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How to crash a 737 using your solid stick and rudder skills

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  • #46
    Right children, that's enough. Play nicely, keep it on topic or don't play at all. Either moderate yourselves or I'll do it for you.
    If it 'ain't broken........ Don't try to mend it !

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    • #47
      737-200 on the left, -200A on the right. Notice the autoflight MCP. This is a major step in Boeing automation.

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      • #48
        Originally posted by brianw999 View Post
        Right children, that's enough. Play nicely, keep it on topic or don't play at all. Either moderate yourselves or I'll do it for you.
        Please do it for me Brian. Delete all posts that pertain to me as a person rather than the point of the thread.

        Thanks in advance.

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        • #49
          Originally posted by Evan
          - Lufthansa
          - Delta
          - American
          - BA
          - United
          - KLM
          - Etc.
          - Etc.

          MIne is adherance to ICAO, FAA and CAA standards for type certification, flight training, supplemental training including abnormal operations, unusual attitude recovery and manual flight at flight level, regular checkrides, duty time limits, legal compliance to AD's and maintanence checks and and CAA approved maintenance personel and procedures and an emphasis on crew resource management.

          What's your definition?
          That wasn't so hard, was it?

          Your use of buzzwords is commendable, but how do you actually know what each of those airline's safety culture is? Do you sit in on their checkrides? Do you inspect their maintenance and/or training records? Do you have access to their training syllabi? I mean, DL killed more people due to windshear than this Pakistani 737-236A, KLM's CRM issues killed almost 600 people, AA's CRM issues (also, interestingly enough, in a windshear and thunderclapper situation) damn near sent a Mad Dog swimming in the Arkansas river, BA flew an airplane half way across the world on three motors, etc etc etc. Just food for thought...

          I also get the sense that to your mind there is a fundamental disconnect between what you refer to as "basic airmanship" and "QRH/FCOM procedures", hence your statement that "it can't be either/or, it has to be both". You're kind of right, it can't be either or, but "both" is kind of a misnomer. It's not both, they're ONE. The "procedures" don't just come out of nowhere, they presume a solid level of (gasp!) basic airmanship. Neither will work without the other, because they're not separate.

          I would also add that sometimes "procedures" can be wrong, or at least not quite right. That's why FCOM/QRH/COM documents get revised with some regularity.

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          • #50
            Evan, you are making a huge assumption, that the pilots understood the situation, recognized under which category it falled, and decided that the right procedure for it in this advanced cockpit must be to leave the automation handle it (even when the AP handling it put them in that situation to begin with).

            But we agree, it's not one or the other. It's both. But airmanship comes first, then the procedures. You need "raw material", "pilot stuff" in which to instill the procedures. What these pilots (mainly the PIC) did showed lack of airmanship, all in the decision making, then by letting the automation on, and then by how they manually flew the plane.

            And the THE END didn't mean end of the story, rather end of my exposition. I could have said "the State rests".

            --- Judge what is said by the merits of what is said, not by the credentials of who said it. ---
            --- Defend what you say with arguments, not by imposing your credentials ---

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            • #51
              Originally posted by Evan View Post
              I think, out of ignorance, this pilot who had flown 10,000+ hours on a primitive autopilot saw the -200A automation as being more capable than it was. He had nothing to tell him otherwise. Like you with your HAL computer references and things like FCOMQRHPOH he began to believe his own BS. It's human nature. To put a -200 pilot into a -200A with no procedural reference and training is insane and criminal behavior.
              Having the slightest interest in aviation in general is part of building airmanship.

              If you and me know (or at least strongly guess) that the right procedure, in a Piper Cub or a Concorde, in a DC-8 or B-787, in a 747-100 or A-380, was to click-click, clack-clack and get the hell out of there, why would did this pilot with 10000 hours think that the right thing was to leave the AP and AT on, just because he was in a more advanced (but still 35 years old) cockpit?

              --- Judge what is said by the merits of what is said, not by the credentials of who said it. ---
              --- Defend what you say with arguments, not by imposing your credentials ---

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              • #52
                Originally posted by Evan View Post
                But the ignorance and disregard for procedure and CRM in favor of basic airmanship instincts (performed erroneously due to human factors) continues to be the leading cause of major air disasters today.
                You really think so?

                Oh, right, all you need is basic airmanship....
                Who said that?

                You need both. But without airmanship there is no procedure.
                What we are seeing in many accidents (Pinnacle, AF, Colgan, Asiana, Turkish) is NOT ONLY a lack of application of procedures, but also a lack of airmanship, which is a prerequisite for the procedures.

