What did I just watch?

[martin-w 3,259]

1 hour ago, Doug47 said:

That sounds a little like an oxymoron.

And maybe...maybe not with that statement. 

 

Of course not. Autopilot off autothrust off. Manual flying. Ideally both categories of pilot in the same jet.

Pilot of a modern jet, obviously refers to a pilot used to flying a modern jet with more automation.

Edited March 30, 2020 by martin-w

[FDEdev 955]

12 minutes ago, martin-w said:

Autopilot off autothrust off. Manual flying. Ideally both categories of pilot in the same jet.

FYI, in many airlines 'manual' flying means autopilot OFF, autothrottle/autothrust ON. 

I don't understand the discussion about hand flying hand flying ability. Every airline pilot needs to do quite a bit of manual flying during the sim sessions, including 360° steep turns, engine out non-precision approaches etc. 

[threexgreen 3,156]

2 hours ago, FDEdev said:

FYI, in many airlines 'manual' flying means autopilot OFF, autothrottle/autothrust ON.

Better fuel efficiency if handled by the autothrottle?

 

2 hours ago, FDEdev said:

I don't understand the discussion about hand flying hand flying ability. Every airline pilot needs to do quite a bit of manual flying during the sim sessions, including 360° steep turns, engine out non-precision approaches etc. 

My point was merely that if you do a lot of manual flying you're probably more proficient and used to it than someone who uses automation a lot, which of course doesn't mean that said someone who uses automation a lot can't hand fly or is a bad pilot.

I keep reading and hearing in the industry about the concern of using too much automation and becoming over-reliant on it, which was also brought up again in the light of the MAX crashes, whether justified in that case or not. Is this concern actually valid or not?

[SAS443 1,731]

48 minutes ago, threegreen said:

Better fuel efficiency if handled by the autothrottle

Also energy management. In gusty conditions Airbus has a Ground speed mini-feature which is active with the ATH/R. (The GS mini is derived from the entered  tower wind value in the Perf app-page and compared with the current HW component from the ADIRU's. The vapp target is then dynamicly modified so this"gust factor" is accounted for.)

[FDEdev 955]

35 minutes ago, SAS443 said:

In gusty conditions Airbus has a Ground speed mini-feature which is active with the ATH/R.

Ground speed mini works ok in theory, but IRL it can be really dangerous. You have to monitor the system very closely and you must be ready to disengage it immediately in gusty conditions. 

After years of using the Airbus A/T systems I quickly learned when it is better to fly with manual thrust, despite the Airbus recommendation to use A/T. 

Edited March 30, 2020 by FDEdev

[FDEdev 955]

1 hour ago, threegreen said:

Better fuel efficiency if handled by the autothrottle?

I keep reading and hearing in the industry about the concern of using too much automation and becoming over-reliant on it, which was also brought up again in the light of the MAX crashes, whether justified in that case or not. Is this concern actually valid or not?

Since you are using manual thrust only during the last few minutes during an approach, I doubt that fuel efficiency would be higher.

The automation over-reliance problem is at least as old as the first airliners with full time autothrottle systems. Low flight/training standards in certain countries are a different story.  

Edited March 30, 2020 by FDEdev

[martin-w 3,259]

5 hours ago, FDEdev said:

FYI, in many airlines 'manual' flying means autopilot OFF, autothrottle/autothrust ON. 

I don't understand the discussion about hand flying hand flying ability. Every airline pilot needs to do quite a bit of manual flying during the sim sessions, including 360° steep turns, engine out non-precision approaches etc. 

 

 The debate is in regard to the 727 video, comparing his flying skill with modern airline pilots. And he had autothrust off I belive, So that is the requirement for the comparison.

Re autothrust remaining on with autopilot on, depends on the aircraft and airline standard operating procedures. Just lately, I have been aware of how it's common for some airlines operating Airbus to mandate autothrust off when autopilot is off. Lufthansa for one I recall.

 

Airbus recomend on.

 

Edited March 30, 2020 by martin-w

[HighBypass 2,339]

8 minutes ago, martin-w said:

..it's common for Airbus pilots to be required to have autothrust off when autopilot is off.

Could that be because the Airbus throttles don't move on their own? - No extra visual cue that she's in authothrust.

[FDEdev 955]

9 minutes ago, HighBypass said:

Could that be because the Airbus throttles don't move on their own? - No extra visual cue that she's in authothrust.

Airbus recommendation/procedure is ON.  This has nothing to do with the non-moving thrust levers. Even if the thrust levers are moving your are only looking at the engine gauges.  

Edited March 30, 2020 by FDEdev

[martin-w 3,259]

6 minutes ago, HighBypass said:

Could that be because the Airbus throttles don't move on their own? - No extra visual cue that she's in authothrust.

 

Not sure. I recall it was Lufthansa. Have seen a few airlines doing this in videos. Airbus recomend on I think.

