Air France 447 - On topic only!

[Gabriel]

Here's what I mean (again): AF447 was not in a stable flight condition when the event occurred. It was decelerating. It was five seconds into a selected speed transition. Continuing with these settings as they were at that moment would lead to a dangerously low energy status. Application of thrust was necessary. Now, you can argue that the competent pilot would notice the situation and correct it as part of applying 'typical settings', but really, how sure do you feel about that?

That's not what I'm saying. I'm saying the same than the memory items: Pitch and Power. Screw the altitude. Use typical pitch and typical power. Don't fight to hold the altitude. If 5° pitch had been held, no dangerously low energy status would have been reached even if the relativelly low thrust state went missing like in this case. Hell, even if the thrust was at idle. Ok, altitude would have not been held. The only diffeence between what I say and what the memory items say is that the memory items give specific values while I specify "typical" values. Is the memory item better? Of course!

Scenario 2: Gee, there's a stall warning and instead of continuing to pull up in a fairly steep climb, let me go to zero degrees nose up and 75% power and zero rate of climb where I normally cruise.

That means level flight in a 205t A330 at FL350 at 75%N1 . Ok, maybe you could coast on that for a very short time, and maybe airspeeds would return before you ran out of available AoA and got back on automation, or maybe you would see the pitch getting too high and go to the thrust levers... maybe... maybe... maybe... but this IS a recipe for stall if you handled it wrong, and my point was, and is, why get there in the first place?! There is no such danger if the procedures are followed.

3we is wrong there: Again, you hold EITHER a given pitch or a civen vertical speed. Not both. And what you have to hold is a pitch (be it "a typical value" or what the memory item say), not a vertical speed. With zero degrees of pitch you won't stall.

The range of "typical attitudes and power settings" is pretty robust.
Up high near the ceiling, with idle thrust you should be able to keep say some 5 degrees nose-up without stalling and 3 degrees nose-down without overspeeding. At TOGA this range would probably move a few degrees up, something like 8 degrees nose up without stalling and zero degrees without overspeeding.

Of course I don't know this numbers for fact. It's just an example to give you the order of magnitude of the "envelope" of the safe pitch and thrust settings, take or give a couple of degrees (because you cannot take or give a little thrust when the range is already idle to TOGA).

Well Gabriel, I hate to break it to you, but you don't get to choose the pilot. But you can choose the airline that has complied with the requirement to teach and train for the procedures, and I will take that airline everyday, because even the biggest twat in the skies can't stall or overspeed over the brief duration of UAS if he follows the procedures and checklists (or if you disagree with that, please explain how).

Again, don't make me laugh.

First, tell me that you are going to ask for the pilot's training record or the airline training curriculum before your next flight. The same airline that you trust to train your pilot like you say should also select, train and monitir their pilots not only to follow memory items, procedures and checklists, but also to be good pilots, and that means understanding what are they doing, how airplanes fly, and what will be the effect of a given agtion or the action needed for a given desired effect.

Second, you say "the biggest twat in the skies can't stall or overspeed over the brief duration of UAS if he follows the procedures". I agree with that, but you are consistently mistaking "teach and train" with "correctly apply". So yes, the biggest twat can prevent a stall by correctly following the procedure. Now, do you trust a twat to correctly follow the procedure just because he was trained to do so? I don't.

And finally, I propose that the biggest twat can't stall a plane if he follows the univesally trained procedure from your first or second hour in the private pilot school of not fucking keeping pulling up when the stall warning announces that you are close to a stall. And still it happened.

Again, I'm all for the procedure, but only in the hands of a competent pilot. I think that, additionally to training thespecific procedures, the airlines MUST BY ALL MEANS ENSURE that they hire pilots that are competent in basic airmanship, or train them to be that if they are not there yet, and then ensure that they keep competent, and trash those that can't keep up.

Would you go to surgery with a person that has been trained in the very specifics of the kind of surgery that you are going to have but is a very bad doctor that doesn't know what to do if your blood pressure suddenly raise during the surgery?

I want a doctor that is BOTH a good doctor AND one trained in the specific surgery he is going to do on me.

I work in a manufacturing industry, and there is a saying that goes "shit in shit out", or don't expect a good product from shitty raw material.

