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Flight director set up on T/O

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svcta

"Kids these days"-AAflyer
Joined
Nov 14, 2004
Posts
1,767
Hey gang,
I have a question for those of you with Pro Line 4 EFIS. The subject of how to properly set up the flight director for take off has been swirling around my department lately and I'd like to get a better handle on it myself. Situation:

With Pro Line 21 there was a TO/TO mode activated by clicking the TOGA buttons. My understanding with that system was that TO/TO was simply a function of the flight director that propagated a Roll and Pitch mode along with aligning the FMS with the end of the runway that it was told to depart from. We took off in this mode and kept it there until 400 feet, at which point we would switch to Heading and some other mode of vertical guidance, typically Speed Mode (or FLC). This gave excellent guidance in every situation that I saw; V1 cuts, or normal t/o. It was trained that way by the factory.

Now I'm on an a/c with Pro Line 4 and there is no Take Off mode for the flight director. I've always been in the habit of using Roll and Pitch mode for T/O and have continued to do so. Reasons:

It sure is nice when you're given a heading to fly and you can preset it. "400 feet": "Heading mode, please" and away we go, no questions asked.

Heading mode won't compensate for wind drift any better than roll mode, and it will in fact command roll input to whatever degree it feels is appropriate to a distressed, slow airplane to maintain heading. This alone I view as a pitfall of heading mode.

Since the whole profile that I use involves switching to heading mode @ 400 feet anyway, I believe that I'd rather have wings level to that point (close to the ground and trying to build energy) than I'd like to maintain a flawless heading, regardless of the bank angle that is required to do so.

The question before the gallery is this: according to some, there is no protection with Roll mode to ensure that the a/c remains in the clearway of the take off runway. With this I agree. However, I think that it's better to wait a 10 or 20 seconds (if that) and get some speed and altitude behind us before we do much banking for headings with no degree of protection with respect to how far over we go.

In the airplanes that I flew with Pro Line 21 we would use half bank during single engine stuff.

In any event, what are the thoughts on this?
 
On the HS-125 with Proline 21 we teach HDG and PITCH for takeoff, with the PITCH rolled up to 12 degrees. (I don't think 12 is enough though).

My .02.........
 
Flight Safety taught in the Beechjet with Pro-line 4 to set runway heading and then to press the pitch sync button as you rotated to 8-10 degrees. We used to set the heading in the SDU to the assigned departure
heading as a reminder. After 8 years in the Beechjet it took a while to break this habbit.

In the Hawker and the Premier with Pro-line 21 they taught us to set runway heading (a few said pitch) and pre scroll the V bars to 10 degrees in the Premier and 12 degrees in the Hawker.
 
Hey gang,
I have a question for those of you with Pro Line 4 EFIS. The subject of how to properly set up the flight director for take off has been swirling around my department lately and I'd like to get a better handle on it myself. Situation:

With Pro Line 21 there was a TO/TO mode activated by clicking the TOGA buttons. My understanding with that system was that TO/TO was simply a function of the flight director that propagated a Roll and Pitch mode along with aligning the FMS with the end of the runway that it was told to depart from. We took off in this mode and kept it there until 400 feet, at which point we would switch to Heading and some other mode of vertical guidance, typically Speed Mode (or FLC). This gave excellent guidance in every situation that I saw; V1 cuts, or normal t/o. It was trained that way by the factory.

Now I'm on an a/c with Pro Line 4 and there is no Take Off mode for the flight director. I've always been in the habit of using Roll and Pitch mode for T/O and have continued to do so. Reasons:

It sure is nice when you're given a heading to fly and you can preset it. "400 feet": "Heading mode, please" and away we go, no questions asked.

Heading mode won't compensate for wind drift any better than roll mode, and it will in fact command roll input to whatever degree it feels is appropriate to a distressed, slow airplane to maintain heading. This alone I view as a pitfall of heading mode.

Since the whole profile that I use involves switching to heading mode @ 400 feet anyway, I believe that I'd rather have wings level to that point (close to the ground and trying to build energy) than I'd like to maintain a flawless heading, regardless of the bank angle that is required to do so.