 

I have a family friend that flies the Voyager. RAF A330 basically. He has autothrust off with autopilot off. May be just an RAF thing. He's a former Harrier pilot. Used to teach pilots to fly the mach loop. 

[HighBypass 2,339]

1 minute ago, FDEdev said:

..Even if the thrust levers are moving your are only looking at the engine gauges.  

.. and this is why you can tell I'm not a real pilot.. 

Perhaps my line of thinking was based on the Airbus unlinked sidesticks versus linked control yokes (Boeing)? No, I'm not wishing to open that can of worms any further please! Just trying to explain my layman's thoughts.

[martin-w 3,259]

I recall Lufthansa are very strict on this and autothrust on with autopilot off it absolutely forbidden.

Might be to do with accidents that have occured where this was implicated.

[FDEdev 955]

6 minutes ago, HighBypass said:

.. and this is why you can tell I'm not a real pilot.. 

Hm, there was a C-5 crash in 2006 where the whole crew apparently only watched the throttles instead of the engine instruments….so it does happen to real pilots as well 😉 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zkg_Y1ZmbWc

 

Edited March 30, 2020 by FDEdev

[Chock 17,769]

1 hour ago, FDEdev said:

Hm, there was a C-5 crash in 2006 where the whole crew apparently only watched the throttles instead of the engine instruments….so it does happen to real pilots as well 😉 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zkg_Y1ZmbWc

 

Even when the throttle is motorised, as it is in the 737, it is not a guarantee of safety when the crew do not do things properly, and related to a reliance on the autothrottle, there was the crash of the Turkish Airlines B737-800 at Schiphol, which was caused by a faulty radar altimeter affecting the autothrottle behaviour:

Being that the autothrottle on the Turkish 737 in that accident mistakenly reduced thrust because the radar altimeter incorrectly read that the aircraft was about to touchdown, so it closed the throttles to idle as it is designed to do. The crew did eventually notice this although they were not properly monitoring it because there was a third pilot riding on a jump seat, possibly distracting them from their regular split of duties.

The radar altimeter read the aircraft approaching touchdown when the aircraft was at almost 2,000 feet AGL and this triggered the 'too low, gear' audio warning, which should perhaps have alerted the crew to go to completely manually taking over duties since it did tend to indicate something was amiss, but did not. In fact this should probably have prompted them to go around given that their approach was not stabilised at that point anyway. This in part was caused by ATC having set them up so they had to intercept the glideslope from above, which isn't the best way to do it, nevertheless, if ATC give you bad instructions, you are not compelled to follow them if you deem it not safe to do so of course.

At 144 knots, the throttle was manually increased to cater for the increased drag of the aircraft's dirty landing config, but the pilots did not hold it in that position, so the autothrottle immediately reduced again because of the radar altimeter thinking the aircraft was about to touch down. The crew failed to monitor the instruments properly thereafter until the aeroplane was at about 500 feet AGL and the stick shaker started going. at which point they realised they were in trouble. As a result, the crew gave it full throttle, but by that time the aircraft was barely flying, dropping to an airspeed of just over 80 knots at one point and slowly accelerating to around 95 knots with the desperate throttle input, however by that time it was too late and the aircraft struck the ground in a field some way short of the airfield perimeter.

As with most airliner accidents, it's not normally one thing which is the cause, but a cascade of things triggered by one thing which itself should not be the cause of a major problem if you take the appropriate action but can be fatal if you don't take appropriate action, and this incident is certainly a case of that, not least the need to do your job carefully if something goes awry.

I can remember an instructor letting me have almost enough rope to hang myself once with something that made me stop 'flying the aeroplane' as you are always supposed to do. It was a good lesson which has stayed with me: There was a weird vibration noise from the panel occurring, and it was making one of the screws on the panel rotate with a strange buzzing noise. I was puzzled by this and instead of staying concentrated on monitoring the approach and the instruments, I stupidly began trying to figure out what it was. The instructor let me do this for a while, but eventually he said 'airspeed', in that tone which good instructors have lol, at which point I noticed we were losing speed and would soon be too slow for the approach.

It does make me wonder sometimes how many aeroplanes have crashed under similar circumstances as the crew are distracted by something trivial instead of doing what they are supposed to do. I know an L1011 crashed once by flying into the ground because everyone on the flight deck was trying to fix a gear indicator bulb instead of watching what the aeroplane was doing. I'll always be grateful to that instructor; he was sneaky and would do sly things to the config of the aeroplane sometimes which would test me, but that sort of thing does not catch me out nowadays because of his great teaching. Someone tried that sneaky stuff on me the other week on a walkaround which they were auditing as I was doing it; they had seen me close and latch the forward cargo door on a B737 and so they sneaked up to it and unlatched it a bit prior to me doing a walkaround, but as I say, I keep my mind on the important stuff these days and so I spotted it, and I didn't even mention it to him either until much later on that day at which point he admitted doing it. At the time I just latched it properly again and carried on with the checks. 🙂

 

Edited March 30, 2020 by Chock