Plane with 71 on board goes missing after taking off from Moscow

[LH-B744]

The tone makes the music, little Bob. And if you don't avoid these big letters and 8 (eight) question marks in a row, you'll stay what since our last little incidence in my eyes you've stayed: little Bob, not older than half as old as me.

3WE and me precisely remember what you said last time. And 3WE and me know who are jetphotos online friends since then.

And who not!

[LH-B744]

First off, I can give a rats ass if I have posted over a thousand posts or not. You just wrote in your PROFESSIONAL 747 know it all as usual, "And I don't quite remember if they had wxr radar on board". All part 121 aircraft are required to have weather avoidance radar aboard. The ONLY aircraft that was exempt was the Curtiss C-46, which I flew for 3 years. So that is what the WHAT was about. If you did not spout off things like you are preaching the gospel, and you weren't wrong most of the time it would be a different story.

And I don't give a damn shit on what you say. Were you even born when AF447 happened? The day which Evan and me are discussing precisely is June 1st 2009.

Without that you say one more word in your ole BIG letters, I have perceived, that on June 1st 2009 you definitely were not existent here on Jetphotos!

Join Date 06-18-2009 .

What Seniors like Evan and me were discussing, if a half eternity before you Bo..y appeared here, e.g. in 2008 or earlier, the wxr radar also was a law.

Since when, in your humble opinion, is it a law to have a wxr on board? And be precise, year, month and day! Now you again.

[BoeingBobby]

Hm. My dearest jp forum member, directly after ATLcrew.. But ATLcrew imho has shown evidence that he can be professional and polite, and especially

WITHOUT BIGGER LETTERS THAN ONE OF OUR AVATARS TAILFIN IS HIGH.

You try to also become a "Senior"? I could tell you the jp member who almost avoided that I became one... It was definitely not you.
I rather am on one side with Erwin and ATLcrew. Be short, precise and polite. But if you know something, you can elaborate on it. There are only a few men who stop me when they say stop. Two of them are in my jetphotos online friends gallery. Another one is my dearest DUS administrator. And last but not least, there is one German speaking man, approx as old as me, who, as I assume, always says 'yes', more or less, when I write one or two words in German in my profile...

So, come on. I don't have to tell you what VNAV is. Not you.

First off, I can give a rats ass if I have posted over a thousand posts or not. You just wrote in your PROFESSIONAL 747 know it all as usual, "And I don't quite remember if they had wxr radar on board". All part 121 aircraft are required to have weather avoidance radar aboard. The ONLY aircraft that was exempt was the Curtiss C-46, which I flew for 3 years. So that is what the WHAT was about. If you did not spout off things like you are preaching the gospel, and you weren't wrong most of the time it would be a different story.

[LH-B744]

WHAT???

Hm. My dearest jp forum member, directly after ATLcrew.. But ATLcrew imho has shown evidence that he can be professional and polite, and especially

WITHOUT BIGGER LETTERS THAN ONE OF OUR AVATARS TAILFIN IS HIGH.

You try to also become a "Senior"? I could tell you the jp member who almost avoided that I became one... It was definitely not you.
I rather am on one side with Erwin and ATLcrew. Be short, precise and polite. But if you know something, you can elaborate on it. There are only a few men who stop me when they say stop. Two of them are in my jetphotos online friends gallery. Another one is my dearest DUS administrator. And last but not least, there is one German speaking man, approx as old as me, who, as I assume, always says 'yes', more or less, when I write one or two words in German in my profile...

So, come on. I don't have to tell you what VNAV is. Not you.

[BoeingBobby]

Wow. Back to the early years of our nicknames.. Didn't we finally discuss AF447? Since the year 2015, probably I am one of the biggest fans of the BEA..
I'm able to look up what they wrote concerning AF447, almost ten years ago.

Yes. That's also what I remember. As far as I remember, it was an AF-A332 (330-200) and they were on the return flight back from Rio Galeao SBGL to Charles de Gaulle. You wonder why somebody with my nickname knows all these names and codes? Well ... the reason is the nickname..

And during the first hour, everything on board the AF-A332 was completely uneventful. So they climbed to a very normal cruise alt. Then, somebody detected quite severe conditions ahead. And I don't quite remember if they had wxr radar on board. Sometimes a sheer look through the window is enough. Thus, they decided to avoid what they've seen, heavy clouds and lightnings. A/P was disconnected, and they tried to climb again, right?

And then it became fatal. Let's say with FL360, they decided to climb again, manually. Since I own Randazzo's LH-B744 simulator, I know that this is special. Especially if only one hour or clearly less than 50% of the distance is behind you, on an intercontinental flight.. The PFD commands you to fly fast enough. But even in a 747 you don't reach vmax when you are that heavy. In case of a 747, four N1 numbers are a quite good warning..