                --- Judge what is said by the merits of what is said, not by the credentials of who said it. ---
                --- Defend what you say with arguments, not by imposing your credentials ---

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                • #53
                  Originally posted by Gabriel View Post
                  Evan, you are making a huge assumption, that the pilots understood the situation, recognized under which category it falled, and decided that the right procedure for it in this advanced cockpit must be to leave the automation handle it (even when the AP handling it put them in that situation to begin with).
                  The aircraft dropped 1000 ft in 4 seconds and the "windshear, windshear" man came on. I think I we can assume they recognized the category at that point!! Up to that point the only errors I see are with flap scheduling and gear deployment.

                  But notice what happens at first: the advanced aircraft systems detect the downdraft and increase pitch, speed is slightly reduced. It is not yet in windshear and the autopilot is capable of dealing with it. (remember, there is no PWS alert capability here) I don't see any reason in the report for a go-around at this point.

                  Then, after the sudden drop and alert, when they are in it for real, neither pilot knew the procedure to take but the F/O had good instincts and called for go around twice. The Cpt wanted to continue. I am making the assumption that he believed, since the autopilot had been capable of dealing with the initial downdraft, it could also deal with the extreme one. The report states:

                  "It appeared that Captain and FO were not sure about the behavior of the aircraft in automation mode during wind shear conditions due to their lack of formal training during simulator sessions."
                  Have a good look at the flight deck image I posted. WIthout any real understanding of the aircraft, I can see him making this assumption.

                  After the first downdraft, the a/c still on autopilot, the v/s reduces back to 600fpm and the pitch comes back down from +12 to +5. The Cpt might have taken this as a sign that the autoflight was dealing with it. Only when the drift goes 2 points off does the autopilot give up (apparently). I think it took him until the second aural alert to realize this. Because he was not following a scripted procedure, he neglected to remove autothrust as well. That seems to be the fatal blow.

                  But we agree, it's not one or the other. It's both. But airmanship comes first, then the procedures. You need "raw material", "pilot stuff" in which to instill the procedures. What these pilots (mainly the PIC) did showed lack of airmanship, all in the decision making, then by letting the automation on, and then by how they manually flew the plane.

                  As long as we can also agree that a pilot with good, practiced airmanship can also get into this situation if he is unsure on the aircraft systems due to human factors involved, because nobody is arguing against airmanship. It's the other factor that seems to get disregarded.
                  MCM once agreed with me that procedures should be followed where procedures exist for the situation whereas other situations required creativity and basic airmanship. I think he knew what I'm talking about.

                  Comment


                  • #54
                    Originally posted by ATLcrew View Post
                    Neither will work without the other
                    Here I disagree.
                    Airmanship can work without procedures, but is not reliable.
                    And procedures need some airmanship, but sometimes very little.

                    As an example, the AF crew could have followed the procedure of disconnecting the AP and AT, disconnecting the FD, moving the TLs to cancel the "thrust lock" function, set CLB thrust, adjust pitch for 5° nose-up, and then go look-up the pitch/thrust table in function of weight/altitude. The only airmanship required is the discipline to apply the procedure, know what buttons to push, be able to move the thrust levers off and back to the CLB detent, and have the skill to hold 5° nose-up pitch. Extremely basic[*]

                    Or... the pilots could be completely ignorant of the procedure and, knowing that the plane doesn't need an airspeed indicator and that the plane's performance is defined by the pitch and power (also known as P+P=P) keep a pitch and thrust that are about normal for cruise. Note that this requires a level of airmanship that, while still quite basid, goes way beyond that required to enforce the procedure.

                    So procedures require at least a very basic level of airmanship, and airmanship alone can work (not as reliably) in many cases with complete ignorance of the specific procedure.

                    Obviously, I want my pilot to have an airmanship that goes much beyond what's required to just follow the procedures like a computer, to have the skills and training to follow the procedures with precision and without delay, and to have the discipline to enforce said procedures when required instead of relying solely in his "macho" airmanship.
                    [*] Extremely basic airmanship. So basic, that I don't know why the computer couldn't be programmed to apply the procedure by itself instead of giving up and suddenly call the pilots back into the loop (after being hours just monitoring computer screens) when they have confusing instrument indications, several ECAM messages, and the plane in an abnormal control law that the pilot never uses except in 5% of the sim time, that still has no AoA/speed stability (like normal law) but where the low speed and stall protections have been removed. I want to say that, regardless of this confusing scenario, good airmanship must be able to handle it relatively easy. Why? Because the most basic concept of good airmanship is that you fly the plane first. So the first thing you do is not to troubleshoot the ECAM messages, but to keep the plane inside the safe envelope (which, in this case, could have been initially achieved by doing nothing at all because the plane was already inside the safe envelope and the airspeed indicator stopping working doesn't change that fact). What the AF pilots did to pull up into a 7000 fpm crazy climb, 12° nose up, is not only against the UAS procedure, but it's against the most basic airmanship, airmanship that by itself might have saved the day (again although not as reliably as following the procedures).

