Interesting show on Discovery today

Please don't feed the troll.

GDBholdings wrote:
Now I was wondering if the airline manufactures and the airlines have now
added an audible warning when all or part of the autopilot is disengaged.
Seems if there was such a warning then this crash may never have happened

The same for that L-1011 crash back in the early 70's that flew down to
the ground in the Everglades, when the crew accidentally disengaged the
autopilot, while trying to figure out why a light wasn't working.
You'd think there'd be a loud buzzer for at least a second.

Kev

Kev wrote:
GDBholdings wrote:
Now I was wondering if the airline manufactures and the airlines have now
added an audible warning when all or part of the autopilot is disengaged.
Seems if there was such a warning then this crash may never have happened

The same for that L-1011 crash back in the early 70's that flew down to
the ground in the Everglades, when the crew accidentally disengaged the
autopilot, while trying to figure out why a light wasn't working.
You'd think there'd be a loud buzzer for at least a second.

Kev

The "real" problem is that the Autopilot in that particular airbus is
designed to disengage due to movements of the yoke (the pilots daughter
didn't, but the pilots son did manhandle the yoke to try to turn the
plane), what this did is turn off the heading function on the
autopilot, but not soudn the 3x3 dong alarm that sounds on airbuses
when the autopilot is disengaged, the planes bank angle continued to
increase, as less lift was on the verticle axis the planes altitude
function (which remained engaged) tried to pull it back onto altitude
which caused it to do a series of aerobatic acts in the air. The G
forces being generated prevented either the pilot or co-pilot from
reacting, as they could not reach the yoke against the forces acting on
them. When they finally reached the yoke it was way too late.

The accident would not have occured if the pilot had not yielded his
seat to kids. When I look at my seat I think of it as "my commander
chair", it's a privelege which has to be earned to sit in the left seat
of an aircraft and be "pilot in command" at the airline level, anyone
who hasn't earned that has no place sitting in that or the seat to the
right of it when a plane is in flight... they are more than welcome in
the jumpseats (well... not in the US, but thats going to change also in
a few years... Air Tahiti here I come).

In article . com,
" wrote:

The same for that L-1011 crash back in the early 70's that flew down to
the ground in the Everglades, when the crew accidentally disengaged the
autopilot, while trying to figure out why a light wasn't working.
You'd think there'd be a loud buzzer for at least a second.

The Cessna 182S that was in the flying club I am a member of has a
KAP-140 two-axis autopilot installed. When the autopilot is disengaged
it "whoops" very loudly.

writes:

The "real" problem is that the Autopilot in that particular airbus is
designed to disengage due to movements of the yoke (the pilots daughter
didn't, but the pilots son did manhandle the yoke to try to turn the
plane), what this did is turn off the heading function on the
autopilot, but not soudn the 3x3 dong alarm that sounds on airbuses
when the autopilot is disengaged ...

You don't need an alarm in that case, because it only happens when the
pilot moves the yoke in order to override the autopilot, and when he
is doing that he already knows that he's doing it and he doesn't have
to be told that the autopilot is giving him control ... that's the
whole idea.

The problem in this case was not the lack of an alarm, but the fact
that the pilot was not the person flying the plane. I imagine the
Airbus designers never imagined that their aircraft would be flown by
the little children of pilots, rather than the pilots themselves, so
there was never any need to have an alarm to alert Mommy or Daddy that
Junior was overriding the autopilot.

Under normal conditions, the only person who overrides the autopilot
with the yoke is also the only person who needs to know about it, and
so he doesn't need an alarm to tell him what he already knows.

It's different from an unsolicited disconnect of the autopilot, which
requires some sort of alarm. In this case, the pilot is forcing the
yoke--he wants the autopilot to step aside. And it will. He'll see
the confirmation indicator on his instruments.

I guess an alarm wouldn't hurt, but if the pilot is already putting
his kids in the driver's seat, it's a bit late to be worrying about
ding-dong alarms in the cockpit.

The G forces being generated prevented either the pilot or co-pilot from
reacting, as they could not reach the yoke against the forces acting on
them. When they finally reached the yoke it was way too late.

They are supposed to be seated in front of the yoke with their hands
on it in the first place.

The accident would not have occured if the pilot had not yielded his
seat to kids.

Exactly. Or, more specifically, to unqualified pilots (I think a kid
could be a qualified pilot ... but in this case they were not).

