Obviously if the autopilot controls were initially set wrong then that would account for the aircraft not being aware of it's actual height. But again, the Flight crew would have been in voice contact with the airport tower and they would have been told that they were approaching too low from the expected glide path. I cannot comment upon the culture of Korean airline pilots as I know nothing about it.
I only fly BA or AA, I would never fly on an Asian airline.
Waiting for Godot & salvation :-)
Why do doctors have to practice?
You'd think they'd have got it right by now
..... I'm told the main issue to overcome in such instances is pilot panic, not because of imminent disaster but because one is well out of comfort zone. The tendency is to create a pressure to do something - anything - and that is not the way to work the situation. Cheers, Mike.
Something like that happened when JFK Jr. crashed. He was not experienced enough
Seems Korean pilots are 'gods' when they are flying and NO ONE tells them when they are wrong, they said it's a 'culture thing' and may take a LONG time to change.
This is an unfair and inaccurate statement. There is a chain of command on the flight deck. There is one PIC and while he may be challenged he has the final say. No one likes/feels comfortable with challenging the pilot but a good pilot would encourage such action assuming there is sufficient time for the current situation.
The pilots of WWII that flew multi engine aircraft were much better qualified then today's modern simulator pilots. They felt the aircraft and knew what it was doing and why. Turn off the auto pilot in a landing phase during bad weather and see what happens. There is too much dependence on avionics.
IIRC the Korean incident at SFO was because the pilots disengaged the auto-throttles and didn't realize it until it was too late. Totally "controlled fight into terrain" accident.
The real issue with flying everything with auto-pilot all the time is you start assuming it is working and forget it can fail and then don't know what to do. Personally I think the jet jocks should be forced to do a full by hand landing every so often to stay current. Piloting skills need to be used to stay proficient.
IIRC the Korean incident at SFO was because the pilots disengaged the auto-throttles and didn't realize it until it was too late.
Agreed. The pilot flying thought he was in an autothrottle mode in which "George" would manage the throttles to give him what he needed. Modern big-iron pilots fly in autothrottle very nearly all the time, and he did not understand that the particular mode sequence by which he got down from a "high and hot" condition a few miles out had left him not only with the autothrottle disengaged, but with the throttles set essentially at flight idle. So the bird bled energy steadily, ending up a little low and a lot slow.
Although there are real incidents and accidents in which mode confusion and excess automation dependence are contributing factors, resetting the clock to "always-on" pilots acting like their WWII forebears is not the answer. Modern heavy iron commercial aviation in the developed world has an amazingly low accident rate compared to all prior aviation eras, and changes must respect the need to make an overall improvement, not just to avoid one particularized failure syndrome.
I don't personally much like either high automation, nor high proceduralization, but the available evidence is that they have in fact helped accident rates a lot, in both commercial and military aviation. For really blood-curdling numbers, look up US military accident rates in the late 1950s. We had a lot more aircraft flying back then, and they crashed at a massively higher rate per flight hour, so the losses per year were just staggering. You can track some types that stayed in service and see that without major accident reduction by hardware improvement they got big reductions in rate. Strict procedures severely enforced appear to be a big part of the reason.
When I went to Vancouver last Autumn I flew each way on a BA A380 Airbus and I thought that both landings were a "liittle" heavy, so maybe it was manually controlled. But weren't autopilots designed to automatically land a plane in thick fog, i.e. as soon as the tower confirms that you are on the correct glidepath you punch in the autopilot, and the pilot and co-pilot on the flight deck then oversee the landing with manual over-ride if necessary.
