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.