Inappropriate comments about RJ crash?

[Rook]

That few operators teach pilots the differences is no secret; they don't. That's because we spend hours tooling around in simulators "practicing" canned approaches to stalls that apply to Cessnas, not high performance swept-wing aircraft and virtually no time even demonstrating what happens at very high altitudes. Pilots need to know what to expect at lower altitudes AND at extreme altitudes, particularly the latter. Stall recovery is NOT the same when you have no excess power as it is when you have lots of excess power.

At low altitudes the objective is to protect against altitude loss. At high altitude it is the exact opposite; give up altitude and get the wing flying again.

The idea of "practicing stalls" with a certain pitch attitude, a particular bank angle and the concept that losing 100 ft of altitude is a check ride "bust" is pure nonsense and a waste of time. Any "stall" that occurs in an airliner is going to be inadvertent and a surprise to the flight crew. Pilots don't stall airliners intentionally no matter how "cowboy" they might be. Training needs to be realistic; not an excercise in checking off squares to please some FAA inspector who often has minimum knowledge, if any, about the particular airplane. I couldn't agree more.

I could rant forever about that but I've already said too much. So, I'll end this by saying: the training is inadequate. That's not a PCL problem, it's an industry wide problem, and by that I do NOT mean "regional" airlines only. Adequacy of training is an exception; it ought to be the rule.

Good post

Rook

 

[surplus1]

This comes from the flight standards manual for a CRJ operator, FAA approved. It also describes use of VS and IAS/DES/CLB. Any of the three, PTCH, IAS and VS can be used safely if the limitations of the aircraft, flight profiles and flight (dispatch) release is followed.

Rez, I do not doubt at all that you got it from the source you indicate. It is not you that I doubt. I doubt the people that wrote it, and only that one sentence buried in the middle.

I also don't doubt at all that "the FAA approved it." If I had a dime for every bit of nonsense that the "FAA approves" I'd be a millionaire.

As you go through your career I would recommend that you take the things that others "approve" with a grain of salt, especially the FAA. Whenever something doesn't "look right", question it until you're satisfied that it is. If you discover that it is wrong, take the proper channels within your Company to get it reviewed and changed. Expect resistance. Human nature resents change and we pilots are at the top of the list among personalities that do not like to admit error. It is never easy to get a manual changed, but it does happen.

Remember, this isn't "general aviation". There are lots of very fine people employed by the FAA and they mean well. However, there are more fine people employed by the airlines and they mean well too. The fact is that employment by the FAA does NOT make a pilot more qualified than other pilots who are not employed by the FAA. In other words, they don't have all the answers; they just think they do. In most cases working airline pilots have far more practical experience and knowledge than the people assigned to supervise them.

POI positions at the small airlines are not the most desirable positions in the FAA and they don't always attract the best people. Sometimes we even wind up with a POI of a jet fleet who has never flown a jet until AFTER he got the POI job or whose experience is exclusively limited to military operations (which are quite different). I'm not suggesting that you should disregard the FAA; that's neither beneficial or smart. I just think that you should not take their stamp of approval as infallible; it isn't.

As a professional airman keep your mind open and explore everything that you can, especially those things that could kill you. From my perspective, the only thing challenging about this job is the fact that we can NEVER learn everything there is to know. There is always something, no matter how small, on every flight, that we haven't experienced before. That will be the case until the day you set the parking brake for the last time. The learning curve is continuous.

When you don't see it that way, it means you have become complacent. Don't let that happen. The tough flights usually aren't the ones that kill us, it's the routine flights that make us take things for granted.

As far as the AOA/ pitch attitude, I wasn't seeing things the way I should've. I climbed inside my head and into the books and I'm on the right path. To those that contributed positively...thanks.

Hey, part of our job is to share our experiences with other airmen. That's not some altruistic metaphor, it's a responsibility. When there is disagreement it never makes me right and you wrong. It just makes us both dig a little deeper until we uncover the reason for our differences and find the right answer.

In this process of exchange, experience levels are not important. It is possible to learn what to do and it is also possible to learn what NOT to do. Either way, we both learn from each other and we both benefit because of it.

I think it takes a real professional to say what you said in that last pragraph and my hat's off to you. If anything that I may have said was a positive contribution I'm very pleased. If it wasn't, I'm still happy that the discussion motivated you to dig deeper and find your own solutions to the problems.

May you always have tailwinds.

 

[FlyChicaga]

http://www.smartcockpit.com/operations/AOA.PDF

A good article on Angle-of-Attack in relation to airliners. I wish our own EMB-145 had a similar AOA indicator as found on the B737, B767-400 and B777. Anything that could increase situational awareness is a good thing.

 

[FN FAL]

http://www.smartcockpit.com/operations/AOA.PDF

A good article on Angle-of-Attack in relation to airliners. I wish our own EMB-145 had a similar AOA indicator as found on the B737, B767-400 and B777. Anything that could increase situational awareness is a good thing.

Would relevant audible warnings from the CWS help as well?

"Whoop whoop! Dude...look at that deck angle!"

"Whoop whoop! Dude...hahahaha"

"Whoop Whoop! Dude...it's losing it!"

