msm2000uk

I presume that is why there was a yellow 'Inop' sticker on the grey panel behind where the crew at Door 1L sit?

Littlegirl

That was probably specific to that aircraft. Those stickers are used by engineering to let us know something cannot be used and may be waiting for aircraft downtime or a spare part to arrive. It helps prevent crew duplicating an entry in the Aircraft Maintenance Log and brings our attention to the fact something is U/S.
When you see it on that panel, it is often just the boarding music that is not working or something simple like that, that is not important to get fixed straight away.

msm2000uk

Ah, interesting.

Thanks Littlegirl

Waterhorse

The yellow INOP labels should have a number on them that will correspond to an entry in the Aircraft Maintenance Log AML. When an entry is placed in the AML an engineer must clear the entry before the next flight. If a part cannot be found or there is insufficient time to rectify the fault before the next flight AND the Missing Equipment List MEL allows it, the aircraft can be dispatched on its next journey. There is a periodicity in allowable defects that can range from a number of flights to a number of days before rectification becomes mandatory. The INOP sticker lets the crew know the fault has already been raised and dealt with, it also alerts them that a procedure may need to be applied.

seraphina

One for the pilots, if I may?

IIRC, Boeing aircraft have yokes, but some Airbuses have joysticks. Are the joysticks central to each pilot or are the offset to each side? If they are offset, does it take long to learn how to use the other hand? What I mean, is if you are used to flying in the right hand seat, using your right hand for a joystick, when you transfer to the left hand side do you have to re-learn some muscle memory?

henkybaby

Good one !

I take the liberty to add something: what is your opinion on not being able to see what PF is doing with the joystick ? (AF related of course)

Waterhorse

Having flown both Boeing and Airbus (Lockheed too) you fly other handed on a control column too - the centre hand is on the thrust levers, so when you move seat you move the flying hand too. Not yet flown the Airbus from the left seat - give me a couple of months and I will be able to speak from personal experience on that question. From what I have seen it appears to be the same as for a control column, ie not issue at all.

What I do not like about the sidestick is not the lack of seeing what is going on with the controls, our eyes are elsewhere like when you drive a car you do not look at the steering wheel, rather it is the lack of physical feedback. The stick is inert, and does not provide a clue as to what the other pilot is doing through you hands, you cannot touch the stick and feel the other pilots inputs. Similarly with the non- moving thrust levers, you get no feedback from the movement to tell you what the auto- thrust is doing and you have to look inside to get that info. Moving thrust levers and control column provide that physical feedback which I prefer. You can get used to anything but it is another "thing" that puts the pilot at a removed step from the flying.

All this is very subjective and a personal viewpoint, but the big debate at the moment is the over reliance on automatics and an erosion of manual flying skills. Remove the subtle clues of what should be happening with the controls and you remove some valuable seat of the pants feeling when things are not right.

henkybaby

Airbus always had more of a vision towards pilotless flight... It backfired so they don't talk about it anymore, but it was part of the early design principles, I was told.

IAMORGAN

I've read quite a lot of this mainly on sites such as PPRUNE where I'm really not convinced many posters are actual pilots! Anyway, I was wondering whether this is something that is taken seriously by those who devise training and competency programmes and assessments - I know that 'airmanship' is a bit of a wooly concept but it is something that has gained renewed focus at the top level, or is more something that's discussed by pilots down the pub and that's it? And, I guess, more to the point, do you think it's a valid concern? It strikes me as a layperson that there probably is some truth in it but when looking at the overall risk situation I wonder whether the effect of reversing policies such as 'you must use auto thrust where it is available' is that it will improve manual handling skills but lead to other types of fatal errors that could have been prevented with the use of automation. It must be a very difficult balance to achieve!

Also, as a BA pilot, are you free to manually fly, say, a departure up to cruise level or a descent from cruise, or do you have policies whereby in normal operations automation should be used from, say, initial climb to visual with runway for landing?

BingBongBoy

What is one of those?

Calchas

And on the flip side is there a requirement for a minimum amount of "manual" flying? As I recall from the cowls accident report, the flying pilot there had hardly ever flown without auto thrust until he was required to land the aircraft with one engine afire.

Waterhorse

Ask this question to ten pilots and you will get ten different answers. So I will give you my version, I stress that this is my opinion and in no way do I speak for BA or any training organisation.

