Air France 447 Found

[LaGarbage Man]

Yea, I just recently started flying an aircraft with autothrottles about 2 months ago. I already find my self trusting them more than I would like.

Question for Airbus people, can you guys over ride the thrust (bump it up, if you get a bit slow) without disengaging the autothrust? My only experience is JS'ing on them and I never saw the pilots do this, seems like we over ride them quite a bit in the Embraer on approaches, not sure if our at system is just weak though.

We do not override them in the same fashion as on the Embraer. Any movement above the climb position (MCT position in a SE scenario) we own. Below to top of idle is owned by the autothrust when armed. You can bump up the thrust to a point but if you touch TOGA your going around. There is a whole other function that comes into play when it comes to tweaking the thrust on approach. (GS Mini) but we could start a whole new thread with that one. Long and the short of it is the autothrust does a pretty good job. Even when it's gusty. Unfortunately sometimes it lacks finesse and gives everybody in the back the impression we are racking the thrust levers back and forth just for fun. That is usually GS Mini doing its thing. If all the back and forth starts to bother me then I just match & mash and poof no more autothrust. Sorry for a over simplified yet lengthy explanation but unfortunately that is kind of the story with the Airbus. Simple yet complicated.

 

[eaglesview]

Yea, I just recently started flying an aircraft with autothrottles about 2 months ago. I already find my self trusting them more than I would like.

Question for Airbus people, can you guys over ride the thrust (bump it up, if you get a bit slow) without disengaging the autothrust? My only experience is JS'ing on them and I never saw the pilots do this, seems like we over ride them quite a bit in the Embraer on approaches, not sure if our at system is just weak though.

The autothrust system works great in climb, cruise and descent. A few people, at UAL anyway, fly with the autothottles engaged during the approach. It does ok. Most of us turn them off and hand fly the approach. Does a great job then.

 

[eaglesview]

Yet another reason to avoid flying an Airbus product.

Call me crazy, but I like to know exactly what the **** the aircraft is doing when my hands are on the controls.

I may be wrong but this sounds like someone that has never flown the bus. You do know exactly what is going on.

PS everyone knows what **** means. Creative swearing??

 

[Lear70]

I may be wrong but this sounds like someone that has never flown the bus. You do know exactly what is going on.

PS everyone knows what **** means. Creative swearing??

Heh heh... That's the ONLY way of swearing that's allowed on the board. That's why when you use a real swear word, the board edits it and puts ***** in its place.

But you're correct, I've never flown the bus, and as the previous poster mentioned, I'd probably be one of those people who would likely kick the autothrust off in any other situation than a constant-state thrust application such as climb, idle descent, and cruise or anytime it was chasing the speed badly enough to do that throttle up-throttle down "chasing" thing they seem to do when you're in the back.

Don't like not seeing what it's doing at ALL times, that's for sure.

 

[Patriot328]

Heh heh... That's the ONLY way of swearing that's allowed on the board. That's why when you use a real swear word, the board edits it and puts ***** in its place.

But you're correct, I've never flown the bus, and as the previous poster mentioned, I'd probably be one of those people who would likely kick the autothrust off in any other situation than a constant-state thrust application such as climb, idle descent, and cruise or anytime it was chasing the speed badly enough to do that throttle up-throttle down "chasing" thing they seem to do when you're in the back.

Don't like not seeing what it's doing at ALL times, that's for sure.

If you want to see what it is doing all you have to do is look at the engine instruments. It shows what it is currently doing, what it is commanding it to do and what the engine will be doing several seconds from now...

 

[GuppyWN]

I once rode jumpseat on a large carrier out of Denver. One of the PMC's on an old 737-300 started dancing around causing the autothrottles for that engine to chase the proper setting.

Long story short the Captain called SAM (what is that?) and after a few minutes came back, turned to the FO and said "leave the autothrottles engaged until we have established V-target on final, then you can disconnect them."

Pure genius. I'm sure the passengers hardly noticed the 10 degree left and right bank for over an hour!

This thread makes me think he was an Airbus guy who recently made the transition.

Gup

 

[Lear70]

If you want to see what it is doing all you have to do is look at the engine instruments. It shows what it is currently doing, what it is commanding it to do and what the engine will be doing several seconds from now...

No, thank you.

I'm busy enough when the weather's crappy, there's an abnormal or emergency situation, and/or there's some other distraction to not want to include the engine indications every second in my scan. I like that when my hands are on the throttles I know EXACTLY what power setting is being commanded in real time.

I'm sure FiFi is just fine to fly in day-to-day ops, but I prefer Boeing products. Maybe I'm just too much of an old "stick and rudder" guy coming up from Cubs and Pitts towing banners and flying old King Airs, Lears, Falcons, and 727's that were mostly older than I was at the time, but it's simply a personal preference based on jumpseating and what I hear from pilots... like this... that just make me shake my head and wonder whether the engineers designing the plane ever bothered to consult a pilot from time to time.

In many ways I agree with the Southwest mentality of automation levels. Much easier to be connected to what the airplane is doing if your hands are on the controls and either feeling them move or moving them yourself manually. Just my .02 cents.

 

[get2flyin]

Lear, I hope every guy senior to me who flies the Boeing has your same mentality. "Ew..it's different and I don't like it." "Real pilots don't fly by ones and zeros." "If it's not Boeing, I'm not going." Go with it. The junior Airbus pilots appreciate your concern and encourage you to remain on your current fleet. Some part of me wonders if the old radial pilots said the same thing about the B-707 and DC-8 when they came out. "Just a fad", they probably said. "Not a real pilot's airplane".