Generally not. Autopilots were originally for maintaining height/heading/etc in level flight during transit. The landing issue is a subtle one and is related to 'ground effect' under about 50 feet. The A380 has a huge wing area with amazing curvature when leading and trailing edge flaps are fully employed. This traps a pocket of air under the wing which serves the nice purpose of lowering stall/landing speed. However these planes are usually landed on long, wide and black runways. On a hot day the convection from that ground area is quite large and so now you want to land with a hot/high pressure bubble under the wings. But this varies with crosswinds particularly. A friend of mine who is a current A380 chief pilot for Qantas tells me it's a 'feel thing' and he can usually tell if there will be trouble when the plane passes 100 feet. Sometimes if he thinks he's done a crap landing he watches the following traffic come down and they are all having trouble. At an airshow I saw a B1-B Lancer ( US cold war long range bomber ) landing, and having large wings on a hot summer day it just didn't want to come down to the tarmac. It floated on and on and on ...... when lift is finally lost it goes really quick. In fact one reason I was taught to do flapless landings was for such scenarios : one comes in on a longer and flatter approach with a higher landing/stall speed. Anyway the problem for an autopilot system, or a human, is to predict and account for inconsistencies ( due to situation ) in the airfoil's transition from lift to non-lift. It's a highly non-linear matter - small control inputs may have unpredictable/odd effects including none - so some landings just can't be achieved without a bump or three by whatever method of control ( in detail it's the turbulence as the laminar flow on the top of the wing detaches ). Knowing this to be true then the landing gear is well over designed.
Cheers, Mike.
I have made this letter longer than usual because I lack the time to make it shorter ...
... and my other CPU is a Ryzen 5950X :-) Blaise Pascal
My initial reaction to this was "???" but it turned out you did mean the one thing that came to mind. No.
Annie wrote:
A "very small" tear in the retina in a non-imaging portion.
Was that the bit you didn't want to quote, David? If it was, I'll need to add you to my list of I'm-so-sorry-to-hear-that's also.
No, I meant three paragraphs up from that, as Gary correctly speculated a few posts later.
This post is likely to be edited as I catch up with more of the thread.
[edit]
Robl wrote:
There is a chain of command on the flight deck. There is one PIC and while he may be challenged he has the final say. No one likes/feels comfortable with challenging the pilot but a good pilot would encourage such action assuming there is sufficient time for the current situation.
Relating this to something I know, at the train museum it's in our rulebook that if the operator of a train screws up in any way, any other rules-qualified person present, even if not on duty, is required to take corrective action. Usually, this just means saying something, but we can pull the emergency brake or anything else if necessary.
Gary wrote:
The real issue with flying everything with auto-pilot all the time is you start assuming it is working and forget it can fail and then don't know what to do. Personally I think the jet jocks should be forced to do a full by hand landing every so often to stay current. Piloting skills need to be used to stay proficient.
Same with running trains, especially with the wide variety of equipment we have. In my own case, I feel like I've become too dependent on steam and diesel engineers to do all the braking for me while I'm on tailhose. And there is nothing automatic to stop the trains for us if we fail to. That kind of thing is just in the process of being installed on the national rail network.
David
Miserable old git
Patiently waiting for the asteroid with my name on it.
Yes, landing is such a fun time. Especially if you are on the back side of the power curve. You spend a lot of time in training learning that part of flight which only lasts for a short while. Such fun as if you are going to be short, lower the nose to get more lift.
As to the jocks, yes they should do a by hand to full stop job every so often as part of staying current. (I suppose on a simulator is okay because you might not want to on a revenue flight) Equipment can fail and you practice emergency procedures all the time. But when all you do are automated cat II approaches day in and day out, you can lose a feel for, er finesse, for what should be happening and what the system should be doing.
Of course there are those times mother nature throws you enough gusting crosswind that a auto-pilot isn't going to be able to get your bird on the ground, well, on the runway, you will be on the ground. Lots of fun to see jumbos in slips and skids. (You can usually tell which pilots fly light aircraft for fun, better landings)
Ground effect on a hot day can be a killer. Light airplanes don't have spoilers and speed brakes, which can get you on the ground with enough time to stop before that fence at the end of the runway. Of course the passengers will bitch about the hard landing, but if they only knew. And ground effect does kill on takeoff too. Get the plane a few feet up but unable to climb any higher. Nasty nasty.