When I look at my seat I think of it as "my commander
chair", it's a privelege which has to be earned to sit in the left seat
of an aircraft and be "pilot in command" at the airline level, anyone
who hasn't earned that has no place sitting in that or the seat to the
right of it when a plane is in flight ...

That's a rather sentimental and romantic way of looking at it, and not
necessarily very realistic. The pilot's seat has to be occupied by a
qualified pilot. It's a role, not a privilege, even if some people
might enjoy it as if it were the latter.

... they are more than welcome in
the jumpseats (well... not in the US, but thats going to change also in
a few years ... Air Tahiti here I come).

You're saying that the US will lift the restriction? That would very
much surprise me; it's a country where people are afraid of their own
shadows these days.

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

wrote in message
ups.com...

Kev wrote:
GDBholdings wrote:
Now I was wondering if the airline manufactures and the airlines have
now
added an audible warning when all or part of the autopilot is
disengaged.
Seems if there was such a warning then this crash may never have
happened

The same for that L-1011 crash back in the early 70's that flew down to
the ground in the Everglades, when the crew accidentally disengaged the
autopilot, while trying to figure out why a light wasn't working.
You'd think there'd be a loud buzzer for at least a second.

Kev

The "real" problem is that the Autopilot in that particular airbus is
designed to disengage due to movements of the yoke (the pilots daughter
didn't, but the pilots son did manhandle the yoke to try to turn the
plane), what this did is turn off the heading function on the
autopilot, but not soudn the 3x3 dong alarm that sounds on airbuses
when the autopilot is disengaged, the planes bank angle continued to
increase, as less lift was on the verticle axis the planes altitude
function (which remained engaged) tried to pull it back onto altitude
which caused it to do a series of aerobatic acts in the air. The G
forces being generated prevented either the pilot or co-pilot from
reacting, as they could not reach the yoke against the forces acting on
them. When they finally reached the yoke it was way too late.

The accident would not have occured if the pilot had not yielded his
seat to kids. When I look at my seat I think of it as "my commander
chair", it's a privelege which has to be earned to sit in the left seat
of an aircraft and be "pilot in command" at the airline level, anyone
who hasn't earned that has no place sitting in that or the seat to the
right of it when a plane is in flight... they are more than welcome in
the jumpseats (well... not in the US, but thats going to change also in
a few years... Air Tahiti here I come).


I sat left seat once in a Bombardier Challenger in the FL's. Of course I was
smart enough not to touch anything unless asked to.

--------------------------
DW

GDBholdings wrote:

Now I was wondering if the airline manufactures and the airlines have now
added an audible warning when all or part of the autopilot is disengaged.
Seems if there was such a warning then this crash may never have happened

Just wondering if anyone else has any opinions about this?

I *highly* recommend reading the book "Airframe." It is a novel and it is
fiction, but it is remarkably well researched fiction about a large airplane
manufacturer and an accident investigation. One of Michael Crighton's best
works in my opinion.

I believe one of the findings of this investigation was that the
autopilot should have been equipped with an audible alarm that the
autopilot was being disengaged and that pilots should be made aware of
two features of the aircraft, the first being the nature of how the
autopilot functions (most pilots were not trained about the feature of
the yoke disengaging the autopilot, as well as the following one),
secondly, that had the pilots not touched the flight controls the
aircraft is designed to automatically return to level flight after
entering a stall/spin.

Owen writes:

I *highly* recommend reading the book "Airframe." It is a novel and it is
fiction, but it is remarkably well researched fiction about a large airplane
manufacturer and an accident investigation. One of Michael Crighton's best
works in my opinion.

It's a good book, although his fictional aircraft company, Norton, is
irritating in its obvious stand-in role for Boeing. Why not just name
a real manufacturer? But I guess that would be legally difficult.
Norton just makes me think of _The Honeymooners_.

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

Mxsmanic wrote:
Owen writes:

I *highly* recommend reading the book "Airframe." It is a novel and it is
fiction, but it is remarkably well researched fiction about a large airplane
manufacturer and an accident investigation. One of Michael Crighton's best
works in my opinion.

It's a good book, although his fictional aircraft company, Norton, is
irritating in its obvious stand-in role for Boeing. Why not just name
a real manufacturer? But I guess that would be legally difficult.
Norton just makes me think of _The Honeymooners_.

Because it wasn't Boeing. He obviously pulled pieces out of several
manufacturers and completely fabricated other parts. If he was going
to set it in the context of an existing company he'd have had to work
much harder. Some of the stuff is pretty spurious...while Crichton
does a bit of research, a lot of it is really superficial. I prefer
Hailey.