GPS position, all good and the NAV function is still working fine. Check flight plan numbers over previous waypoint vs ground speed, distance to the next fix, and fuel burn, numbers look fine. Still carry an E6B for superstition if no other reason, and found it handy at that particular time.
Tried everything we could think of to jog the system out of whatever brain-lock it was having (reset cost index, secondary flight plan, refresh direct, everything we could find in the QRH, Volume 3 or 4 etc). Nada, no change. "Hm."
Passed the waypoint. Waypoint sequenced but same discrepancies persisted. 20 minutes later, they crept back together, minute by minute. Soon, they matched up. Fuel calculations went haywire and then came back together, and all matched our manual running calculation. All was once again well in the world.
During this entire sequence there were NO ECAMS, no alerts of any kind, nada. No systems faults shown on the maintenance menus, no status page items, no scratchpad messages, nothing, zip.
Tell me how in the hell that was something we caused by "lack of knowledge" and I'll buy you a beer. Said "relief" captain was a TRE by the way, and I'm no slouch myself.
BTW the maintenance engineers had no clue, couldn't find anything wrong. Just pulled the boxes out and re-racked them for lack of any better solution. Was fine on the way home.
Hi hikoushi, am just off to work, but for a quick answer talk to Honeywell or whoever made your aircraft's FMGCs.
It sounds like a fault, caused by a bad connection which was cured by re-racking the FMGC's. I was not talking about fault scenarios, but a similar thing would have happened to a Boeing with a faulty FMGS, so it's nothing to do with Airbus per se, or Airbus being "overcomputerised", which was one of my points.
Not all faults are monitored by ECAM, but you know that right? - and you also know which faults and systems are not monitored don't you?
We always actively run plotting charts when crossing oceans and plot our position regularly to guard against the sort of navigation problem that you mention.
I do not know everything, but from my own personal experience; TRE's do not know everything either.
It sounds like a fault, caused by a bad connection which was cured by re-racking the FMGC's. I was not talking about fault scenarios, but a similar thing would have happened to a Boeing with a faulty FMGS, so it's nothing to do with Airbus per se, or Airbus being "overcomputerised", which was one of my points.
Not all faults are monitored by ECAM, but you know that right? - and you also know which faults and systems are not monitored don't you?
We always actively run plotting charts when crossing oceans and plot our position regularly to guard against the sort of navigation problem that you mention.
I do not know everything, but from my own personal experience; TRE's do not know everything either.
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You speak for all pilots do you?
Rewrite your post without the rants and ad-hominem statements and I will reply to it stating my reasons.
when you clearly have no operational experience or understanding of the systems that you criticise?
http://www.pprune.org/tech-log/52432...ml#post8078791
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Hi hikoushi, am just off to work, but for a quick answer talk to Honeywell or whoever made your aircraft's FMGCs.
It sounds like a fault, caused by a bad connection which was cured by re-racking the FMGC's. I was not talking about fault scenarios, but a similar thing would have happened to a Boeing with a faulty FMGS, so it's nothing to do with Airbus per se, or Airbus being "overcomputerised", which was one of my points.
Not all faults are monitored by ECAM, but you know that right? - and you also know which faults and systems are not monitored don't you?
We always actively run plotting charts when crossing oceans and plot our position regularly to guard against the sort of navigation problem that you mention.
I do not know everything, but from my own personal experience; TRE's do not know everything either.
It sounds like a fault, caused by a bad connection which was cured by re-racking the FMGC's. I was not talking about fault scenarios, but a similar thing would have happened to a Boeing with a faulty FMGS, so it's nothing to do with Airbus per se, or Airbus being "overcomputerised", which was one of my points.
Not all faults are monitored by ECAM, but you know that right? - and you also know which faults and systems are not monitored don't you?
We always actively run plotting charts when crossing oceans and plot our position regularly to guard against the sort of navigation problem that you mention.
I do not know everything, but from my own personal experience; TRE's do not know everything either.
Yes indeed! Regarding the ECAMs and fault messages, "FM DISAGREE" is the one I did not get but kind of expected.
Some say get rid of the plots and old school flight logs; I say they work great, always have and always will!