[Fear_of_Flying]

Again, I'm all for the procedure, but only in the hands of a competent pilot. I think that, additionally to training the specific procedures, the airlines MUST BY ALL MEANS ENSURE that they hire pilots that are competent in basic airmanship, or train them to be that if they are not there yet, and then ensure that they keep competent, and trash those that can't keep up.

I want a doctor that is BOTH a good doctor AND one trained in the specific surgery he is going to do on me.

and earlier on:

No pilot "needing" the memory items will be allowed. Those not needing them will still learn, practice, and follow the memory items.

Of course, we would all like to have competent pilots who use the correct procedures when a problem occurs. But the fact is, that is not the reality we are faced with today, nor is it a reality that may be practical to achieve in the near future. I think that is Evan's point. We can wish for competent airmanship all we like. If it's not there, what do we fall back on?

The fact is, the airline industry is changing, and pilots coming up through the system don't have that hard experience that used to be commonplace. Systemic changes may be needed in training and screening, but even these may not compensate for the way the industry now works. So at the very least, as a minimum requirement, we might indeed need twats who can pull off the memory items in order to keep the plane airborne.

I want a good doctor who can also carry out the particular procedure I urgently need. But if I'm in an area that is short of good doctors, and don't have a way to access one, I will have to settle for a doctor who can perform the surgery and keep me in one piece.

We are short of good doctors.

[Drizzt]

Again, I'm all for the procedure, but only in the hands of a competent pilot. I think that, additionally to training thespecific procedures, the airlines MUST BY ALL MEANS ENSURE that they hire pilots that are competent in basic airmanship, or train them to be that if they are not there yet, and then ensure that they keep competent, and trash those that can't keep up.

Would you go to surgery with a person that has been trained in the very specifics of the kind of surgery that you are going to have but is a very bad doctor that doesn't know what to do if your blood pressure suddenly raise during the surgery?

I want a doctor that is BOTH a good doctor AND one trained in the specific surgery he is going to do on me.

HeLLo
I'm totally ok with that. Thanks for that.
@@++

[Evan]

That's not what I'm saying. I'm saying the same than the memory items: Pitch and Power. Screw the altitude. Use typical pitch and typical power. Don't fight to hold the altitude. If 5° pitch had been held, no dangerously low energy status would have been reached even if the relativelly low thrust state went missing like in this case. Hell, even if the thrust was at idle. Ok, altitude would have not been held.

How do you know that? What if your theoretical pilot is more focused on maintaining flight level than a few degrees of pitch? After all the accidents and all the reports we've read and all that we've learned about pilot error, do you think it is so far-fetched that a competent pilot might be task-oriented towards holding altitude while traversing a line of CB's while making continuous minor pitch inputs before becoming aware of the thrust lock situation. Sinking combined with raising pitch could get you in trouble before you recognize it. The key component here is degraded situational awareness and momentary mental confusion. The other component is an unrecognized variable (thrust lock at 83%N1). You can't take those out of the equation. That is the problem I have with 3WE's insistence that 'normal attitudes and power levels' are as good as the CRM procedures for UAS. I'm keeping my head in the real world, where, when established procedures are unavailable, very experienced pilots do the darndest things...

And you still haven't disengaged the FD's, because you haven't done the checklist, so they are coming back on with bad air data to further confuse you.

I agree with you 100% that the procedures are the better route to take. I also agree with you that to crash the plane you also have to ignore stall warnings, maintain excessive pitch and botch recovery, all of which are next to unthinkable. So we really have no argument here. But I always want to fly with the pilot who always takes the safest course of action. Agreed?

Again, don't make me laugh.
First, tell me that you are going to ask for the pilot's training record or the airline training curriculum before your next flight.

No. As I said, you can't choose the pilot. Therefore...

The same airline that you trust to train your pilot like you say should also select, train and monitir their pilots not only to follow memory items, procedures and checklists, but also to be good pilots, and that means understanding what are they doing, how airplanes fly, and what will be the effect of a given agtion or the action needed for a given desired effect.

Yes, i.e. properly trained. That means being taught and tested on understanding how the aerodynamics work, how specific systems function and interact, both in normal and abnormal situations, coordinative motor skills at all flight levels... how the toilet flushes... everything. Then, and only then, can they take control of 250+ lives at a time. If we had (and enforced) such standards (this is what I am asking for), we could know that the airline has complied by the fact that they are still operating, and be much more assured that there are two pilots on board capable of dealing with the unexpected.