And then you should NOT excessively pull the elevator, please..

The fmc even gives you cruise alt recommendations for almost every phase of the flight, if you sit in a B744 simulator. Which imho is calculated with your precise TOW, FOB, and Fuel Flow in every single engine. Sometimes I say that a B744 herself teaches me how to get the best out of her.. FL360 is a quite good number for this flight phase. And then climb again, manually? Hm.

I assume that all this somehow is connected with this new topic here.. Well, sad.

2017 was a year without 1 major aviation incident! In contrast to 2018, obviously.

PS: As you certainly have perceived, I've never used VNAV, not since I fly Randazzo's Finest, as I call her. I am a fan of personally sitting at the elevator, and, at the throttle quadrant, of course. If you don't know how far you can pull after you've pushed the thr, bad things can happen...

WHAT???

[LH-B744]

[...]
How many pilots could tell you what a "familiar" pitch and power setting is for an A330 at 250,000lbs and FL360? I think that (combined with human factors) is why many of the unreliable airspeed incidents revealed by the AF447 investigation—none using the memory item values, all improvised—resulted in upsets that were reported to be difficult to manage. Think about it.

If I recall correctly, AF447 was tooling along at somewere between 1° and 0° pitch just prior to the autopilot disengagement. And that was at something like 75% N1 (slowing for turbulence penetration speed)! Is that what would pop into your head as familiar pitch and power settings?

Wow. Back to the early years of our nicknames.. Didn't we finally discuss AF447? Since the year 2015, probably I am one of the biggest fans of the BEA..
I'm able to look up what they wrote concerning AF447, almost ten years ago.

Yes. That's also what I remember. As far as I remember, it was an AF-A332 (330-200) and they were on the return flight back from Rio Galeao SBGL to Charles de Gaulle. You wonder why somebody with my nickname knows all these names and codes? Well ... the reason is the nickname..

And during the first hour, everything on board the AF-A332 was completely uneventful. So they climbed to a very normal cruise alt. Then, somebody detected quite severe conditions ahead. And I don't quite remember if they had wxr radar on board. Sometimes a sheer look through the window is enough. Thus, they decided to avoid what they've seen, heavy clouds and lightnings. A/P was disconnected, and they tried to climb again, right?

And then it became fatal. Let's say with FL360, they decided to climb again, manually. Since I own Randazzo's LH-B744 simulator, I know that this is special. Especially if only one hour or clearly less than 50% of the distance is behind you, on an intercontinental flight.. The PFD commands you to fly fast enough. But even in a 747 you don't reach vmax when you are that heavy. In case of a 747, four N1 numbers are a quite good warning..

And then you should NOT excessively pull the elevator, please..

The fmc even gives you cruise alt recommendations for almost every phase of the flight, if you sit in a B744 simulator. Which imho is calculated with your precise TOW, FOB, and Fuel Flow in every single engine. Sometimes I say that a B744 herself teaches me how to get the best out of her.. FL360 is a quite good number for this flight phase. And then climb again, manually? Hm.

I assume that all this somehow is connected with this new topic here.. Well, sad.

2017 was a year without 1 major aviation incident! In contrast to 2018, obviously.

PS: As you certainly have perceived, I've never used VNAV, not since I fly Randazzo's Finest, as I call her. I am a fan of personally sitting at the elevator, and, at the throttle quadrant, of course. If you don't know how far you can pull after you've pushed the thr, bad things can happen...

[Evan]

The problem is not the speed but the rate at which the speed changed, aka acceleration (tangential acceleration to be more accurate). The gravity is about 19 knots per second. That means that in a vertical fall with no lift, no drag, no thrust, the speed increases 19 knots every second. The plane went from 108 to 432 knots. I the above condition that would take 17 seconds. And the plane was not falling vertically. And 30/35 degrees nose down will give you like 0.5G of tangential acceleration (without drag). And the engines will give you like 0.2G (without drag). So if the speed increased that much in one or 2 dozen seconds, it's unlikely that it was accurate in both extremes, and chances are that they will miss-indicate less, not more. That would make the 430 knots the accurate one. And probably the pilots had been acceleration since many seconds earlier, when the indicated airspeed was going down.

I don't want to quarrel with physics, and you know your physics, but XL888 went from 99kts at 3000ft to 263kts at 340 ft (where the recording stopped) in a relatively shallow -14° final recorded pitch. And Swiftair AH5017 went from about 190kts at around 9000ft to 380kts at 1600ft (where the recording stopped) with pitch varying from 80° to 58° where it ends. Based on that precedent, does it seem plausible that you could go from 108kts at 6000ft to 432kts before the recording ends in a nearly vertical dive with TOGA thrust? Or does physics not allow for that?

EDIT: ah. forget it. I just saw that the pitch was limited to around -30° throught the descent.

[Evan]

I was wrong about the "set" part.

