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.

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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

Nomen Nescio writes:

define "simulator"

Anything that simulates something else. If you consider the very
crude simulation attempts made by NASA to be equivalent to the real
thing, then you cannot possibly object to anyone training for the real
thing in a modern full-motion simulator, which is far more advanced
than what NASA had forty years ago.

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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).

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Nomen Nescio writes:

Then you don't have a simulator.
MSFS is not a "simulator" as you define it.
I'm glad you finally got the point that it's a toy.

I understand why you are doing this, but you'll find that I have a lot
of patience.

"Just like the real thing" means within the context of the simulator's
objectives. Many simulators qualify when used as intended. The
various NASA simulators to which you've alluded each simulated some
aspect of flight in a way that was "just like the real thing";
however, they all failed to match real life in one or more other
respects (which they also have in common with all other simulators).

Only real life perfectly matches real life. But many aspects of real
life are not important for certain well-defined tasks. One can learn
to perform these tasks perfectly from a simulator if the simulator
perfectly simulates all the important aspects of the tasks.

One can learn to use a GNS530 GPS perfectly inside Microsoft Flight
Simulator, because simulations of the unit available for the simulator
precisely duplicate its real-life functionality. You can go directly
from the simulator to the real thing without missing a beat, and
perform the task of operating it perfectly with no previous experience
in using the real thing.

The simulation of the unit does not include the three dimensional
appearance of the unit or the texture of the control knobs and
buttons, but these are unimportant to the task of operating the unit,
and so the lack of simulation is irrelevant to the simulator's realism
in context.

And since your "flying experience" all comes from a toy
that does not " behaved just like the real thing", you don't have a clue
as to what "real" flying is like.

Following that line of reasoning, the astronauts had no clue how to
land on the moon, since they could only use simulator toys before
actually attempting it. Many of their simulators were far less
comprehensive than a typical PC simulator today.

And since you don't have a clue as to what "real" flying is like, you have less
of an understanding of flight that a 10 yo kid that got a Young eagles flight
because they have been in something that "behaved just like the real thing".

As you'll see from the above, I've invalidated this assertion.

Therefore, if you want to learn about real flying, STFU and listen to people
who have been in something that "behaved just like the real thing". Even if
it's that 10 yo kid.

I don't share your emotional investment in this debate, which allows
me to remain objective and clear-headed. The role of simulation in
all types of man-machine interfaces is vitally important today, and
its importance is increasing. I've no doubt that the time will come
when people will learn to fly at least commercial airliners without
ever actually touching the real thing prior to a summary checkride, or
even prior to actually carrying paying passengers. I don't see any
technical obstacle to this. The only obstacles are psychological and
emotional.

Indeed, even today, someone with 5000 hours of intensive simulation
experience covering a very wide array of in-flight possibilities would
probably be a better pilot than someone with 5000 hours of real-world
experience spent sitting idle in a cockpit watching the figures change
on the FMC and trying not to fall asleep.

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Mxsmanic wrote:

Indeed, even today, someone with 5000 hours of intensive simulation
experience covering a very wide array of in-flight possibilities would
probably be a better pilot than someone with 5000 hours of real-world
experience spent sitting idle in a cockpit watching the figures change
on the FMC and trying not to fall asleep.

An unrealistic comparison, I think. An airline pilot with 5000hrs of
real-world experience has spent a significant number of hours getting
beat up annually in a simulator exposed to a wide array of emergencies,
simple and compound. Simulators are an excellent (and necessary) part
of pilot training, but there are situations that can never be
simulated, and it is their real-world experience that pilots call upon
to save their aircraft when the shiite hits the fan.

The best example I can think of is United #232 (Sioux City, 1989). I
doubt Al Haines was ever trained to control a DC-10 without hydraulic
power to the flight control surfaces. Yet he managed to steer the jet
with differential thrust to a (scary) landing without the loss of all
aboard. There will never be a replacement for experience IMO.