At this point I'm convinced that it is harder to get a London taxi license than an A330 certificate.

[Fear_of_Flying]

HeLLo
I'm totally ok with that. Thanks for that.
@@++

What's not to agree with? I'm sure we would all like these things, but can we have them? On one aircraft, run by a major airline, we had three pilots whom many would deem incompetent by their actions that day. Whatever conditions existed in the airline industry to allow that to happen still exist right now, and may be firmly entrenched in the way things are done. That is not going to change between now and the next time you step on a commercial aircraft.

[TeeVee]

pardon me for noting this, but once again, Evan's love of automation, be it computer or humanoid, appears to be the basis for his position.

Gabriel is arguing that basic airmanship should take precedence over all--memory items included--and this is an eminently sound position.

Evan wants automatons in the cockpit: checklist? right. memory item? right. aberration? uh, oh shit! now what do we do?

who gives a rat's ass if some techno-jockey earns a flight certificate based on his ability to memorize a shit-ton of stuff, yet never mastered FLYING?

i, as one who puts his life in the hands of commercial pilots six to ten times per month certainly don't care, and i suspect that anyone, other than Evan of course, would feel the same way.

[Fear_of_Flying]

Gabriel is arguing that basic airmanship should take precedence over all--memory items included--and this is an eminently sound position.

The operative word there being "should". Airmanship should take precedence. It would be nice if pilots didn't pull up maniacally when the stall warning sounded. We would like our pilots to know flying basics.

But they don't. While the decline in flying skills has probably been known about in the aviation community for some time, Sullenberger raised public awareness of it in 2009 as he did his rounds of interviews and talks. (For example, http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2009/...n4791429.shtml).

Whereas 90% of pilots had military flying experience in 1992, today that number is well under 30%, and the route to becoming a pilot is typically civilian flight school, and logging your hours in a combination of simulators and routine flights.

Adding to the problem are the various demands placed on today's commercial airline pilots, and the deteriorating working conditions and job security. One has to question if the best talent is being attracted and retained by the profession anymore. Note Sullenberger's comment: "I don't know a single professional pilot who would recommend that their children follow in their footsteps."

I suspect that the problem is also compounded by another issue. That is, the instructors are now also the product of civilian flight schools and the system that does not necessarily test your flying skills and decision-making prowess under duress.

This is not to say there aren't brilliant pilots who come up through the civilian track, but the entire model has changed, and the consistency of flying skills you could expect from an Air Force pilot is not necessarily there anymore.

So luckily we do have that evil technology and those rote procedures, all being improved upon all the time, or I suspect the state of affairs would be much more dire than it is now.

(All the above, just a non-expert opinion.)

[Gabriel]

How do you know that?

It takes some 12 degrees to stall a plane, so with 5deg nose-up you'd need 7 degrees of descent slope. But at that steep descent slope the "downhill effect" would keep the clean plane flying at a speed faster than the minimum needed to sustain a 1G flight. The plane will never reach that descent slope. It will descend and stabilize at some equilibrium slope that will give some equilibrium AoA. It's about the third or fourth time I sau this.

What if your theoretical pilot is more focused on maintaining flight level than a few degrees of pitch?

Then he is not following the "typical pitch" part of the procedure, the same as if he is focused on maintaining flight level while supposedly following the meomory item that calls for 5°, not "hold altitude".

After all the accidents and all the reports we've read and all that we've learned about pilot error, do you think it is so far-fetched that a competent pilot might be task-oriented towards holding altitude while traversing a line of CB's while making continuous minor pitch inputs before becoming aware of the thrust lock situation.

The thrust lock situation could be missed eve if the pilot intention is to follow the memory item. Again, the memory items calls for 5deg and CLB, the "unofficial" procedure calls for "typical pitch and typical thrust". It's almost the same except that the meory item gives specific proven and approved values rahter that "typical", hence it's better. But any of the errors that you mention (holding altitude instead of pitch, not noting a wrong thrust setting) would is equivalent with any of those.

Then, as I've said, as long as the pilot holds either a typical cruise pitch or the memory item 5°, the plane won't stall even if he misses that the thrust got locked at 83% like in this case. Maybe you will develop a bit of descent rate, but that's all.

Sinking combined with raising pitch could get you in trouble before you recognize it.