I think today's student pilots are getting a HUGE disservice by learning to fly in glass cockpit trainer airplanes. You want to learn to fly? Solo in a tail-dragger and then move forward from there. If you can't do an NDB approach in a non-glass cockpit aircraft I don't think you have any business having an Instrument Ticket in your wallet. But, those days are fading. Truth be told, I regret never getting the chance to fly 727 or doing a max-power take-off in a lightly loaded 757. With that said, they'll have to pry my cold, dead hands off the Airbus stick. It's like playing chess to a Boeing's checkers. You have to think ahead of what the computer is GOING to do if you want everything to turn out looking effortless...and every so often, shut everything off and hand fly it. It takes a while to really "get it", but it's actually quite a kick in the ass...


EDIT **Just heard this from my Delta mechanic neighbor who is trying like hell to wrap his head around the old NW Airbus aircraft. You know why a monkey can't replace an Airbus pilots? Because it can't get driver's licenses to get itself to the airport.

 

[414Flyer]

Lear, I hope every guy senior to me who flies the Boeing has your same mentality. "Ew..it's different and I don't like it." "Real pilots don't fly by ones and zeros." "If it's not Boeing, I'm not going." Go with it. The junior Airbus pilots appreciate your concern and encourage you to remain on your current fleet. Some part of me wonders if the old radial pilots said the same thing about the B-707 and DC-8 when they came out. "Just a fad", they probably said. "Not a real pilot's airplane".
t.

I hope you arent telling me that my time trying finesse 4 R-3350s last year was all for nothing?

 

[get2flyin]

I hope you arent telling me that my time trying finesse 4 R-3350s last year was all for nothing?

Quite the opposite. I consider the Airbus to be a wonderful "office". However, I also spent Friday at the CONFEDERATE Air Force hanger. B-17, B-25, A-26, that isn't work...that is HEAVEN. Radial engines will ALWAYS be where it's at. And you, sir, are one lucky SOB.

 

[414Flyer]

Quite the opposite. I consider the Airbus to be a wonderful "office". However, I also spent Friday at the CONFEDERATE Air Force hanger. B-17, B-25, A-26, that isn't work...that is HEAVEN. Radial engines will ALWAYS be where it's at. And you, sir, are one lucky SOB.

CONFEDERATE it is. Commemorative is for decorative dinner plates marketed on late night tv infomercials.

Didnt get as much time in the -7 as I wanted, but how many get a chance to fly an old EAL DC-7B around the skies.

 

[ImbracableCrunk]

From Air France to C.A.F.

Is it so hard to stay on topic?

 

[sinkrate]

Yeah, I understand the concept of pitch and power, thanks.

What I was asking was that, if the pitot system iced over, as is the hypothesis in the NOVA episode, and thus the ADCs would be getting false data, and the flight control and engine computers would be making decisions based on that false data, would the pilots still be able to set known pitch and power settings?

Would the pilots be able to select a throttle position that would give a known power setting? Would the stick inputs actually be turned into flight control movements?

In other words, to what extent can actual manual inputs (over-riding what the computers 'want' them to do) be made to an Airbus' flight control system and engine power system?

I had the same basic thought when I read the theories of this flight. Anyone that is typed in an AC should not need anything more than one attitude gyro and working engines to maintain controlled flight.

Then the old problem solver took over - check your assumptions. I quickly came up with two assumptions that are questionable - and I think we will learn alot about in the course of this investigation.

The first

As a looonggg time civilian and 121 instructor I'll add this to your question - would they even be familiar with the concept? If they were familiar would they know the attitude and TL positions required?

If the civilian primary training institutions even bother today with the axiom of 'pitch + power = performance' the pilots they are producing completely miss it. They might be able to recite it but they can rarely apply it.

For years one of the first things we learned in any AC was the attitudes for level, climbs, descents and the corresponding power lever positions. In today’s automated environment training starts with 'auto pilot on' and, for demonstration purposes only on an FAA required checkride, turn the auto pilot off but you must use the Flight Director. Many FAA approved programs never involve 'raw data' flight.

The newhires I work with now, even after completing a program of sim training, can't tell me the required attitudes or put the thrust levers in the correct position.

Old Boeing and Douglas Commercial pilots can apply this with no problem. For pilots that learned in automated AC it is an emergency procedure - that doesn't get practiced. Without a Flight Director they can't do much. Add to that the degradation of auto thrust versus auto throttles a maneuver that for many years was normal flight is now an emergency procedure.

The next assumption was

They had two engines capable of rated power. But did they? It could be they knew what to do but didn't have the power to do it. That data indicates the AC was in a controlled attitude. If there was enough ice to overwhelm the ADC's pitot/static systems could it have also overwhelmed the engines pitot/static system. The data they have indicates there was a loss of electric power. What are the fuel control units programmed to do if there is no pitot/static data? I would guess that the auto thrust system has an independent, engine driven source of power. Is that a good guess? The days of 'never mind the ITT or rpm, run it to destruction' are gone. What would the computer do?

As far as flying into a thunderstorm the Archie Trammel course I took years ago started with - 'No turbo jet AC has ever crashed out of cruise flight by flying into a thunderstorm'. This maybe a first but the industry has been doing it for years. Something else is a big contributing factor.

 

[Ty Webb]

When you consider the fact that they were likely in severe turbulence, those "unreliable airspeed" charts for pitch and power would be unreadable and/or worthless.

 

[jonjuan]

When you consider the fact that they were likely in severe turbulence, those "unreliable airspeed" charts for pitch and power would be unreadable and/or worthless.

In your opinion, of course. Should be a memory item.