Scudrunners

Uh, why so much talk about bum secks? There are other forums for that.

Would it be ok if I brewed a pot of de-caff and we switched back to airplane talk?

[quote author=Chuck Ellsworth link=topic=4138.msg11104#msg11104 date=1473348320]

I brought the DC6 into the conversation as an example of the level of skill it takes to hand fly big airplanes, with and without automation.

[/quote]

Not familiar with the DC-6 but if I recall correctly they were designed as a 3 crew aircraft with the 3rd crew member being a Flight Engineer. Since everything has to be done manually I'm sure it requires good manual flying skills and good system knowledge.

Contrast that with the A320.

The fly-by-wire airbus are by far the easiest jets to fly - that's how they've been designed. They will also compensate for a lack of flying skills - that's also how they've been designed.

Example:- Engine Failure on take-off. You can keep your feet on the floor and pull and hold the side stick full aft and all that happens is a slow turn into the dead engine. Suicide in just about anything else.

What is extremely complex on the fly-by-wire airbus are the abnormals - especially a dual hydraulic failure or the emergency electrical configuration. This requires a high level of teamwork and some flying skills as you've lost a lot of the automation.

I was very fortunate to start my career flying aircraft without automatics where everything was done manually. The things I learned have kept me out of trouble on the jets over the years.

Unfortunately we are now at the point where we have Automation Dependency. And it's only going to get worse.... :( :(

Example:- One A320 I flew was not developing the correct thrust on take-off on one of the Engines. You could not only hear it, you could see it and feel it as you lifted off. I was the [b]only one[/b] reporting this out of everyone flying the aircraft. Everyone else was looking at the Engine Instruments - seeing all the indications were in the green so no problem!

To their credit the Airline grounded the aircraft based solely on my report and found and fixed a leaking sense line which was causing the primary thrust indication to over-read (EPR sense line).

All but one of the recent airbus crashes feature a failure of the Automation followed by incorrect crew actions followed by loss of control and a crash.

Recent Boeing crashes also feature incorrect crew actions - 12 seconds of nose down trim in the FlyDubai crash and letting the airspeed deteriorate to well below VRef in Amsterdam and San Francisco.

Air Mail is correct to mention fatigue as another big issue.

Increasingly limits are being seen as targets by people who get bonuses for increasing productivity. What could possibly go wrong?  :( :(

I'll be the first to admit that my performance isn't always what it should be after an 11+45 night flight.

[quote]A320 I flew was not developing the correct thrust on take-off on one of the Engines.

[b]You could not only hear it, you could see it and feel it as you lifted off[/b].

I was the only one reporting this out of everyone flying the aircraft[/quote]

You are a dinosaur, flying by the seat of
your pants, like a stupid fucking airshow
pilot.  No future in that.

[url=https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irony]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irony[/url]


[quote]All but one of the recent airbus crashes feature
a failure of the Automation followed by incorrect crew actions
followed by loss of control and a crash[/quote]

The patently obvious solution is to (gasp) learn
the lessons of those mistakes, and fix the automation
so that it doesn't fail.

If the automation doesn't fail, you don't need the
pilots.

After all, when the automation is working, you don't
need the pilots, and when the automation isn't working,
you don't need the pilots because all they do is crash
the airplane anyways, because first of all

- they can't even manually fly a working airplane, and
- they sure as hell can't diagnose a broken, complicated airplane

so everyone on board is dead when the automation craps out.

Pilots aren't going to get better.  I don't know why (or how)
everyone thinks that's going to magically happen.  They're
going to get a lot worse.  I have seen this for over four
decades now, and the trend is going to continue.

Automation has to get a lot better.  And when it does, even
one pilot is too many in the cockpit.