With raising pitch yes it could, regardless of where you intend to apply either the official or the un-official procedure.

The key component here is degraded situational awareness and momentary mental confusion. The other component is an unrecognized variable (thrust lock at 83%N1). You can't take those out of the equation.

No, you can't, be it with the official or the unofficial procedure.

Now tell me, what pilot is more likely to fall in that degraded situational awareness and mental confusion? A competent one trying to hold a typical cruise pitch and thrust or an incompetent one trying to hold the pitch and thrust prescribed in the memory item?

I'll answer that: The one that is incompetent and trying to hold neither typical pitch and thrust nor memory tiems ones.

On the other hand, the lest likely is the one that is both competent and trying to follow the memory items.

That is the problem I have with 3WE's insistence that 'normal attitudes and power levels' are as good as the CRM procedures for UAS.

You fix that with 3we.
My position is that with a competent pilot following the official procdure you have two layers of safety. I prefer the official procedure over the unofficial one, and prefer (more intensely) a competent pilot over an incompetent one.

I agree with you 100% that the procedures are the better route to take. I also agree with you that to crash the plane you also have to ignore stall warnings, maintain excessive pitch and botch recovery, all of which are next to unthinkable. So we really have no argument here. But I always want to fly with the pilot who always takes the safest course of action. Agreed?

100%.

No. As I said, you can't choose the pilot. Therefore...

That's why I've asked if you are going to ask for the airline's training curriculum before your next flight. You had said that "you can choose the airline that has complied with the requirement to teach and train for the procedures". I wonder how that's any easier than choosing the pilot.

Yes, i.e. properly trained. [...] If we had (and enforced) such standards (this is what I am asking for), we could know that the airline has complied by the fact that they are still operating, and be much more assured that there are two pilots on board capable of dealing with the unexpected.

Exactly. And capable of following the procedures too.

A qustion: What was ther range of altitudes and airplane weights for which the "5° + CLB" memory items prescription applied?

[Gabriel]

The operative word there being "should". Airmanship should take precedence. It would be nice if pilots didn't pull up maniacally when the stall warning sounded. We would like our pilots to know flying basics.

Then train them.
I agree that that's an industry-wide problem that starts in the private pilot school. This needs to be adressed somehow.

To start with, the airlines should cover the deficit of knowledge of their raw material. These AF pilots had received no AF training in UAS, approach to stall, strall recovery, upset recovery and manual flight at high altitudes. Probably they were sharp as razors for V1 cuts, though.

Note that if, in the training for stall and upset you include not only the "what" (procedure) and the "how" (practice in simulator) but also the "why" you are already addressing a lot of the knoledge and general competence issue.

A word on military pilots. They were famous for their "macho - I know better - my life for the country" type of accident and for poor CRM. Yes, they tended to be very skillful and knowledgable but also to accept unnecessary and unacceptable (for the civilian) risks.

[Fear_of_Flying]

A word on military pilots. They were famous for their "macho - I know better - my life for the country" type of accident and for poor CRM. Yes, they tended to be very skillful and knowledgable but also to accept unnecessary and unacceptable (for the civilian) risks.

Then train them... Speaking in the present tense, there is still a percentage of commercial pilots with military background, and I don't know if the bravado to which you refer is still an issue, but it strikes me that it would be a fairly small matter to take an exceptional pilot and adapt him to civilian flying, than to have a video game addict flight school graduate and try to make flying a real experience for him.

My belief, until someone tells me differently, is that when you learn to fly in the military, you really learn to fly. There is no such thing as a routine flight, your decisions really matter - including to your own survival - and you encounter all manner of obstacles along the way. That is what seems to me is missing from today's flight school approach to learning to fly.

Even if you do a better job teaching theory, and spend more time in the simulator learning different scenarios, I'm not sure there is a substitute for the real thing... the flying hours that count, as you alluded to in an earlier post. In my ignorant opinion, flying is something you have to learn under fire (figuratively speaking) in order to attain the level of proficiency you would ideally like to have, and that is what will have to be added to today's training, not simply more knowledge and testing of what-if scenarios.

[Evan]

So luckily we do have that evil technology and those rote procedures, all being improved upon all the time, or I suspect the state of affairs would be much more dire than it is now.

Let's get one thing straight here. On a commercial aircraft, CRM is part of airmanship. If you have bad CRM, you have bad airmanship. If you don't follow procedures, you have bad CRM. These pilots died because they had no CRM to speak of.

