Recreating real life air disasters

[FLEX1978 373]

I wouldn't say it was a major problem if SOP is Followed, PF flies PNF runs the ECAM actions QRH 'after' the aircraft is stable and flying.

 

The A380 incident was pretty unique since it was an uncontained failure and tore holes in pretty much all the major systems, the chances of a catastrophic failure like that is extremely remote.

 

Going back to simulating braking friction on wet or icy runways, I don't own the NGX, what problems are PMDG having with brake temps and stopping distances? Other company's have perfected it years ago, I doubt PMDG are not capable of nailing it.

 

Regards

[zmak 331]

When I first started my flight training incipient spins were not on the menu. Real spin recovery however, was!! forget scary roller coaster rides. In order to pass that part of the flight test we had to recover within 10deg of the original heading! A real spin is really disorientating and requires instinctive reations. You loose thousands of feet in seconds.

 

 

 

yes I remember the full on spins 30 yrs ago on the way to my CPL ., I was nervous and so were the instructors!

 

And what about the touch n goes at Sydney international ? following a line of jumbo jets in a c152 LOL those were the days

[PMDG737 0]

I think re creating emergency landings with the likes of engine failure and passengers pretending to take heart attacks is much better to gain experience in difficult scenario's. i.e person takes heart attack, pick closest alternate airport, closest one has a short runway, contact ATC quickly, fuel dump etc etc, just things which are not commonplace. Try duel engine failure 35 nm from Kai Tak :)

[davierosoft 13]

Going back to simulating braking friction on wet or icy runways, I don't own the NGX, what problems are PMDG having with brake temps and stopping distances? Other company's have perfected it years ago, I doubt PMDG are not capable of nailing it.

 

Regards

 

I don't know other add ons with a dinmic autobrake function that gives you the exact braking VS temp, but pmdg spent a lot of time in doing an autobrake with the correct deceleration rate (wich is what the autobrake is made for) and the brake usage, automatic or not, will produce heat and correct brake temp. values.

However, with the first releases they saw that temps goes high because of the slippery runways FSX have, and then they needed to adjust the mathematic equations to make them more similar to the real one, but I'm not sure they are now 100% fixed.

[japascoe 98]

When I first started my flight training incipient spins were not on the menu. Real spin recovery however, was!! forget scary roller coaster rides. In order to pass that part of the flight test we had to recover within 10deg of the original heading! A real spin is really disorientating and requires instinctive reations. You loose thousands of feet in seconds.

 

The above post also raises a good point in that real simulators are used to test system failures. Trains of events and when or if the pilot is in or out of the loop what his reaction and input should be.

When the Qantas A380 had the engine disintegration they spent two hours just checking computer error messages. This is now a major problem with all modern a/c. The computer systems do not allow a pilot to fly by the seat of his pants.when it becomes necessary. The pilots instead are totally distracted by ambiguous warnings.

Look at the Helios accident. Instead of having a cabin height gauge they had instead "Master Caution". Assuming that they were compus mentus at the time they would have spent too much time going through the list of error messages to find the real cause by which time they would have lost conciousness from hypoxia anyway! Had they had a cabin height gauge it would have been part of their scan and would immediately have been noticed.

vololiberista

 

Actually on QF32 they did 'fly by the seat of their pants'; they started off by going through the ECAM warnings (about 60 or so if memory serves) with the PF keeping the plane under control. Then when they realized just how many warnings they had they stopped going through the checklists (which are shown on the ECAM on the A380 and probably modern Boeings as well) and started figuring out what was still working and what wasn't. More importantly they spent a good deal of that time working out what their landing performance would be. Considering they landed with about 100 meters out of the 3000 metre runway left, it's a good thing they did. Of course the reason the crew received 60-odd error messages in the first place is that there was indeed that much wrong with the plane: one hydraulic system gone, one engine shredded, another engine stuck on max continuous thrust, a whole slew of lesser component failures, the list goes on.

 

In the Helios case the crew wouldn't have received a long list of messages, they would have received exactly one: CABIN ALTITUDE WARNING. If it was a system that included a checklist the next line on the screen would have read OXYGEN MASKS - DON.

