November 2009 Archives

If you are on the ops side of an airline or fractional ownership fleet, and you want to find out what currently constitutes piloting best practice, we can still take last minute bookings for Flight International's Crew Management Conference in London staring 0900 on Monday next week.

Pilot Best Practice, the theme for the CMC this year, is not about Top Gun attributes. But  stick-and-rudder skills are part of it, even today. Do you know how to save fuel and stay safe?

If you want to learn the latest on that, and a load of other ways of being a dream pilot in the eyes of your airline, your passengers, the insurance industry, and even Friends of the Earth, you'd better be there with other like minded people.

Visit http://www.flightglobalevents.com/crewmanagement09 to find out what you'll be missing if you don't come.

Talk about cost/effective....!

The A400M's first all-engine, on-wing engine-run 

Now here's a real aeroplane. It has propellers.

And yes, it will fly because we need this machine. At present there's no military airlifter between the C-130 and the C-17 unless you are in the USAF. The maiden flight is programmed some time before the end of the year. But, if it doesn't meet that deadline, patience!

At Toulouse a few months ago I "flew" one of the test simulators for it.

A400M fixed-base simulators, wired up to the "Iron Bird "

test rig for the  new aircraft 

For an ex Herc driver like me, getting your head around this machine takes some doing, and I'm not there yet. It's a sidestick aircraft (which I have no problems with), and FBW, but flight envelope protection is invisible. You wanna do a barrel roll? Feel free.

I didn't do a barrel roll, but I did roll 110deg into a mock evasive descent manoeuvre (much good may it have done me in real life).

But just like the A400M's Europrop International TP400-D6 engines - which have been giving problems that have extended the programme's spectacular delays - especially their FADECs, its avionics suite and mission systems need some work yet.

Also, the sims need a lot of shaking down before they deliver. But the engines are the most powerful turboprops the Western world has ever attempted, and the avionics are incredibly ambitious.

Problems? Surprise, surprise! Remember how long the C-130J took to shake down? And that was just a simple Herc with digital avionics and upgraded engines/prop systems.

Since when did military procurement go smoothly?

Anyway, the delays associated with this programme have enabled the "Iron Bird" systems mockup of the A400M to go through many more cycles than it would otherwise have achieved before first flight.

The picture of the "bird" is below. Just so you understand what you are seeing, it's the complete hydraulic, electrical and control surface actuator rig that represents the systems on the real A400M, laid out in a hangar and powered. Imagine the layout you see as being the aeroplane flying in a direction that's laterally 2 o'clock compared with your view of the scene. The wings are against the far wall, and they continue around the corners for lack of lateral space to get all the systems in. The red objects are the control surfaces (spoilers etc), weighted to represent real inertia. The walkway down the centre is the rig for the hydraulics/electrics that follow the fuselage line, and on the left, high up, is the horizontal stabiliser with the screw-jack acuator ahead of its leading edge, and the red units representing the elevators where the trailing edge would be. 

It may be rigged to one of the simulators (there's one with motion systems as well), but the systems and control surfaces are constantly being flexed just to test their durability.

South Africa may have cancelled its A400M orders, but unless they have changed their defence strategy (quite probable) they'll be back. If you need an airlifter in the A400M size/performance category, there's no alternative on the horizon.

Courtesy of Oxford Aviation Academy and SAS at OAA's Stockholm base, I have just flown an A320 twice from Gothenburg to Copenhagen, with identical weights in identical conditions both times.

But, by adopting a few modified procedures the second time, we used 18.4% less fuel.

Don't try all these tricks on your next trip without having a word with your ops and training standards people, because even SAS, which has been working for a few years with OAA to develop "Eco-Piloting" techniques and training, has only just got there, and has not yet begun the process of transferring the new tricks onto the line.

If you want to learn about the techniques SAS/OAA have been trialling, register for Flight International's Pilot Best Practice/Crew Management Conference in London at the end of this month and you can talk to Per de la Motte, OAA's Director of Training, Nordic region about his secrets.

Back to my two short trips.

Given that, on the first trip, my mentor in the right hand seat, OAA's fuel-efficiency guru Peter Fogtmann, ensured that we used normal SAS/A320 SOPs and standard routeing with absolutely no shilly-shallying, I wouldn't have thought a fuel saving of 18.4% was possible. But its what we did. Since it's only a 25min hop, 18.4% translates as a 320kg fuel saving, which may not sound much - but what a percentage! Save that every trip for a year and you're talking big bucks and dramatically reduced emissions.