 

[surplus1]

http://www.smartcockpit.com/operations/AOA.PDF

A good article on Angle-of-Attack in relation to airliners. I wish our own EMB-145 had a similar AOA indicator as found on the B737, B767-400 and B777. Anything that could increase situational awareness is a good thing.

It is a good article. Thanks for posting it.

However, even with an AOA display, as confirmed by the airticle, there is no substitute for paying attention to where you are and why you're there. We would still have to do that and still have to learn the ill effects of not doing it.

 

[pianoman]

http://www.smartcockpit.com/operations/AOA.PDF

A good article on Angle-of-Attack in relation to airliners. I wish our own EMB-145 had a similar AOA indicator as found on the B737, B767-400 and B777. Anything that could increase situational awareness is a good thing.

Maybe, but you have to admit the low-speed awareness tape does a pretty good job of letting you know AOA when it counts. It's a real good crosscheck to make sure you're flying around the right approach speed.

 

[Rez O. Lewshun]

Many of you are assuming that fixation on AOA, or PTCH mode, or IAS mode is what is being advocated.

Of course you wouldn't fixate on one instrument or mode why everything else fell apart.....so why assume others would too..?

 

[TonyC]

I sat in the waiting area at the State Department of Safety Office to renew my Driver License a few days ago. Next to me sat a young lad there to get his first Tennessee Driver License. I couldn't help but notice the Pinnacle simulator flight plan he kept looking at and making notes on. He also referred frequently to some sort of statement from a finance company, which I surmised from the company name, specialized in financing aviation dreams. If I had been interested, I could have recorded his name, address, SSAN, and a few other items, but I was really trying to NOT look at it. I waited until he had the PINNACLE page on top, and then opened a conversation with, "Do you work for Pinnacle?"

He was stunned that anyone in Memphis would have heard the name, as he said, "You've heard about Pinnacle?!?!" I responded that I did, and asked him what he "did" for them. "I'm a pilot," he answered. We exchanged a few other pleasantries regarding his move to Memphis, commuting, his new wife, etc., and I let him know, after he asked, that I also was a pilot with a large local employer.

So, you might ask, what does this nice little conversation have to do with this thread?


Well, I just had to ask him, once I felt I had established a comfortable rapport, what "they" were telling pilots about PCL 3701. "What was that?" he answered.

After explaining a bit about their plane that had gone to FL410, flamed out both engines, and crashed in Missouri, he could only say that, "They don't tell us much about those things. What was that about?"

I was astounded by what little he appeared or claimed to know about the accident, and how little it appeared to have impacted the training he had just received.


Ladies and Gentlemen, it would be a tragedy far greater than has already transpired were the lessons of the accident not applied to improve training of today's pilots to prevent the reoccurrance of such accidents in the future.


Some of the posts in this thread are evidence that something radical needs to be done to ensure that men and women at the controls of passenger-carrying airplanes have a soild foundation in aerodynamics. Clearly, the two men who died in their vain attempt to make Jefferson City that fateful night are not the only ones lacking in a few important areas of knowledge.


I hope somebody lights a fire in the training department. A huge disservice is being done.




.

 

[Yank McCobb]

I agree 100% without comment.

 

[Rook]

Hi Tony,

First off I have to tell you thanks for extending the olive branch to one of what I'm assuming was one of our green new-hires. Secondly I have to tell you that no they do not cover high altitude aerodynamics here. I'm not sure what FedEx does in this regard. Knowing that you have an Air Force background, it's easy to assume that you and the rest of the military guys flying for the airliners know aero like the back of your hand. Aside from my basic and advanced aero class in college and a flight physics course, aerodynamics was never covered that broad in my 121 employment. We did touch on aero at my old 135 outfit and our instructor was very knowledgeable.

How do we remedy this problem? I thought that when we hired furloughed pilots with tons of CRJ experience this would prevent something like this from happening. The instructor that signed me off for my type ride (furloughed DAL and former ASA and a great guy by the way) informed my sim partner and myself to always consult the charts, don't believe the FMS for perf info all the time, and if something doesn't look right, then chances are that you shouldn't be doing it. He also seemed prophetic in telling us that he was part of the company's 'GO' team, and that whenever an airline implements a go team, statistically speaking that company has an accident. Seven months later 3701 went down in Jefferson City. Jet flying isn't anything new and this company could've went more out of its way to make aware the dangers of high altitude flight and being way behind the power curve on a hot day.

Now I'm not a check-airman, but I was flying that night and we were struggling to get into the high twenties. Choppy at all altitudes and my F/O (new) thought we could've went as high as 350 cuz the FMS didn't say that we couldn't. Of course watching the IAS decay past 260, I told him that we were going to level off and deal with the rough ride. Almost led to an argument but the 'ol RJ just didn't have enough to give that night.

You're right Tony, as professionals we need to learn from this accident to make sure that what we are lacking in this knowledge is covered in future training situations. I don't think that programming the sim to deal with a dual flameout and running the QRH to get a re-light is always the answer. QRH complete no re-light. Now what? By going back to basic concepts of pointing to the nearest field once something goes wrong and coordinating with all your available resources, something like this doesn't have to happen in the future.

I'm not monday morning quarterbacking by any means. I lost to co-workers who were well-liked in DTW. By going back to what you said earlier, we need a better knowledge of these things. I hope that this never happens to anyone ever again.