The question before the gallery is this: according to some, there is no protection with Roll mode to ensure that the a/c remains in the clearway of the take off runway. With this I agree. However, I think that it's better to wait a 10 or 20 seconds (if that) and get some speed and altitude behind us before we do much banking for headings with no degree of protection with respect to how far over we go.

In the airplanes that I flew with Pro Line 21 we would use half bank during single engine stuff.

In any event, what are the thoughts on this?


As a former TCE with one of the two major training companies I can say that in my program we did not teach the method you mention.

We advised our clients to use a flight director command pitch (note that this is not the same as a TOGA FD pitch) as recommended by the OEM until such time as the pre-determined V2 speed FOR THAT SPECIFIC T/O was reached (hopefully at 35' AGL and the gear in transition) at which point selecting FLC mode for vertical guidance ensured maximum aircraft performance. Additionally, we recommended lateral guidance as provided by the heading mode as opposed to the "wings level mode", as simply being "wings level" in low vis (800, 1000, 1200 RVR etc.) with asymmetrical thrust and at the FAA required maximum allowable crosswinds used in FAR part 142 simulator training often resulted in aircraft heading deviations of 20+ deg. from that of the takeoff runway heading. This is insidious, as numerous slight (5-10 deg) heading deviations often go unnoticed but over the course of just a few minutes an aircraft can be considerably off course and outside the FAR part 77 provided safety area(s) (not to mention any TERPS obstacles) all the while the FD is providing a visual cue of a wings level condition.

For these reasons, I recommend that you use the FD heading mode.
 
In the time since I flew the CRJ I've been typed in two other jets. Neither of which included any real guidance on how to set the thing [flight director] up. Bombardier trained us to use TO/TO on the Pro Line 21 as installed in the CRJ and as far as I know every operator uses this mode for takeoff. It offers nothing more than Roll mode guidance and Pitch(which I'm less concerned with). Our company profile, though, was to select heading mode or nav mode at 400' depending on which type of departure we were on. In the case of single-engine, though, when either of these modes were selected the use of 1/2 Bank was mandated in order to prevent the aircraft from being over banked while in such a state of being behind the curve.

More to the point: In the case that you use for the crosswind above, CoolHandLuke, Heading mode will not offer any protection to wind drift, either. Factoring out the affects of assymetrical thrust (which should be minor), as long as the wings are kept near level, there should be no greater problem associated with drift as there would be in Heading mode.

My opinion is that a profile like the one that I cited above is about the best of both worlds. And I'm once again in an airplane that is under-winged (as was the CRJ-200). My feeling is that it may be best to avoid situations of higher angles of bank when you're within 400' of the ground and behind the drag curve the way that we are before we can begin to clean the wing (at 400' and V2 +10).
 
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In the CRJ-700 (with Proline 4), we just hit the TOGA's before T/O. The flight director is enhanced and sets the appropriate pitch and aligns with the selected heading. In the CRJ-200 (also Proline 4), we hit the TOGA's, but now must use the V/S button to set the command bars at +10 degrees pitch up for takeoff due to a new airworthiness directive.
 
I guess that was Pro Line 4 on the CRJ, just with a completely different presentation than ours on the G-200. Nevertheless......
 
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I set the FD to the default 9 degrees with the TO/GA, and then bug runway heading and engage heading mode (unless it' a nav departure) on the Lear 60 PL21.
 
In the 50EX we generally depart in HDG - PIT mode, with the pitch set at about 15 degrees (or something close to what UltraNav tells us). Sometimes for more complicated DP's with multiple altitude gates leading to a level off altitude we'll arm NAV and VNAV (shows under HDG - PIT as armed in white) and then it will automatically capture through 400'. Initial level-off altitude set in the ASEL.
 
In the DA2000, we also use HDG/PIT with 11 degrees pitch up.

Some guys I fly with like to Takeoff with raw data, and hand fly until cleared on course. I do this on occasion; helps keep your scan sharp.
 

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