July 2011 Archives

As more detail of Air France flight 447's surreal last four-and-a-half minutes emerges in the latest interim factual report by the French investigation agency (BEA), we see yet another example of a crew that lost touch with the aeroplane it was flying.

It's not difficult to see some predisposing reasons: it was 2 a.m. on a moonless night, not the time people are at their sharpest. A BALPA release just out warns people not to rush to judgement and to consider that fatigue may turn out to be a factor.

The BEA itself cites lack of high altitude handling training for the crew, and they were faced with suddenly having to carry out high altitude manual handling because the autopilot and autothrottle tripped out when faced with momentarily unreliable airspeed readings.

But when the autopilot did trip out, the pilot flying immediately said he had control and promptly made a nose-up input on his sidestick that led to a steep climb, even though moments earlier he had briefed the pilot not flying that climbing higher to avoid turbulence was not an option. So he knew the aeroplane was close to its performance limits, yet made an input that caused the aeroplane to go beyond them.

Then when the stall warning sounded the pilots made no verbal acknowlegement of it, nor did they apply stall recovery control inputs.

The BEA confirms that everything the aeroplane did from the moment the problems started was the result of crew control inputs. At any time during the critical period the appropriate control inputs could have resulted in recovery of control.

This blog is littered with pleas for regulators to update pilot training requirements to acknowledge how aeroplanes have changed and so has the pilot's job. There is a consistent pattern now of pilot failings that lead to accidents.

No, it's not "pilot error", it's lack of the skills needed for managing modern aeroplanes, and the reason for the lack of skills is the lack of appropriate training, and the reason for that is the regulators' refusal to modernise the training parameters. The airlines are required to train pilots for 1950s aeroplanes and then to put them in charge of 21st century ones.

For the complete story and background go here...

Why does it please me that the used oil in the deep fat fryer from which my fish and chips has just been retrieved will power a Finnair Airbus A319?

Or maybe, eventually, any number of flights with other aeroplanes and airlines. 

This is a Lufthansa Airbus A321 having its right wing tank filled with a 50/50 mix of ordinary jet fuel and biofuel derived from sustainable sources of jatropha, camelina and waste animal fat. 

I wonder what line environmentally conscious vegetarians would take on that? 

That may not sound very appealing but, according to Lufthansa communications man Aage Duenhaupt, the source material all ends up, once refined, as the same long chemical string of Cs, Hs and Os that all aeroplane engines love. Aage reckons that a chemist trying to analyse its origin(s) would probably not be able to do so.

Aviation's doing a lot to become more environmentally friendly, but its efforts don't get much air time. It's not a sufficiently sexy subject for the media.

Luthansa's current claim to biofuel fame is that it is running this airframe (the one pictured) on four scheduled commercial rotations a day on its Frankfurt-Hamburg route for six months, during which everything about the operation will be monitored.

On 15 July I was in this same aircraft as a passenger on the inaugural bio-flight from Hamburg to Frankfurt, right cheek pressed against the window watching the No 2 engine as it powered up for take-off.

What was I expecting to see? The engine coughing, spluttering and giving up the ghost? It would have made a good story, but no such journalistic luck.

I mentioned Finnair and fish and chips: on 20 July it ran its first biofuel powered flight, with both the A319's engines running on a 50/50 mix of kerosine and biofuel derived from used vegetable oil from the catering industry. If vegetarians would shy from Lufthansa's mix, maybe they'd be happy with this one (but what if it came from KFC?)

Holiday charter specialist Thomson Airways was going to start commercial biofuel flights tomorrow (28 July), but has postponed them until September. Communications Director, Christian Cull explains: "A delay during the transportation of the sustainable biofuel from source in the USA, into the UK, has meant that we were unable to conduct our testing process in time for the first scheduled customer flight." Thomson's fuel, too, is to be derived from used cooking oils.

Meanwhile no airline needs to be persuaded that expensive conventional fuel use needs to be cut.

This (above) is a television crew on a demo flight hoping to introduce the Vinga project to the world, interviewing the captain.

And here (below) we are landing at the end of the demo, which involved the use of exacting disciplines in fuel economy from take off to final approach.

The trouble with all this is that the passengers won't notice any changes.

Like me looking for the engine to get indigestion on the Lufthansa flight, or fruitlessly sniffing the air around the Finnair A319 for the flavour of fish and chips, or trying to deduce a difference in the Vinga flight path, no passenger will know there is a difference.

Cathay Pacific has just become the first customer airline for a revolutionary new simulator motion system that will transform what simulators can be used for.

Even full flight simulators (FFS), at present, are really just sophisticated procedure and systems trainers, although the aviation authorites pretend they can be beneficial to manual flying skills. But  US FAA research says there is no evidence that manual flying skills can be taught in simulators - the skills simply do not transfer to the real aeroplane.

Enter Sabena Flight Academy - Development (SFA-D) with a simulator motion modifying system it calls Lm². Developed by aeronautical engineer Capt Filip VanBiervliet, it is based on a rewritten set of algorithms for simulating lateral motion and accelerations, eliminating the confusing sensory feedback that simulator motion systems currently provide.