                    --- Judge what is said by the merits of what is said, not by the credentials of who said it. ---
                    --- Defend what you say with arguments, not by imposing your credentials ---

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                    • #55
                      Originally posted by Evan View Post
                      737-200 on the left, -200A on the right. Notice the autoflight MCP. This is a major step in Boeing automation.
                      Looks like the yoke, throttles and six basic instruments are all in the same general locations and probably do the same thing.

                      As soon as we can confirm where the autoflight MCP off button is...
                      Les règles de l'aviation de base découragent de longues périodes de dur tirer vers le haut.

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                      • #56
                        Originally posted by Gabriel View Post
                        Here I disagree.
                        Airmanship can work without procedures, but is not reliable.
                        And procedures need some airmanship, but sometimes very little.
                        You disagree, because you separate them. I don't. In fact, you misquoted me. My actual statement was "Neither will work without the other, because they're not separate."

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                        • #57
                          So, if you want to know my deep-level diagnosis, here it is:
                          1- Basic training is flawed, from zero hour. We can't wait until a pilot reaches an airline to teach him good stick and rudder skills and airmanship. We cannot wait until that point, either, to teach him the importance of discipline, of risk management, and even of CRM. At this point we already have either a good or a bad pilot. And while the airline can turn a good pilot into a bad one (by not teaching well the specific procedures, by not training him well, by having a poor safety culture), it will be very hard to turn a bad pilot into a good one.
                          2- Pilot hiring is flawed, either because it doesn't take the above into account when doing the screening, or because there are not enough pilots to "good stuff" and they have to go for the "least bad" ones.
                          3- Airline safety culture is flawed. And here is where the Evan part comes. Airlines must ensure that their pilots are constantly trained in the type-specific procedures, in CRM, risk management, discipline, etc and must show commitment to safety by encouraging the pilots to always apply the procedures and not retaliating them for erring to the safe side and, on the other hand, using cases of pilots erring to the unsafe side (like continuing and correcting an unstable approach below the stabilized approach gate) as examples of what not to do (without naming the pilot in public, but he will know that it's he). And also, of course, reinforcing airmanship, for example with things like American Airlines' Advance Maneuvering training, that dealt a lot on why we did the procedures like we did, based on general concepts of aerodynamics and flight mechanics, and was quite type-unspecific. One thing that I'd do in the sim is make the pilots face crazy scenarios, even unsurvivable ones, and then have to explain why they did what they did. While this is useless for any given specific operative scenario, it forces the pilots to exercise their airmanship and then reflect on that.

                          I am not saying that this is the generic case, but I suspect that, if it was possible to dig deep enough, we would find the above in many accidents. But the investigation rarely goes beyond point 3. I've never seen an investigation that dealt with how the pilot learned to fly in the first place (what would be very hard to do) or what are the hiring policies of the company.

                          --- Judge what is said by the merits of what is said, not by the credentials of who said it. ---
                          --- Defend what you say with arguments, not by imposing your credentials ---

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                          • #58
                            Originally posted by ATLcrew View Post
                            You disagree, because you separate them. I don't. In fact, you misquoted me. My actual statement was "Neither will work without the other, because they're not separate."
                            And what I say is that one can work without the other, albeit not as reliably. And if this is true, then there must be some sort of separation between them, otherwise it would be simply impossible to even attempt one without the other.

                            I flew a 737 sim during three hours, took off, had an engine failure just after rotation, a windshear encounter, a TCAS encounter, and landed, in gusting crosswind, at night, with low ceiling and poor visibility. (not all these things happened on the same flight, though )

                            Do you know how many times I crashed?
                            None.
                            I had problems to hold the airspeed, the vertical speed, the pitch, the ILS needles, etc exactly where I wanted. But I was at least barely good enough
                            not to crash and to do a hard, not perfectly centered, not perfectly in the touchdown zone, excellent landing (one where everybody can walk from and the plane can be reused).