There have been quite a few accidents recently where it seems that there has either been a confusion between automatic and manual flying, or an incorrect response to a failure in an automatic system. In many cases these things should not have lead to an accident but here we are discussing them. So what is "at fault" was it the individuals, or their initial training, their type training? It is the million dollar question.

Automatic systems were brought in to reduce pilot workload and to provide more repeatably accuracy. The modern autoflight system is a far cry from a simple autopilot and their subtleties and foibles are many. When they go wrong these errors can be insidious and hard to understand. Sometimes the best thing to do is to turn them off and use the mark one eyeball and a "good pair of hands"

So what makes that "good pair of hands"? Does pilot training require aerobatics? The RAF think so but they are training for combat manoeuvres, that said this experience helps to develop a feel for the aircraft. Is it relevant for an airline pilot? Perhaps the passengers on the BA Nairobi 744 that got into a wing over as a nutter tried to take over the cockpit might argue that it is, and indeed that pilot was ex-military. Others may think it is a waste of money as the skill is not relevant.

Modern airlines nearly all have systems that monitor many flight parameters and these are fed into safety systems. From all this data trends can be identified and training departments can then identify, for example a trend for overbanking in the turn and put together a training package to address this, to train out the error.

However, these systems are open to abuse. So for example a company that is buying A321s may look at the potential problems of operating a longbody Airbus which includes tail scrapes. The data shows that most examples of this occur when manual thrust is used.

What to do? Ban the use of manual thrust on the A321, unless the system is U/S? The company may also operate other A320 family aircraft, should they also face the autothrust ban? Or should training emphasise the issue and manual thrust be encouraged on the A320 where the tailscrape issue is much lower and banned for the 321s only?

One thing is for sure, in a few years the data will show that the mandatory use of autothrust has reduced the incidence of low-speed events and so everyone is much safer. At least they are until the autothrust fails and then something else fails in a A321 and no one has any real current practice and now they are working much harder for lack of practice.

For every pro argument there is a con argument and much is a matter of opinion rather than hard fact. Though there is that worrying trend in accidents where the machine-man interface and an over reliance of the machine seems to be important.

At BA we are encouraged, where appropriate, to fly manually on departures or cruise or arrival as sense, the weather and other factors allow. Though the use of autothrust is mandated on all Airbus and some Boeing fleets. The debate is industry wide and is a major concern to those that design, build or fly aircraft, pilots tend to talk about women (or men), religion and politics in the bar, and sports too, though probably more the sport than the other things.

seraphina

Very informative, thanks *Waterhorse*. I should imagine it is somewhat like driving LHD vs RHD cars.

Didn't the pilots responsible for peeling the 747 off the runway at JNB when a thrust reverser deploy during take off also attribute their success to experience gained during acrobatic flying?

1010101

In addition to your opinion, there has recently been leaked a letter from Cathay Pacific pilots to their senior management bemoaning (amongst other things) the lack of manual flying skills in the new recruits.

Sigwx

You see that a lot from 'austronauts'. The simple fact of the matter is that for the most part the aviation world is very different to how it was when they entered the industry. The general aviation 'self improver' route simple doesn't exist to the scale it did back then, in many parts of the world it us almost entirely dead. In Australia and Canada there is still a reasonable stable scene, but that too has seen major changes and the USA have adopted rules post colgan that have changed the work scene. Nowadays it has become the norm for airline cadets to attend an integrated flight training organisation approved by the airline for the purpose of training it's new cadets. Yes this does entail lower hours of physical flight compared to the 'traditional route'. The differences also extend to the type of training. Self improves spend hundreds of hours being paid peanuts, or not at all, flying crop dusters, mail runs in light twins etc etc as they build up hours and nearly kill themselves on a couple of occasions, they learn by mistake over a long period of time but amass a lot of experience. Integrated cadets are trained to competency and if they fail to meet that required competency level by a certain point, they simply do not progress until it is achieved. It is a very costly business and the end product is an airline training ready pilot with demonstrated competencies, but lacking overall experience. In the modern airline arena, they will gain lots of experience and fast! Especially where short haul operations are concerned.
Of more concern to the CX bunch (as I understand it) are the 'bunk .....es' on a second officer programme who solely occupy the right seat above 20000ft and act as cruise relief pilots, able to handle the aircraft in an emergency, but not getting hands on flying time below 20000 ft until they 'upgrade' to first officers. Their duties below 20000ft include monitoring, observing the briefs and setting up the bunks amongst others. Due to their low entry hours in terms of experience vs the traditional route CX pilots are concerned at the erosion of perishable skill sets within the new crop of cadets.