Kingfish writes:

An unrealistic comparison, I think. An airline pilot with 5000hrs of
real-world experience has spent a significant number of hours getting
beat up annually in a simulator exposed to a wide array of emergencies,
simple and compound.

That would count as simulator experience. I said 5000 hours of
real-world experience.

The average airliner pilot has spent vastly more time in a real
cockpit fighting off boredom than in a simulator coping with
emergencies.

Simulators are an excellent (and necessary) part
of pilot training, but there are situations that can never be
simulated ...

A lot more situations can be simulated than experienced in real life
(if one wishes to survive the experience), and it is thanks to
simulators that pilots are better prepared for emergencies today.
Many of the things they practice on simulators would never be safe to
attempt in real life, and others are so rare that they are never
likely to see them (but at least they'll be prepared if they do).

In modern commercial air travel, which is very safe, there are many
emergencies that no pilot has ever experienced in real life; this
being so, it is impossible for a pilot to depend on any real-world
experience when dealing with such emergencies, since it is
overwhelmingly probable that he is seeing such an emergency for the
first time. Simulation greatly improves survival rates for such
emergencies by giving pilots experience with them in the safe but
realistic environment of a simulator. Without that simulation
experience, quite a few of them would be killed when the real thing
comes along. The real world doesn't train you for potentially deadly
emergencies.

... and it is their real-world experience that pilots call upon
to save their aircraft when the shiite hits the fan.

They don't _have_ any relevant real-world experience. That's why they
try simulation.

The best example I can think of is United #232 (Sioux City, 1989). I
doubt Al Haines was ever trained to control a DC-10 without hydraulic
power to the flight control surfaces. Yet he managed to steer the jet
with differential thrust to a (scary) landing without the loss of all
aboard.

Actually, there were four people controlling the plane, and it was
being steered by a DC-10 flight instructor who had been deadheading on
the flight.

None of them had any previous experience with anything like this at
all, so both real-world and simulator experience were irrelevant
(although I seem to recall that the instructor had pondered similar
scenarios in the past, but had not tried them).

The crew succeeded in part because of proper CRM, not because of
technical skills with something this foreign. They can (and do) learn
CRM in simulators, rather than in real life where it can be dangerous.

Luck also played a substantial role in this crash. The combined 103
hours of experience of the flight deck crew was definitely a factor,
but it was experience that could have been acquired in either real
life or a simulator. It was important in keeping them calm and
cooperative and organized; flying the plane was only a small part of
it.

See

http://www.airdisaster.com/eyewitness/ua232.shtml

to learn the details, including the correct spelling of the captain's
name.

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Mxsmanic wrote:
Nomen Nescio writes:

If you've flown one, you've flown them all. The numbers are different,
that's all.

Then why does flying one aircraft not entitle you to fly any aircraft?

Nope. Real men flew a real machine and made a real landing on
a real moon.

They learned how to do it with a simulator. There was no training in
the real thing.

There are multiple types of "shuttle simulator". Go look at

spaceflight.nasa.gov/shuttle/reference/factsheets/asseltrn.html

for all the details. The pilot training includes a real aircraft
configured to fly like the high-powered brick...er...shuttle:

" Pilots training for a specific mission receive more intensive
instruction in Orbiter approach and landing in Shuttle Training
Aircraft (STA), which are four Gulfstream II business jets modified
to perform like the Orbiter during landing. Because the Orbiter
approaches landings at such a steep angle (17-20 degrees) and
high speed (over 300 miles per hour), the STA approaches with
its engines in reverse thrust and main landing gear down to increase
drag and duplicate the unique glide characteristics of the Orbiter"

As for the moon landings, there was a full-size training device, again,
with similar characteristics as the moon lander. This is what Nomen
referred to. More details at

www1.dfrc.nasa.gov/Gallery/photo/LLRV/index.html

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.

Shuttle Training
Aircraft (STA), which are four Gulfstream II business jets modified
to perform like the Orbiter during landing.

They sawed the wings off?

Jose
--
"There are 3 secrets to the perfect landing. Unfortunately, nobody knows
what they are." - (mike).
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