What scares me is that you might be correct that they don't pay one single damn bit of attention to what the power setting is at all whatsoever, since they are so busy memorizing all of your memory item

No, busy managing the autopilot, because...

By the way...did you throw out a big acronym?: RVSM?

It is not kosher for pilots to manually fly under normal conditions at flight level in RVSM airspace (and why would they?). RVSM was made possible by the height-keeping abilities of modern autopilots. So, as most flights in the developed world operate in this space, autopilot is usually engaged at 400ft and remains engaged until final. I'm serious. How many pilots could tell you what a "familiar" pitch and power setting is for an A330 at 250,000lbs and FL360? I think that (combined with human factors) is why many of the unreliable airspeed incidents revealed by the AF447 investigation—none using the memory item values, all improvised—resulted in upsets that were reported to be difficult to manage. Think about it.

If I recall correctly, AF447 was tooling along at somewere between 1° and 0° pitch just prior to the autopilot disengagement. And that was at something like 75% N1 (slowing for turbulence penetration speed)! Is that what would pop into your head as familiar pitch and power settings?

At full CL thrust and 5°, you are going to depart flight level a bit, but you are safe from stall and overspeed and you can fine tune that with the FCOM in a minute or two. That's the idea.

[Gabriel]

What about 432 KIAS in a dive with full thrust applied? We have seen how licensed and experienced pilots sometimes get themselves into a stall and then firewall the throttles without doing too much else.

Stall warning, full thrust, pull-up, stall, Newton, uncommanded dive, overspeed, loss-of-control, fireball?

The problem is not the speed but the rate at which the speed changed, aka acceleration (tangential acceleration to be more accurate). The gravity is about 19 knots per second. That means that in a vertical fall with no lift, no drag, no thrust, the speed increases 19 knots every second. The plane went from 108 to 432 knots. I the above condition that would take 17 seconds. And the plane was not falling vertically. And 30/35 degrees nose down will give you like 0.5G of tangential acceleration (without drag). And the engines will give you like 0.2G (without drag). So if the speed increased that much in one or 2 dozen seconds, it's unlikely that it was accurate in both extremes, and chances are that they will miss-indicate less, not more. That would make the 430 knots the accurate one. And probably the pilots had been acceleration since many seconds earlier, when the indicated airspeed was going down.

[Quench]

Does pitot heat ON apply heat to the static ports also ?
If the static ports iced up too that may have added to the confusion.

[3WE]

Anyway, 3WE is making the same moot point as always...

Indeed. Knowing that it's a good idea to turn on the pitot heat when flying in cold clouds and how that might be prioritized versus how exactly to maintain altitude is moot point.

[3WE]

Every day, multiple times per flight?

I was wrong about the "set" part.

What scares me is that you might be correct that they don't pay one single damn bit of attention to what the power setting is at all whatsoever, since they are so busy memorizing all of your memory items... you know that acronym PM and then the duty that the PF has to do whatever the hell "M" stands for while the auto-everything flies the plane.

That being said, I see that someone once set the power (and I also recall that this person once operated a crappy regional jet, while naked, and having no autothrottles)...so a question back to you, is if I might gather 100 ATP's and the odds that one of those might just operate a CRJ, or any number of turpoprops, or the Cape Airways boys...by the way, where's my black and white voo doo doll that all aircraft and all pilots use auto throttles all the time?

By the way...did you throw out a big acronym?: RVSM? See, I thought that the autopilot maintained the altitude using elevator inputs, so that you didn't need autothrottles to set exactly the right power anyway...so RVSM or not, as Hillary once said, "what difference does it make".

[Evan]

This commercial pilot had to do it about two years ago. Still alive.

Every day, multiple times per flight?

Anyway, 3WE is making the same moot point as always... it's not about an inability to fly using the most basic airmanship, it's about human factors getting in the way (and perhaps a paucity of upset recovery training, or just learning it wrong). The reason memory procedures and checklists exist is to prevent those human weaknesses from interfering with that airmanship, something that seems to happen every time there is a crash like this... Something to which every commercial pilot better know they are susceptible. Memory procedures are there to quickly stabilize things so that you may think clearly and methodically apply your airmanship.

[ATLcrew]

OK, let's start over with your first assumption... Gather one-hundred commercial transport pilots very familiar with flying in RVSM airspace and ask them when was the last time they manually set pitch and power for level flight at cruise altitude.

This commercial pilot had to do it about two years ago. Still alive.

[Evan]

Familiar...like something they do multiple times during each flight...select power and attitudes to attain climbs, descents and level offs...multiple times each flight. Did I say every day, multiple times per flight...familiar???

OK, let's start over with your first assumption... Gather one-hundred commercial transport pilots very familiar with flying in RVSM airspace and ask them when was the last time they manually set pitch and power for level flight at cruise altitude.