Emergency Decent

[FlyingFerris]

Just be careful someone is still watching the autopilot. Nothing like making a bad situation worse.

Like if both pilots that didn't get their masks on in time and an aircraft falling out of the sky thrust idle? Yeah you may wake up in time, you may not.

 

[FL350]

Well this is coming from a corporate pilot but the Citation 650 has EDM (Emergency Descent Mode). Above FL 34,850, if the cabin altitude went over a certain level (I think 13,500) the aircraft would automatically enter a 45 degree descending bank 90 degree turn accelerate to Mmo/Vmo and automatically level off at 14,500. Pretty cool stuff, of course if you weren't conscious enough to add power at 14,500, things got ugly pretty quick. Of course if you weren't concious when you got down there, you probably didn't care anyway. All you HAD to do was put your mask on and pull power. If you could get the boards out it was gravy.

All that being said, I would still rather hand fly the airplane.

 

[ASH]

I ditto the use of the AP, but I would probably TCS ( touch control system) the nose over to get it going quickly, as the AP likes to make it nice and gentle.

 

[Flyingdutchman]

bumppp

 

[bafanguy]

With the A/P on, set 10,000, select IAS mode, power to idle, boards out. Nothing else to do other than deal with the problem. I'd let the autopilot do the work.

Ding...ding...ding !!! We have a winner !! Some airplanes may dictate different profiles, but in a two pilot, automated airplane particularly, the AP should do the flying with the PF monitoring/talking to ATC and the PNF working the problem.

 

[ArcticFlier]

Ding...ding...ding !!! We have a winner !! Some airplanes may dictate different profiles, but in a two pilot, automated airplane particularly, the AP should do the flying with the PF monitoring/talking to ATC and the PNF working the problem.

Exactly.................some people want to be Yeager or Crossfield.


AF

 

[Captain X]

Probably let the A/P fly it unless I had reason to believe there had been some kind of structural failure

 

[ArcticFlier]

Probably let the A/P fly it unless I had reason to believe there had been some kind of structural failure

How is hand flying going to make a difference if you've had some kind of structural failure? Are you going to be more gentle?

Why increase your work load? You've got a third pilot (A/P) just waiting to fly the plane for you, doing exactly what you tell it to do. Let it. It's what it was made for.


AF

 

[rvsm410]

Question; If the AP is set to 10K cant the FMS also set the IAS once the acft arrives at that altitude?
Point being if for some reason the crew were to have "browned" out up at altitude, it would be comforting to know that the FMS would fly the airplane for awhile by herself while the crew got there act together again.....Assuming ATC was notified by the crew or dispatch of the emergency, they would not have to worry about other aircraft as well...

Just trying to think out the senerio....Of course you would hope there was enough FOB to give significant time to the crew to regain themself's before exhaustion...

 

[bafanguy]

Question; If the AP is set to 10K cant the FMS also set the IAS once the acft arrives at that altitude?
...

In this senario, you wouldn't mess with the FMS. You do what's necessary to set speeds/altitudes on the flight guidance system panel ( takes 2.5 nanoseconds ). This will eliminate any "surprises" from the automation. This way, things will turn out as you need them to turn out.

The guys who allude to manual flying in this situation are trying to say that speed and altitude ( producing max descent rate to 10k/MEA ) are paramount. The question is, how do you accomplish that. Guys with APs they don't trust in rapidly changing conditions will opt for manual flying.

The last thing you want to do is program the magic when the cabin is hitting 14K and the masks are dropping.

In the 727, you flew manually; in the MD80, you used the AP because it did a lot better job than you would in a pinch.

 

[DC8 Flyer]

DC8
Capt pulles the outboards to idle,the inboards to full reverse and starts down at MMO. FO sets the transponder and talks to ATC. FE runs the checklists.

Hand fly the damn airplane. You are literally "falling" out of the sky, george isnt the best decision maker in the cockpit. Let him fly it straight and level when you get down.

 

[Spinplate]

DC8
Capt pulles the outboards to idle,the inboards to full reverse and starts down at MMO. FO sets the transponder and talks to ATC. FE runs the checklists.

Hand fly the dang airplane. You are literally "falling" out of the sky, george isnt the best decision maker in the cockpit. Let him fly it straight and level when you get down.

Agreed! Be the pilot for once, work as a crew, CRM is most critical in this situation.