I think every commercial pilot should spend some time in a sailplane. Basic pilot skills and no excuses. Teaches you things that nothing else will. Stuff that may save your butt one day.
@David, I'm fixed. Don't want to have to do it again, but less that getting the teeth cleaned.
I suppose I should have worshipped a little further away really. I used to drive past Kyalami in my teeny tiny cutest mini ever quite regularly once I started work. But before that, my sister and I were invited to be pit girls there (I want to say with the Brabham team although I couldn't swear to it because when I say Brabham - McLaren leaps into my head, and when I say McLaren it leaps out in reverse and leaves a big hole in my memory) but fortunately, I broke my ankle the Friday before the Grand Prix. Yes :) it was good timing. I fell off my stool in the biology lab. My sister was really annoyed, so went on her own and came back with a boyfriend who drove an e-type Jag :)
Annie, I expect the part David didn't want to quote was about having something shoved in between the eyeball and the eye socket.
This bit?
Quote:
it isn't every day something gets shoved in between the eyeball and the eye socket and has liquid nitrogen pumped in.
Oh yes! :) I see what he means.
I meant three paragraphs up from that, as Gary correctly speculated a few posts later.
Yes! I found it for you :) for which you are most, most welcome, David
Eyeballs are actually rather lose in the eye sockets so there is room.
I've heard that's why we close our eyes when we sleep - just in case we sneeze and shoot them out of their sockets at about 60mph. Or is it kilometres...?
Is it even 60?
Would an improvised congratulatory dance ceremony include a grass skirt, banging a drum, a spear, and a Lei, and a conga round round the local Cul de Sac??
Whatever you want to do for it is fiiiiiiiiiiiiine, Chris. I'm sure Randy won't mind :)
Good evening all :-)
*slow blink* You sparked some controversy I see, Mr Ffing ;)
I only fly BA or AA, I would never fly on an Asian airline.
Do you, Chris? My brother-in-law always has to get a new wheelchair after travelling British Airways. They either lose it, crush it so it can't be opened up, or bend it so it can't be folded down. In fact, the only time one survived the flight was when they left it behind at Heathrow. I've flown Thai Airways. They were excellent :) We took off and flew and landed and everything. Most satisfactory! I remember thinking that we must have accidentally strayed into at least business class but we hadn't.
I've travelled on so many flavours of them I don't think I can be bothered to be bothered one way or another. I fully expect my demise to be entirely my own fault ...one day... anyway... so whatever plane I get on - I reckon everyone would be completely safe at least until I got off.
*continue absorbing flying knowledge*
I don't think it would be a good idea to rely on any autopilot stuff working if I was near it. Not at all. That could be the one blip in my expectations above. And I thought landing and taking off was the fun bit of moving commercial aircraft about the place. Obviously that bit where you get to talk into something at people too - but why would you take out the fun bit?
I was thinking of Fiona, the preemie hippo at the Cincinnati zoo.
Awwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww :) I'd even risk offending her mum to give her a pat :)
LATE THOUGHT: If you think about it... just the fact that you're sitting in a chair careering somewhere above the ground with nothing beneath you and it apart from a few other bits with rivets and whatnot is technically hair raising enough to put anyone off flying at all. Yet we still do.
And now I'm going to protect my eyes from hitting the wall and waking me up if I get to sleep, people. Night night :)
Please wait here. Further instructions could pile up at any time. Thank you.
I used to drive past Kyalami in my teeny tiny cutest mini ever quite regularly once I started work. But before that, my sister and I were invited to be pit girls there (I want to say with the Brabham team although I couldn't swear to it because when I say Brabham - McLaren leaps into my head, and when I say McLaren it leaps out in reverse and leaves a big hole in my memory) but fortunately, I broke my ankle the Friday before the Grand Prix. Yes :) it was good timing. I fell off my stool in the biology lab. My sister was really annoyed, so went on her own and came back with a boyfriend who drove an e-type Jag :)
Well, one of Jack Brabham's grandsons drives these 'stadium trucks' :
which are designed to behave in a silly clownish fashion. Quite amusing to watch. However the guy who owns and runs the show was done by the cops for doing donuts in one down the main street of Darwin. Our racing authorities have a strict viewpoint on civil penalties in regards to eligibility for on-track racing licences and so have banned him. He's a nice chap and was quite apologetic though.