                            So how did I do?

                            My first problem was to adjust the seat (I'm 6' 4" tall), which I couldn't. My second problem was how to release the parking brakes, which I eventually figured out until playing 10 minutes (hint: press the toe brakes to be able to move the parking brakes handle!), I didn't know what V1, Vr, V2 and Vref were. For V1 and VR I used some "generic" figures like 135 and 140. For Vref, I configured the plane for landing, slowed down while holding the altitude (by increasing the pitch), and the speed that kept the altitude with 5° of nose-up pitch, I called that Vref (Why? Because a typical approach has your plane in a 3° slope with a pitch of a couple of degrees nose up, that's 5° of AoA, the same than level flight with 5° nose-up pitch. Doesn't sound a bit like airmanship?). I first adjusted thrust to keep level flight at this speed, and when I stabilized there, I trimmed the plane s it flew "alone" in that condition (level, 5° nose-up, and the just-defined Vref) Then I didn't touch the trim for the rest of the approach and used the throttles to adjust the sink rate (by the way, my target was a fpm 5 times my speed in kts, like 700 fpm for 140kts, because that gives you 3° slope) and used the elevator to keep the speed and dampen the phugoid. At one time, after my first take-off, I attempted to use the AP, but it started to do things that I didn't understand so I disconnected it. I flew manually all the 3 hours (well, half of that, the other half I was the PNF). I also managed to take off without flaps and not crash, trying to replicate the scenario of several accidents where the flaps were forgotten up. How did I do it? When the stick shaker shaked, I lowered the nose to stop it and pulled up again until it shook again, and so on, to keep the plane flying at the boundary of the stickshaker.

                            My background? PPL Piper Tomahawk with 180 hs TT, and FSMS (mostly with low quality planes, like the default ones, never a realistic 737).

                            The other pilot was a first class CPL, had 1000 hours TT, 500 of them in twin turboprops (CASA), and was going to apply for a pilot position in an airline (I don't know how it went). He was much much better than me at keeping the things nailed were he wanted them (speed, attitude, etc.) but much much worse than me at deciding where he wanted in the first place.

                            So what Boeing 737-300 procedure did I follow? None.

                            The difference in the background between me and the other pilot, in my opinion, is that I am an aeronautical engineer, so have a solid understanding of aerodynamics and mechanics of flight, and that I have a genuine interest for reading about aviation in general, mainly aviation safety.

                            The best solution, as a crew, came when he was the PF and I was the PTTPFWTD (plitot telling the pilot flying what to do). Both lacking knowledge of the specific procedures, I had the skills to know what was required, and he had the skills to enforce it. Between the two, we had good airmanship. What we need is a pilot that not only has our two skills combined, but also does what we didn't do: follow the procedures (that we didn't know or have).

                            (By the way, there was no instructor or 737 pilot in the sim, the sim was unscheduled from training because it was undergoing maintenance with the video system. The persons there were me and the other pilot, one friend of each of us who were the non-pilots airline employees that invited us to use the sim, and a guy there was a maint technician that knew how to operate the sim -turn it on, move it to a position, etc- but not how to fly it. Due to the maint work, a small part of the video was not working and we flew part of the time without motion).

                            --- Judge what is said by the merits of what is said, not by the credentials of who said it. ---
                            --- Defend what you say with arguments, not by imposing your credentials ---

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                            • #59
                              C'mon Gabe...you know what ATL meant.

                              The procedures are intimately woven with and largely based on fundamentals...

                              ...and we need to remember to turn off the carb heat if we're in a 172M vs a 172N or 172P.
                              Les règles de l'aviation de base découragent de longues périodes de dur tirer vers le haut.

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                              • #60
                                Originally posted by 3WE View Post
                                C'mon Gabe...you know what ATL meant.

                                The procedures are intimately woven with and largely based on fundamentals...

                                ...and we need to remember to turn off the carb heat if we're in a 172M vs a 172N or 172P.
                                True. The current 172, vs the ones I've ever flown (or the 152 or the Tomahawks that I've ever flown for the matter), come with IO-xxx engines, the I meaning injection, no carburetor, so carburetor heat is neither available nor possible in the new 172.

                                So give me a call when we have an accident because a pilot trained in a new 172 fails to use the carb heat in an older 172 because of lack of type-specific procedure training.

                                --- Judge what is said by the merits of what is said, not by the credentials of who said it. ---
                                --- Defend what you say with arguments, not by imposing your credentials ---

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