General operating procedures

[n2859T]

I’m an IFR rated pilot with approximately 250 hours aspiring to be a commercial pilot. I purchased the PMDG j41 and FS2CREW voice commander to help teach me how airline crews actually operate. I’m having a little difficulty figuring out how to properly use the FS2Crew software. When the first officer preforms a “flow” does he do this from memory and then use a checklist to make sure it was done properly? I have no real life experience, but I thought the majority of items were read allowed by one crew member while the other preformed the actions. It seems that instead each member has to memorize small “flows” and then checklist that he performed each flow correctly. Does one crewmember double check the others “flows”? Any good tutorials out there? I’ve searched YouTube and found a few but they don’t really explain what’s happening they just kind of film it. Thanks in advance for any help.

[Chock]

What you find with airliners is that each crew member has various areas of responsibility on the panel, pedestal and overhead, and they will check and set these things (often from memory, although they may use some aids when doing so), but then checklists are read through as a standard procedure when both pilots are ready and have done all that stuff. You will hear that on cockpit videos when the Captain says 'are you ready for the checklist?' i.e. what he is saying is, 'I've done all the bits I am supposed to do, have you done all your bits, so we can check it all together?'Thus a checklist is exactly what its name implies, i.e. it is a list of checks that are made in order to ensure that things are properly set up, and that's why two people do them, because one person could have forgotten something. This means checklists are not a 'to do' list, they are a 'make sure it has been done' list, where any corrective actions will be done if a crew member happens to have forgotten to do something prior to this when working from memory, and it is why there are briefings for take off, cruise and landing, so that both people know what is going to be done and can set things accordingly and be clear on what their responsibilities are.If this sounds complicated, just remember that most pilots and copilots fly the same aircraft day in day out, often on several sectors in one day, so they know the things like the back of their hand and it is easy for them to remember where everything is and what their responsibilities are. This is akin to it being easy for you to remember where everything in your house is, despite the fact that there are probably thousands of objects in your house. To continue to equate the checklists on aeroplanes to the house analogy, you probably stop at the door on the way out in the morning and make sure you have picked up your keys, have your wallet, have turned off the gas and electrical items, fed the cat etc. Most of that you will have done from memory as you were pottering about, but you still stop and check it before you step outside the door, and that's equivalent to what a checklist is.The Standard Operating Procedures manuals which pilots get when they are assigned on an aircraft type, and which are also often found in the cockpits of the airliner, are generally based on documents from the aeroplane's manufacturer. These SOPs detail all the areas of responsibility for each crew member, as well as what they are supposed to do when reading checklists out and who is supposed to respond, and what exactly they are supposed to say. Often the aircraft manufacturer will have produced videos which explain this too. SOP manuals really are that detailed, with all the Is dotted and the Ts crossed, so there can be no confusion about who is supposed to be doing what. Pilots will study these so they know them, but can refer to them too if they like, since there are often emergency or unusual procedures detailed in them with which they might be less familiar for obvious reasons, since such instances are rare.If you want a real SOP for a J-41, you can find them for sale online occasionally from various places, for example ESSCO, which is where I generally will buy a manual from when reviewing an FS aeroplane for Avsim. That is why doing a review can sometimes be an expensive business LOL, for example, I had to track down a B707-300B ADV manual earlier this year in order to review the CS 707 properly, and that wasn't easy to find, or cheap!Here is a BAe J-41 manual you could buy if you wanted to and have 62 Dollars doing nothing: http://www.esscoaircraft.com/p-6174-british-aerospace-jetstreamseries4100-vol-2-1997-operating-manual.aspxReading through the FS2Crew manuals and the PMDG manuals will get you familiar with all that stuff now that you know what is going on in the background in real operations, as will familiarity with the aeroplane itself, so forking out large sums of money for real aeroplane manuals is not essential, but you might like have one if you are really into the realism side of things.Al

[byork]

Hi,Some checklists are 'read-and-do'.Some checklists will be preceded by a flow and then backed up by the checklist.Some checklist will only be read by the PNF/PM (like the Descent checklist in FS2Crew 737).Some checklist (like usually the After Landing Checklist) are sometimes read silently.It's goes on and on, and varies from company to company, airplane to airplane.There are a million ways to skin a cat.For the PMDG J41 version of FS2Crew, the SOPs were lifted directly from the PMDG AOM manual.At the same time, the flight crew procedures in the PMDG J41 manual were in turn lifted directly from Robert R's old airline.So what you're seeing in FS2Crew J41 is procedurally correct in the context of Robert's old airline.Other J41 operators may do things differently.Cheers,