[Chock 17,769]

i.e person takes heart attack, pick closest alternate airport, closest one has a short runway, contact ATC quickly, fuel dump etc etc, just things which are not commonplace.

 

The Boeing 737 has no fuel dumping capability, although you can land it at pretty high weights if you need to.

 

Al

[PMDG737 0]

The Boeing 737 has no fuel dumping capability, although you can land it at pretty high weights if you need to.

 

Al

 

Did not know that thanks, but for sure I land pretty heavy all the time even on very short runways, Brakes set to 2nd notch, flaps 40

[hopskip 253]

In the Helios case the crew wouldn't have received a long list of messages, they would have received exactly one: CABIN ALTITUDE WARNING. If it was a system that included a checklist the next line on the screen would have read OXYGEN MASKS - DON.

 

Remember Helios was a 737-800. We can use the NGX to see the exact warning sounds and system messages that will occur in the configuration shown. Simply turn your pressurization system off Auto to Manual, open the outflow valve a little to about half open, then takeoff. At about 10,000ft you will get a beeping noise and master caution, the First Officer side of the cockpit will have a CAB ALT caution that pops up. Just above the First Officers line of sight on the overhead will be the Cabin Altitude and Cabin Rate. Rate will likley be pegged at your actual rate of climb, and Cabin Altitude will have an amber light near it. The Auto/Alt/Manual switch will be green-light Manual.

 

Now you won't get any hypoxia cos you are infront of your desktop and not at 12000ft climbing, but my preferred method with dealing with this is:

 

Altitude Hold: Press.

(Oxygen Masks, pretend to don since you don't really have one)

Switch Pressurization to Auto. Confirm Air Bleeds for Engine 1 & 2 on and Packs 1 and 2 on.

Talk to ATC and request decent to 14,000ft (or to maintain current altitude if lower than this)

Confirm Cabin Altitude reducing and Cabin Rate decending.

 

If cabin rate does not decend to below current altitude, switch back to Manual and close outflow valve.

 

Level off at FL140. monitor Cabin Altitude.

 

Consider decending to 10,000ft.

 

Monitor Cabin Altitude, is it decending? If not you may have a problem with pressurization system or hull integrity.

 

In some cases a failure of the Pressurization system may lead to failure of the Avionics and Electrics cooling systems too, another good example of a potentially unexpected development where one system effects a different one, possibly leading to systems shutting down, or worse, fire.

 

Incidently I had this happen unexpectedly flying the MadDog MD82 in Multicrew a few weeks ago. (Possible actual failure). Even Manual/outflow valve full shut failed to pressurize the cabin. Somewhere a few minutes into troubleshooting while cruising at FL110, we were even double-checking all the doors were closed, windows closed and locked shut, packs turned on and air bleed from the engines etc. Never did get to the bottom of it, and ended up flying the whole flight at FL110 (climbed to FL140 and then stopped climb, went back down). Had enough fuel as it was a short flight and we were tanking fuel for an anticipated return journey.

 

Trent Hopkinson

[denver69 0]

No need to bring up 911 here folks. Recreating air disasters are part of everyday sim training in the real sims. Put it this way, almost every flight crew procedure and even more aircraft systems have been redesigned around someone else buying the farm. That's how it got figured out. So your procedures and aircraft system redesigns have the blood of a million men on them. The training has changed and the system's have changed due to deaths throughout the history of aviation. The sim training is all about preventing it from happening again on your watch. Even FSX.

 

That was weird to because I was going to bring up the Helios accident.

 

As an asside, if that Flight Attendant had FSX and the NGX at the time he may have been able to get it safely down.

[Chock 17,769]

Remember Helios was a 737-800. We can use the NGX to see the exact warning sounds and system messages that will occur in the configuration shown.

 

Helios Flight 522 was a Boeing 737-300. It used to belong to Deutsche BA, when it was registered as D-ADBQ, before eventually ending up with Helios, it having been built in 1997, which is a year before the 737-800 went into service. The pre-flight procedures for the 737 were changed as a result of the AAI into Helios Flight 522; also as a result of the AAI, a directive was issued to manufacturers to amend the warning systems on the 737, thus the NG cannot duplicate the same warnings as were experienced on Flight 522, since the amendments were also retrofitted to aircraft already in service.