IMHO the main problem with 'autopilot' is the name. It can easily misstate the true capability ie. it is definitely not everything that a human pilot can do, only automatically. This is to be distinguished from 'fly by wire' methods that are an absolute requirement for some planes. The B2 for instance. These gadgets are so unstable that no human could follow with proper control inputs for very long and then only on simple paths.
I'm not aware of any particular issue with Asian airlines generally. Malaysian Airlines has had a run of terrible but unrelated incidents. I've flown several times in/out/around Vietnam with their national airline and they did a great job.
Cheers, Mike.
I have made this letter longer than usual because I lack the time to make it shorter ...
... and my other CPU is a Ryzen 5950X :-) Blaise Pascal
Obviously if the autopilot
Obviously if the autopilot controls were initially set wrong then that would account for the aircraft not being aware of it's actual height. But again, the Flight crew would have been in voice contact with the airport tower and they would have been told that they were approaching too low from the expected glide path. I cannot comment upon the culture of Korean airline pilots as I know nothing about it.
I only fly BA or AA, I would never fly on an Asian airline.
Waiting for Godot & salvation :-)
Why do doctors have to practice?
You'd think they'd have got it right by now
Mike Hewson wrote: ..... I'm
Something like that happened when JFK Jr. crashed. He was not experienced enough
and went in to a Death Spiral or something .....
Bill
.
mikey wrote: Seems Korean
This is an unfair and inaccurate statement. There is a chain of command on the flight deck. There is one PIC and while he may be challenged he has the final say. No one likes/feels comfortable with challenging the pilot but a good pilot would encourage such action assuming there is sufficient time for the current situation.
The pilots of WWII that flew multi engine aircraft were much better qualified then today's modern simulator pilots. They felt the aircraft and knew what it was doing and why. Turn off the auto pilot in a landing phase during bad weather and see what happens. There is too much dependence on avionics.
IIRC the Korean incident at
IIRC the Korean incident at SFO was because the pilots disengaged the auto-throttles and didn't realize it until it was too late. Totally "controlled fight into terrain" accident.
The real issue with flying everything with auto-pilot all the time is you start assuming it is working and forget it can fail and then don't know what to do. Personally I think the jet jocks should be forced to do a full by hand landing every so often to stay current. Piloting skills need to be used to stay proficient.
Gary Charpentier wrote:IIRC
Agreed. The pilot flying thought he was in an autothrottle mode in which "George" would manage the throttles to give him what he needed. Modern big-iron pilots fly in autothrottle very nearly all the time, and he did not understand that the particular mode sequence by which he got down from a "high and hot" condition a few miles out had left him not only with the autothrottle disengaged, but with the throttles set essentially at flight idle. So the bird bled energy steadily, ending up a little low and a lot slow.
Although there are real incidents and accidents in which mode confusion and excess automation dependence are contributing factors, resetting the clock to "always-on" pilots acting like their WWII forebears is not the answer. Modern heavy iron commercial aviation in the developed world has an amazingly low accident rate compared to all prior aviation eras, and changes must respect the need to make an overall improvement, not just to avoid one particularized failure syndrome.
I don't personally much like either high automation, nor high proceduralization, but the available evidence is that they have in fact helped accident rates a lot, in both commercial and military aviation. For really blood-curdling numbers, look up US military accident rates in the late 1950s. We had a lot more aircraft flying back then, and they crashed at a massively higher rate per flight hour, so the losses per year were just staggering. You can track some types that stayed in service and see that without major accident reduction by hardware improvement they got big reductions in rate. Strict procedures severely enforced appear to be a big part of the reason.