 

[ArcticFlier]

CRM is most critical in this situation.

And you want to eliminate 1/3 of the "pilot resources"? What kind of CRM is that? I feel like I'm beating my head against the wall here.


Out.


AF

 

[Whataburger]

Autopilot.
In most airplanes it will do a much better job.
It's a no-brainer in the 757.

 

[User546]

Our procedure is to let the autopilot fly it. Like a previous user said, if theres a cabin depressurization, chances are theres other things you might need to focus your attention on.

Cabin depressurization...
Oxygen Mask On / Working
Autopilot to FLC/IAS (assuming already near red-line)
Altitude Selected Below 15,000
Power Levers To Idle
Speed Brakes Out
Advise Center
... The airplane will take care of the rest

This of course assumes that there was no structural damage done during the depressurization.

 

[WWEfan]

I dont let my co-pilots fly the airplane during normal operations let alone during an emergency. But all kidding aside, the AP is a useful tool. Use it.

 

[Spinplate]

The CRJ's outflow vlaves have a safety feature not to alllow the cabin altitude to exceed 14,250 ft. +/- 750 ft. if there is a pressurization SYSTEM malfunction. So if there is a cabin depressurization, it wont be major UNLESS the bulkhead is failing somewhere, hence the structural failure. (or some stupida$$ passenger actually got the pax/galley door open in flight)

 

[Captain X]

How is hand flying going to make a difference if you've had some kind of structural failure? Are you going to be more gentle?

Why increase your work load?

AF

You obviously don't have much user time with Honeywell's wonderful excuse for IAS Hold in a VMO/MMO descent on the ERJ

It's not the work load that I'm concerned with.....it's the G load, 'cuz the work load may go right out the window (literally) when the a/p get's too excited that it sees a red line and loads the airplane up overzealously as it tends to do. I'd rather not take that gamble with a airplane with potential structural integrity issues.

And yes, IMHO a human will fly the aircraft more gently in the case of an ERJ in an emergency descent in IAH Hold. That being said...and like I said....I would probably use the A/P except in that one situation.

 

[LegacyDriver]

Don't set MMO/VMO. Set something reasonably below it. It's not *that* rough... 240 or 300 depending...

 

[pilot1704]

I did do it with A/P

I think only way to do it is with autopilot!

Done that and it worked well! We had smoke in the cockpit, so we were unable to see aircrafts attitude , speed, etc.... We got masks on, pulled paxs masks out. We cranked altitude alerter to zero, then went up 10 clicks, worked for that location up to 10000ft. With autopilot on,command nose down, in our ac hold wheel 10 seconds and should give 10degrees nose down I also pressed heading putton and turned little bit to the left away from airway. We pulled power idle, speedbrakes out, notified controller, finished rest of the memory items, at that point we started to see something, we were through 17000ft. And biggest hurry was behind us.

If we would have disconnect autopilot I dont know what would have happend. Maybe unusual attitude, structural damage, stall, CFIT... that is scary tought.

So I stick with autopilot!

 

[Spinplate]

I think only way to do it is with autopilot!

Done that and it worked well! We had smoke in the cockpit, so we were unable to see aircrafts attitude , speed, etc.... We got masks on, pulled paxs masks out. We cranked altitude alerter to zero, then went up 10 clicks, worked for that location up to 10000ft. With autopilot on,command nose down, in our ac hold wheel 10 seconds and should give 10degrees nose down I also pressed heading putton and turned little bit to the left away from airway. We pulled power idle, speedbrakes out, notified controller, finished rest of the memory items, at that point we started to see something, we were through 17000ft. And biggest hurry was behind us.

If we would have disconnect autopilot I dont know what would have happend. Maybe unusual attitude, structural damage, stall, CFIT... that is scary tought.

So I stick with autopilot!

In that situation yes of course, you would NEED the A/P, it is completely situational as when you should or shouldnt use the A/P in an emergency descent.

 

[pilot1704]

You got that right it depens from situation!

Personally I think that for years all the schools and training I attend have told us to disconnect A/P and dive!

Only about 2 years ago I was tought in training to use A/P.

It still seems that the habit is to disconnect and get distracted with all the stress and workload!

My best experience is that once we had this situation and we dropped masks for pax and minute later Pax came to cockpit and was asking me whats going on! Needless to say what was my answer!

crap down and shut up and mask on!


Safe flying!