The result is that all pilots can usefully practice high level manual skills like crosswind landings, and low-time pilots can aid their transition to a new type by performing some or all of their base-training touch-and-goes in a FFS that actually feels like the aeroplane.

Three years ago I "flew" an Lm²-modified Boeing 737 FFS, first with Lm² switched off, then with it operative, and this is what I wrote at the time:

"So that I could attempt manoeuvres that I knew would be almost impossible to 'fly' in an unmodified FFS, I asked for a crosswind and was given 30kt from the right.

The scenario was good night visual at Brussels Zaventem on runway 25L. I chose not to use the flight director, autopilot or autothrottle, and for my first attempt the Lm² was not active.

I managed the take-off adequately, but on approach I deliberately displaced the aircraft well to the left of the extended centreline for Brussels runway 25L, so that recovering against the crosswind to intercept the extended centreline at about 1nm on short final would stress out the motion system and provide plenty of lateral lurches as I lined up the crabbing aircraft for landing. I kicked off drift at about the right time and tried to keep the lurching machine on the runway. It was a seriously inelegant attempt.

SFA-D kindly froze the system and put me back on the approach to do the same thing, but this time with the Lm² operating.

It was a transformation. The simulator handled like the aircraft would. Its reactions to control inputs were predictable and natural, killing the temptation to over-control. The crosswind landing under the same conditions was actually a good one, including the ground run down to taxiing speed.

Just to prove the resulting safe landing was not a fluke, SFA-D suggested I try starting on the approach to 25L and then do a late switch to 25R, but this time with 30kt crosswind from the left. It was a delight to do, and the landing was quite good.

Leaving the runway entailed a left turn through about 130deg, and the tiller allowed me to keep the nosewheel perfectly on the centreline all the way without any swinging or over-correction, or that sick feeling you get when your balance sensory organs don't tally with what you see. The latter may sound unsensational, but taxiing is one of the most difficult things to do in a simulator.

With Lm², simulator flying could actually become fun for the first time, and much less sweaty."

William Langewiesche's book "Fly By Wire" is about the 'miracle on the Hudson' - the successful ditching in the river of a US Airways Airbus A320 commanded by Capt Chesley Sullenberger with Jeffrey Skiles as his copilot.

For me the book's fascination was the author's view on what being a modern airline pilot is all about. Langiewische is an experienced pilot himself, and I reckon he knows what the questions are, but I'm not sure about all his answers.

Langewiesche documents the technical and operational details of the event, the aeroplane, and the historical context well.

His attitude to the piloting profession is somewhat schizophrenic. He clearly admires the skill, knowledge and self-discipline that made Sullenberger the pilot he is, and made the ditching the success it was.

But, he argues, most pilots are not - and can never be - Sullenberger's equal. Even more significantly, he suggests that they no longer need to be. Effectively, he seems to be saying, Sullenberger was overqualified.

Langewiesche is fascinated and impressed by the design philosophy of the A320, and clearly admires the man behind it - the now-retired aeronautical engineer and test pilot Bernard Ziegler - and examines both man and aeroplane in some depth.

Zeigler and the A320 are as much Hudson Heroes as Sullenberger is, Langiewische argues.

For a taste of what I'm getting at, try these quotes:

The A320 is: "...the world's first semi-robotic airliner".

Airline piloting today is: "a profession already in decline".

The A320 has to be designed like it is, Langewiesch argues, because most pilots are much more likely to screw up dangerously, whether in a Boeing or an Airbus, than the automated systems are to fail in a way that matters. He gives examples of specific accidents involving older, traditionally controlled Boeings which would almost certainly not have happened if the aircraft had been a fly-by-wire Airbus.

For an aviator this can be inflammatory stuff. Many aviators tend to be in the Airbus or the Boeing camp. I'm not in either one. Such problems as modern pilots face will certainly be more effectively managed in the latest Airbuses and Boeings than in anything that preceded them. 

Where I diverge from Langewiesche's thesis [my interpretation of it] is that I believe, for a long time to come, pilots of Sullenberger's quality are actually still needed when things go wrong. Langewiesche seems to have been seduced by the impressive quality of today's airliner engineering, and the fact that they will hardly ever go wrong (the latter is true). 

But the key to Sullenberger's quality is not just his thorough training (pre-military, military, academic and airline), it is his thoughtful personality, his exacting approach to the disciplines of his trade, and his sense of duty. His co-written book, "Highest Duty", is not exactly a racy read, but he's not a racy man.

The dichotomy, which I think is what Langewiesche struggles with - and so do I, is that things today so rarely go wrong, and ordinary pilots cope most of the time when they do, so it seems a waste of resources to train pilots up to the Sullenberger level, even if the candidate pilot is potentially the right stuff in the first place.

That, of course, is the dichotomy the airlines struggle with. I myself have argued that airline piloting is, by default, becoming a blue-collar job. 

But things on aeroplanes WILL definitely go wrong in future - if rarely. And when they do, I know what kind of aircraft commander I want on the flight deck.