Chris S_2 wrote:When I went
Generally not. Autopilots were originally for maintaining height/heading/etc in level flight during transit. The landing issue is a subtle one and is related to 'ground effect' under about 50 feet. The A380 has a huge wing area with amazing curvature when leading and trailing edge flaps are fully employed. This traps a pocket of air under the wing which serves the nice purpose of lowering stall/landing speed. However these planes are usually landed on long, wide and black runways. On a hot day the convection from that ground area is quite large and so now you want to land with a hot/high pressure bubble under the wings. But this varies with crosswinds particularly. A friend of mine who is a current A380 chief pilot for Qantas tells me it's a 'feel thing' and he can usually tell if there will be trouble when the plane passes 100 feet. Sometimes if he thinks he's done a crap landing he watches the following traffic come down and they are all having trouble. At an airshow I saw a B1-B Lancer ( US cold war long range bomber ) landing, and having large wings on a hot summer day it just didn't want to come down to the tarmac. It floated on and on and on ...... when lift is finally lost it goes really quick. In fact one reason I was taught to do flapless landings was for such scenarios : one comes in on a longer and flatter approach with a higher landing/stall speed. Anyway the problem for an autopilot system, or a human, is to predict and account for inconsistencies ( due to situation ) in the airfoil's transition from lift to non-lift. It's a highly non-linear matter - small control inputs may have unpredictable/odd effects including none - so some landings just can't be achieved without a bump or three by whatever method of control ( in detail it's the turbulence as the laminar flow on the top of the wing detaches ). Knowing this to be true then the landing gear is well over designed.
Cheers, Mike.
I have made this letter longer than usual because I lack the time to make it shorter ...
... and my other CPU is a Ryzen 5950X :-) Blaise Pascal
mikey wrote:David S wrote:Up
My initial reaction to this was "???" but it turned out you did mean the one thing that came to mind. No.
No, I meant three paragraphs up from that, as Gary correctly speculated a few posts later.
This post is likely to be edited as I catch up with more of the thread.
[edit]
Relating this to something I know, at the train museum it's in our rulebook that if the operator of a train screws up in any way, any other rules-qualified person present, even if not on duty, is required to take corrective action. Usually, this just means saying something, but we can pull the emergency brake or anything else if necessary.
Same with running trains, especially with the wide variety of equipment we have. In my own case, I feel like I've become too dependent on steam and diesel engineers to do all the braking for me while I'm on tailhose. And there is nothing automatic to stop the trains for us if we fail to. That kind of thing is just in the process of being installed on the national rail network.
David
Miserable old git
Patiently waiting for the asteroid with my name on it.
Yes, landing is such a fun
Yes, landing is such a fun time. Especially if you are on the back side of the power curve. You spend a lot of time in training learning that part of flight which only lasts for a short while. Such fun as if you are going to be short, lower the nose to get more lift.
As to the jocks, yes they should do a by hand to full stop job every so often as part of staying current. (I suppose on a simulator is okay because you might not want to on a revenue flight) Equipment can fail and you practice emergency procedures all the time. But when all you do are automated cat II approaches day in and day out, you can lose a feel for, er finesse, for what should be happening and what the system should be doing.
Of course there are those times mother nature throws you enough gusting crosswind that a auto-pilot isn't going to be able to get your bird on the ground, well, on the runway, you will be on the ground. Lots of fun to see jumbos in slips and skids. (You can usually tell which pilots fly light aircraft for fun, better landings)
Ground effect on a hot day can be a killer. Light airplanes don't have spoilers and speed brakes, which can get you on the ground with enough time to stop before that fence at the end of the runway. Of course the passengers will bitch about the hard landing, but if they only knew. And ground effect does kill on takeoff too. Get the plane a few feet up but unable to climb any higher. Nasty nasty.