Automation is a tool, not an alternative to piloting. If a pilot does not know how to use his tools he has bad airmanship. These pilots died because they did not use their tools properly.

Basic airmanship, i.e. stick, rudder and cigar, is a hopelessly naive description of the profession of piloting a 21st century airliner. Without CRM and automation procedures, it can't be done with any degree of safety.

As we have learned (some of us).

[TeeVee]

Let's get one thing straight here. On a commercial aircraft, CRM is part of airmanship. If you have bad CRM, you have bad airmanship. If you don't follow procedures, you have bad CRM. These pilots died because they had no CRM to speak of.

Automation is a tool, not an alternative to piloting. If a pilot does not know how to use his tools he has bad airmanship. These pilots died because they did not use their tools properly.

Basic airmanship, i.e. stick, rudder and cigar, is a hopelessly naive description of the profession of piloting a 21st century airliner. Without CRM and automation procedures, it can't be done with any degree of safety.

As we have learned (some of us).

yet another opinion from one not qualified to do anything except read books. and one that is not correct. while crm might be a required part of being a pilot, the basic skills of flying have nothing to do with it. basic skills are developed where the only human factor is yourself, i.e., solo flying. modern day crm includes dealing with flight attendants, which would clearly not have aided in keeping af447 flying...unless of course one of the fa's had more brains than the 3 idiots in the cockpit...

and i love how you continually talk about "as we have learned." how's that? because evan proclaimed it we have learned it? please man, go back to studying your books. stop pretending to be someone/something you are clearly not on some interwebz forum.

by the way, i've been meaning to ask you this for some time: since you clearly believe yourself to be more qualified than just about everyone, including pilots, why is it you don't hang out on sites with a greater percentage of professional pilots? or do you, and if so, do you use the same name?

[Evan]

TeeVee is on Evan's ignore list, and has been for some time.

Just a friendly reminder.

[Fear_of_Flying]

Let's get one thing straight here. On a commercial aircraft, CRM is part of airmanship. If you have bad CRM, you have bad airmanship. If you don't follow procedures, you have bad CRM. These pilots died because they had no CRM to speak of.

Automation is a tool, not an alternative to piloting. If a pilot does not know how to use his tools he has bad airmanship. These pilots died because they did not use their tools properly.

Basic airmanship, i.e. stick, rudder and cigar, is a hopelessly naive description of the profession of piloting a 21st century airliner. Without CRM and automation procedures, it can't be done with any degree of safety.

As we have learned (some of us).

I'm not convinced poor CRM contributed significantly to this accident. They could have communicated all they wanted, but if none of them knew what was going on or how to respond, what difference would it have made? It's not as though one of them was using proper inputs and the other not, or one was making suggestions that were being ignored. The macho attitude of yesteryear might in fact have been just what was needed: "What are you doing?" "Shut up and let me fly this plane."

In a broad sense, sure, I guess anything that's involved in flying the plane could be considered "airmanship", but I think we've been discussing it more in the sense of being able to control the aircraft, understand what it's doing, and fly it with some deftness. That includes using the systems at hand, not just stick, rudder, and cigar. When I made those comments about learning to fly in the military, it was with the full understanding that a modern military aircraft is a highly sophisticated machine - but the pilots are still forced to fly it under trying circumstances, in a variety of different environments, and to improvise when necessary.

[Fear_of_Flying]

Then train them.
I agree that that's an industry-wide problem that starts in the private pilot school. This needs to be adressed somehow.

And what do you propose is going to cause it to be addressed industry-wide? A few lines at the bottom of the AF447 final report? The groundswell of public sentiment that there is a problem here? Five or ten more crashes like this one? (That might do it.)

Once you decide to address the problem, you have to decide how to address it. Is pumping your graduates with more theory really going to do the trick? Is that really a substitute for learning to land on an aircraft carrier (for example)? How easy is it to screen out bad candidates when they never have to test their mettle other than in a simulator, when all they have to do is let the Airbus fly pretty much of its own accord under the watchful eyes of people who have let the Airbus fly pretty much of its own accord many times?

If the problem of poor basic airmanship is not properly addressed, what do we do to at least mitigate the problem as much as possible?... It seems then we're right back to improving the foolproof technology and insisting upon rote procedures.