 

Al

[japascoe 98]

Helios Flight 522 was a Boeing 737-300. It used to belong to Deutsche BA, when it was registered as D-ADBQ, before eventually ending up with Helios, it having been built in 1997, which is a year before the 737-800 went into service. The pre-flight procedures for the 737 were changed as a result of the AAI into Helios Flight 522; also as a result of the AAI, a directive was issued to manufacturers to amend the warning systems on the 737, thus the NG cannot duplicate the same warnings as were experienced on Flight 522, since the amendments were also retrofitted to aircraft already in service.

 

Al

 

Specifically, the plane in the Helios accident did not have a CAB ALT warning light, only a horn (which was also used as a take-off configuration warning I believe) and a master caution light.

 

Incidentally Trent's procedure does not match the checklist in the QRH for a CAB ALT warning, that has you switch to manual and immediately close the outflow valve.

 

Simulating an accident in FS gives you a new perspective from which to examine what happened, what did the pilots see and when? How could they have responded and what would the effects have been? I don't think it's any different to reading through accident reports in your spare time (which I have been known to do, they're usually quite easy to follow and a much better source for finding out what happened than the news media).

 

Going back to the original question of what accidents can be simulated: as soon as you start nearing the edges of the flight envelope (stalls, extreme bank angles), FS' simulation fidelity will start to break down, even the level-D sims don't do that well. In addition it may not be possible to produce the exact malfunction that occurred, as has already been mentioned in regards to the Turkish Airlines crash.

[Fabo 213]

also as a result of the AAI, a directive was issued to manufacturers to amend the warning systems on the 737, thus the NG cannot duplicate the same warnings as were experienced on Flight 522, since the amendments were also retrofitted to aircraft already in service.

 

That is (un)fortunately(?) not true Al. The PMDG 737 NGX is (at least as of now) not equipped with CAB ALT warning light, thus should display the same kind of behaviour as Helios 737-300, since the pressurization system is similar enough.

Just as well as someone told of cabin altitude gauge, the gauge itself was present, as it is in the NG, unfortunately the crew failed to observe cab alt over 10000ft when the horn sounded. FWIW it remains questionable whether they would have gone looking for, and found, CAB ALT lt if it was installed.

 

Re: moral aspects of re-creating dissasters, accidents and incidents in-sim - every seasoned pilot will tell you that aviation is as safe as it is, because we look at what happens, and try and learn from it. If you take an investigation, you can basically say it is trying to find three things:

1. What happened?

2. Why it happened?

3. What can we learn from it (i.e. how can we prevent it from happening again)

 

Full-scale sims can be very useful in part 2. - basically you put the crew in, set them into same situation and watch.

They are also useful in part 3 - you can for example test crew reaction to modifications that are proposed and choose the one most successful.

Then there is also a part of airline training - high altitude upset training was mentioned by Spin737. This time of training was very rare just a couple years ago, but is common now, and we are all a bit more safe for it.

 

Now obviously computer simulation is not up to par with the boxes from, say, CAE, but are still helpful for individuals, on all levels. I have learned a lot from crashes, real, and simulated, and existing purely in virtual space, and I am a better (virtual) pilot for it, and for that I am glad.

[vololiberista 205]

In the VC10 the cabin altitude gauge is right next to the PO's left knee and angled up so he can't miss it. On the sim model it is in front of the Captain.

The warning horn which is the same as the misconfiguration warning will come on at a cabin altitude above 10,000ft. Between 10-14,000ft the crew will manually operate the system from the flight deck. Above 14,000ftCH the passenger masks are automatically presented at a demand pressure of 40psi. Above 17,000ftCH they are automatically presented at an emergency pressure of 80psi. The model simulates all this exactly and of course whether or not "you" have donned your mask. If you haven't then depending on your altitude and time passed (seconds) the screen goes blank until or if/when the a/c is at 15,000ft. In the real a/c the red "emergency" handle pops out with a very loud noise and sticks out a mile so the FE can hear and see it quite clearly.

vololiberista