I think every commercial pilot should spend some time in a sailplane. Basic pilot skills and no excuses. Teaches you things that nothing else will. Stuff that may save your butt one day.
@David, I'm fixed. Don't want to have to do it again, but less that getting the teeth cleaned.
But you're obviously too
*SNORT* :)))
*and now... dab at winterknight's feet*
I suppose I should have worshipped a little further away really. I used to drive past Kyalami in my teeny tiny cutest mini ever quite regularly once I started work. But before that, my sister and I were invited to be pit girls there (I want to say with the Brabham team although I couldn't swear to it because when I say Brabham - McLaren leaps into my head, and when I say McLaren it leaps out in reverse and leaves a big hole in my memory) but fortunately, I broke my ankle the Friday before the Grand Prix. Yes :) it was good timing. I fell off my stool in the biology lab. My sister was really annoyed, so went on her own and came back with a boyfriend who drove an e-type Jag :)
This bit?
Oh yes! :) I see what he means.
Yes! I found it for you :) for which you are most, most welcome, David
I've heard that's why we close our eyes when we sleep - just in case we sneeze and shoot them out of their sockets at about 60mph. Or is it kilometres...?
Is it even 60?
Whatever you want to do for it is fiiiiiiiiiiiiine, Chris. I'm sure Randy won't mind :)
*slow blink* You sparked some controversy I see, Mr Ffing ;)
Do you, Chris? My brother-in-law always has to get a new wheelchair after travelling British Airways. They either lose it, crush it so it can't be opened up, or bend it so it can't be folded down. In fact, the only time one survived the flight was when they left it behind at Heathrow. I've flown Thai Airways. They were excellent :) We took off and flew and landed and everything. Most satisfactory! I remember thinking that we must have accidentally strayed into at least business class but we hadn't.
I've travelled on so many flavours of them I don't think I can be bothered to be bothered one way or another. I fully expect my demise to be entirely my own fault ...one day... anyway... so whatever plane I get on - I reckon everyone would be completely safe at least until I got off.
*continue absorbing flying knowledge*
I don't think it would be a good idea to rely on any autopilot stuff working if I was near it. Not at all. That could be the one blip in my expectations above. And I thought landing and taking off was the fun bit of moving commercial aircraft about the place. Obviously that bit where you get to talk into something at people too - but why would you take out the fun bit?
Awwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww :) I'd even risk offending her mum to give her a pat :)
LATE THOUGHT: If you think about it... just the fact that you're sitting in a chair careering somewhere above the ground with nothing beneath you and it apart from a few other bits with rivets and whatnot is technically hair raising enough to put anyone off flying at all. Yet we still do.
And now I'm going to protect my eyes from hitting the wall and waking me up if I get to sleep, people. Night night :)
Please wait here. Further instructions could pile up at any time. Thank you.
anniet wrote:I used to drive
Well, one of Jack Brabham's grandsons drives these 'stadium trucks' :
which are designed to behave in a silly clownish fashion. Quite amusing to watch. However the guy who owns and runs the show was done by the cops for doing donuts in one down the main street of Darwin. Our racing authorities have a strict viewpoint on civil penalties in regards to eligibility for on-track racing licences and so have banned him. He's a nice chap and was quite apologetic though.
IMHO the main problem with 'autopilot' is the name. It can easily misstate the true capability ie. it is definitely not everything that a human pilot can do, only automatically. This is to be distinguished from 'fly by wire' methods that are an absolute requirement for some planes. The B2 for instance. These gadgets are so unstable that no human could follow with proper control inputs for very long and then only on simple paths.
I'm not aware of any particular issue with Asian airlines generally. Malaysian Airlines has had a run of terrible but unrelated incidents. I've flown several times in/out/around Vietnam with their national airline and they did a great job.
Cheers, Mike.
I have made this letter longer than usual because I lack the time to make it shorter ...
... and my other CPU is a Ryzen 5950X :-) Blaise Pascal