Of course Peter and I are in a simulator, but it's a Level D FFS, so the figures we get should represent the truth, as near as dammit.

The first trip was done the way any good line pilot would do it, so I won't bore you with that. But here are the differences applied on the second trip:

• Reduced the cost index from 30 to 7 in the FMS;
• Chose Malmo instead of Gothenburg as the alternate, which meant we could carry 450kg less fuel;
• APU was started only moments before pushback;
• Single-engine taxi (using No 1 engine). APU was shut down once No 1 was established and checked;
• No 2 was started with 3min to go to line-up for take-off;
• Take-off was carried out with flap/slat 1 instead of 2, and packs off;
• Power levers retarded to "climb" detent at 800ft (instead of 1,500-3,000ft), and acceleration initiated at that point;
• Request for optimum speed below 10,000ft accepted, and continued at 305kt (opt) instead of sticking to standard 250kt;
• Request direct routeing at every opportunity (in this case the routeing was almost direct anyway, so there were no benefits there);
• Input forecast or actual winds rather than standard seasonal;
• Initiate descent at a carefully estimated point beyond normal TOD because continuous descent approach was likely to be available;
• Flap 1 selected at glideslope intercept; flap 2 at 2,000ft; gear down just before 1,000ft; flap 3 selected just before 500ft (would be 1,000ft in IMC); land with flap 3 instead of 4;
• Idle reverse during landing run;
• 3min after touchdown, No 2 engine shut down; single-engine taxi to stand.

Yes I know you wouldn't be able to do all those things on many regular trips, and hardly any of them in busy terminal areas during the winter, but just doing some of them when you can provides a benefit that makes a difference. Yes I know you have to consider icing procedures in unkind weather, but sometimes the sun shines.

SAS and OAA, who are making this kind of expertise a speciality, say it's about a mindset. A mindset that hasn't been examined critically for a long time, with the result that there are lots of treasured beliefs out there that are effectively urban myths.

Come and listen to Per, and find out what he has found out.

It was Capt Chesley Sullenberger and First Officer Jeff Skiles that put the US Airways Airbus A320 safely down on the Hudson River, but it was the cabin crew that faced the job of getting the passengers out.

I spoke to two of Sullenberger's cabin crew, Donna Dent and Sheila Dail, at the Guildhall in the City of London, just before the Guild of Air Pilots and Air Navigators annual awards banquet on 29 October.

The third cabin crew member, Doreen Welsh, could not attend that evening but she, seated as she was at the aft end of the cabin on that winter's day as the aircraft came to rest on the river, watched as the damaged tail slowly dipped, and the dark, freezing water began to flow into the cabin ahead of her. Dent and Dail were near the forward doors, and I will let them tell their story:

If you read Capt Chesley Sullenberger's just-published book "Highest Duty", you will understand that the success of his Hudson River ditching was no fluke.

Sullenberger is a thoughtful man. Everything he does is considered. He identifies objectives and works resolutely toward them, checking his progress as he goes. It's the way he approaches life and flying.

If that makes him sound like a cold fish, you'll find it's not so. His quiet love of flying and his clear recognition of what's important in life - and what's not - shine through the unfussy prose and the downplayed narrative of events. He treats people, colleagues and family alike, with respect.

He knows he is good at what he does and is proud of that, but he also knows he's good because he has worked hard at it. He may enjoy flying, but he takes the task seriously.

Being a really good aircraft commander and pilot is not something many people can achieve, so if you want to know what it takes, check here.

A few days ago, at the Guildhall in the City of London, just before the Guild of Air Pilots and Air Navigators' awards banquet, I asked Capt Sullenberger briefly to describe what it was like when his Airbus A320's engines were stopped by a massive birdstrike (see video).

Listen to the detail of what he says, and you'll understand why this ditching worked and everybody survived. It was no accident.

Later that evening Capt Sullengberger, accompanied by two of his cabin crew on the day of the ditching, Donna Dent and Sheila Dail, accepted the Guild's Master's Medal on behalf of the Crew of Flight 1549.

You can find out what the cabin crew had to say about their experience of the event in my next blog entry.