A320 Pressing Two Buttons at Once
 

I work at a university and teach in an A320 simulator (Alsim). I am not typed in the airplane yet, so I have no practical experience flying it. I have many questions, but I will start with the first.

I noticed students like to press two buttons at once. E.g., turning on both batteries at once, turning both packs/bleeds on at once. Is there anything wrong with this? I did not find any documentation about this

For me, flying tubroprop equipemnt and light jet stuff, I've never seen anyone press two buttons at once.

IMHO it's never a good idea to push two buttons at the same time. One at a time gives you the chance to stop if the first one shows that you made a mistake.

Yeah, bad idea, press one, wait a moment then press another. Same goes for Boeing.

I can understand pushing both battery buttons simultaneously, but both packs? Seems like an odd technique. I don't say anything about technique as long as there's no safety risk behind it.

I'm not aware of any documentation prohibiting it; not everything can be written down though. Turn on both packs simultaneously if it suits you, but if you find yourself needing to turn off 2 IRUs, please do so sequentially, and slowly.

When one is young and inexperienced and hasn’t been bitten in the ass hard you ‘flick switches, jab buttons’ and don’t really cross check much. And when you eventually get some experience and get bitten a few times you being to ‘select switches, press buttons’ and triple check everything.

But you can’t teach experience…“Experience is a hard teacher because she gives the test first, the lesson afterward.”

Vernon Law

As a way of beating some experience into your students, maybe fail a battery or pack when they do that and make them stop and think about how they are operating?

Never push two at one, a nice orderly push on one then the other.

If I was a concert pianist I would switch on all 6 fuel pumps in 1 push. Sadly I have Trump hands and have to push 3 times. But I will look at the fuel page afterwards every time to make sure everything is functioning as intended. And I would never do that while in the air.
(never say never)

Then probably worth never doing it in the sim. I’ve seen (and heard of) many a mistake by a tired trainer doing something on the line that they’re used to doing in the sim because they have the muscle memory.

Trying to run when you're learning to walk...

They show they think it's a race. It's not a race unfortunately.

Don’t Flywithowen
 

Not sure if this link will work but:


https://www.instagram.com/reel/CktTm...Qyazk5OXYxN3Rt


This is an example of what people are learning from. Inexperienced (despite what he says!) people online rushing like this, it gets seen and copied as “best practice”.

Fast-fingered Freddy. Has caused many incidents and accidents.

When I was a TRE , training new captains ,,, I always said to them ….never rush yourself into a place you do not want to be. But I was not after Instagram likes… I was trying to operate safely.

And yet sometimes you have to rush AND have to get it 100% correct… like this team:


Edit; seems it won’t play embedded. YouTube “evacuation of Private Chris Gray Afghanistan”

Nothing wrong with pushing several buttons at once in itself.
Fuel pumps for example. However, for your ears' sake, please don't put on both packs at once.

I push all her buttons at once I've been told.

The most common 2 buttons guys like to push at once is the engine anti-ice!

Yep. That works really well if there is already ice on the inlets. Both engines stop together! 🤦‍♂️

A320 Pressing Two Buttons at Once
 

Hey there! So about pressing two buttons at once on the A320, it's actually not a big deal for some controls like batteries or packs/bleeds. The A320's design can handle these actions without any problems. However, it's always a good idea to follow the standard operating procedures (SOPs). In real-world flying, pilots usually go by the book, which means doing things one step at a time to avoid mistakes and ensure everything is done correctly and safely. While the sim might be forgiving, it's good practice to teach students to be methodical, especially if they move on to flying actual planes. Hope this helps clear things up!

True. There is also nothing wrong with landing Vref+15kts on a 4km dry/no wind runway. But you will get a remark in training.

Teaching in training is about creating good habits to good standards. Every trainer knows: give a finger, lose an arm. Before you know it, they are pushing 4 buttons at the same time. One at a time, and check the result of your action.

And if you allow them to push 4 at a time, they will try 10.
However it will stop there as most people only have 10 fingers.