Co-pilots May Sim instead of Fly to Train

Kev writes:

On the one hand, you could argue that with say, the Airbus computer
overrides, even a non-pilot passenger could handle the sidestick and
throttles and never stall in the air.

The flip side is that, with Airbus, even an experienced pilot can
crash. These are the unavoidable and interlocked advantages and
disadvantages of fly-by-wire systems that have no full overrides.

On the other hand, I'm always reminded of that story in one of the
pilot mags a few years back, about the fully loaded 747 taking off from
SFO. It lost an engine right away, and the young co-pilot tried to use
the yoke instead of the rudder to straighten out. This popped up a
spoiler on one side (kills lift so the plane banks) and the plane
stopped climbing. The pilot and a jump-seater nearly had a heart
attack, and yelled at the co-pilot to get off the yoke and use rudder.
They missed a mountain by mere feet. Moral of the story? I dunno

How had the co-pilot been trained? A simulator would have behaved
just like the real thing, so that could not be the source of his
error.

--
Transpose mxsmanic and gmail to reach me by e-mail.

Mxsmanic wrote:
Kev writes:
On the one hand, you could argue that with say, the Airbus computer
overrides, even a non-pilot passenger could handle the sidestick and
throttles and never stall in the air.

The flip side is that, with Airbus, even an experienced pilot can
crash. These are the unavoidable and interlocked advantages and
disadvantages of fly-by-wire systems that have no full overrides.

An experienced pilot can crash any aircraft, so that's no argument.
The upside of the Airbus system is that the plane can automatically
avoid the most common death traps, like stalls on go-around or
microbursts.

On the other hand, I'm always reminded of that story in one of the
pilot mags a few years back, about the fully loaded 747 taking off from
SFO. It lost an engine right away, and the young co-pilot tried to use
the yoke instead of the rudder to straighten out. [..]
They missed a mountain by mere feet. Moral of the story? I dunno

How had the co-pilot been trained? A simulator would have behaved
just like the real thing, so that could not be the source of his error.

That's why I said I don't know the moral of the story At first, I
wanted to argue that more real-life training before moving to airliners
would've helped. But his reaction was par for a twin engine piston
with a dead engine, where banking into the good engine is not uncommon.
So you could argue that if he'd only ever been trained on a 747 sim,
he might've not had that tendency to use the yoke.

Kev

Kev writes:

An experienced pilot can crash any aircraft, so that's no argument.
The upside of the Airbus system is that the plane can automatically
avoid the most common death traps, like stalls on go-around or
microbursts.

So can experienced pilots.

Essentially Airbus tries to substitute wired-in logic decided upon by
designers and engineers for pilot competence. What Airbus doesn't
seem to understand is that you cannot simultaneously keep the pilot
out of the loop in dangerous situations _and_ allow the pilot to
handle dangerous situations. Unless, perhaps, Airbus is trying to
eliminate the need for a pilot altogether, which I think is unwise and
very premature at this point in time.

That's why I said I don't know the moral of the story At first, I
wanted to argue that more real-life training before moving to airliners
would've helped. But his reaction was par for a twin engine piston
with a dead engine, where banking into the good engine is not uncommon.
So you could argue that if he'd only ever been trained on a 747 sim,
he might've not had that tendency to use the yoke.

Indeed. I think the most logical conclusion is that it's best to
train with whatever you plan to fly (or with a simulator that
simulates whatever you plan to fly).

--
Transpose mxsmanic and gmail to reach me by e-mail.

I'm not really sure where the contradictions are in this story, other
than the writer forgot (or doesn't know) that no one, NO ONE goes
from flying spam cans to a major carrier without

1) substantial flying multi-engine/multi-jet time
2) substantion full-motion simulator time

Living in Colorado I've been to the United training facility many
times (and flown the 737 sim), and know instructors there. The pilots
are required to spend a fair amount of time every year in the sims.

I don't understand what would be different with this "new approach"
to pilot training. I don't know any military that sends new pilots
out without substantial hands-on, in-the-air training.

Blanche writes:

I don't understand what would be different with this "new approach"
to pilot training.

It is psychologically distasteful to old-school pilots, who prefer to
believe that something magic occurs in a real aircraft that cannot be
duplicated in a simulator, and that this magic must be experienced in
order to learn to fly.

I don't know any military that sends new pilots
out without substantial hands-on, in-the-air training.

Some parts of the military use Microsoft Flight Simulator as part of
their training.

--
Transpose mxsmanic and gmail to reach me by e-mail.

"Mxsmanic" wrote in message
...

It is psychologically distasteful to old-school pilots, who prefer to
believe that something magic occurs in a real aircraft that cannot be
duplicated in a simulator, and that this magic must be experienced in
order to learn to fly.

It also happens to be true.

I'm not sure where you get this stuff from but to me it's like being told -
no, more like lectured on what food tastes like by someone who has never had
a sense of taste, but has read all about it.

You will never have any credibility on the subject until you can speak from
a background of experience in both areas.

BDS

BDS writes:

It also happens to be true.

There's no such thing as magic.

I'm not sure where you get this stuff from but to me it's like being told -
no, more like lectured on what food tastes like by someone who has never had
a sense of taste, but has read all about it.

Taste is different from eating.

You will never have any credibility on the subject until you can speak from
a background of experience in both areas.

You speak only for yourself, of course.

--
Transpose mxsmanic and gmail to reach me by e-mail.

"Mxsmanic" wrote in message
...

There's no such thing as magic.

No, but until humans can function completely separate from emotion and
stress, and the psychological impact they have on performance, experience in
a simulator will never be equal to the real thing. Confidence in one's
ability to perform a task comes from prior experience under similar
conditions - the conditions in a sim are nothing like real life.

You will never have any credibility on the subject until you can speak
from
a background of experience in both areas.

You speak only for yourself, of course.

No, I believe I speak for quite a few people here. But, even if that
weren't true, it doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out that someone
who is talking from a background of zero experience doesn't have much
credibility in the subject matter.

BDS

Mxsmanic wrote:
Blanche writes:
I don't know any military that sends new pilots
out without substantial hands-on, in-the-air training.

Some parts of the military use Microsoft Flight Simulator as part of
their training.

Read my sentence again.

Blanche writes:

Read my sentence again.

Why?

--
Transpose mxsmanic and gmail to reach me by e-mail.