Ask The Pilot

[jb747]

With this in mind, how well do full motion simulators manage to trick the ear (and other senses) when they move compared to the instruments? Does it feel realistic, with the realistic level of confusion that can happen, or do they feel different in yet another way?

The don't simulate the illusions...they don't really accelerate, so your ear can't react the same way. They provide a low level facsimile of the forces...especially my landings.

 

[aussiel]

Does this tend to cause motion sickness? I recall a few F1 drivers were no good on the simulators due to lack of accurate forces!

 

[por930]

JB, did you see the article from FlightGlobal called,"ANALYSIS: How EasyJet transformed its pilot training"? 29th March 2016.

The airline has required constant pilot training of new cadets and employment of experienced FO and Captains.

If you did not see the article, they have a fleet of some 244 Airbus (A319 and A320) aircraft in Europe, and obtain a new aircraft on average every 2 weeks.
During the current Financial year, EasyJet will train 310 pilots (up to 12 per week) and promote 140 First Officers to Captains. Apparently, they have 2,500 active pilots. The majority of pilot recruits come from two outsourced training Academies, (I think one has a training facility in Australia)with the remainder coming from other airlines and the military.

Interesting statement, "we are not interested in filling seats, we want 300 captains in 5 years time". Also, they are going to increase their female pilot uptake from 6% to 12% of their pilots.

Way way in the past, at my flying school, I flew with many Qantas Cadets getting their hours up before returning to the airline. One of them did my instrument training. Now that seems to all have gone, and because of the sheer volume required, all the airlines have to recruit from the various academies, where ex airline and military pilots are not available?

In an ideal world, where would you like to see the pilot recruits coming from? I presume in your early days, while you were a military aviator, you needed theory and flying training on civilian types? Do our Australian Airlines provide this level of training, or select the recruit and farm them out, and get them back with their shiny new ATPL?

 

[jb747]

During the current Financial year, EasyJet will train 310 pilots (up to 12 per week) and promote 140 First Officers to Captains. Apparently, they have 2,500 active pilots. The majority of pilot recruits come from two outsourced training Academies, (I think one has a training facility in Australia)with the remainder coming from other airlines and the military.

Any airline that mostly recruits cadets to the right hand seat sits pretty low on my list. Sadly that's well on the way to being most of them.

Also, they are going to increase their female pilot uptake from 6% to 12% of their pilots.

Sad isn't it. They should be recruiting the best person for the job. Male or female shouldn't come into it.

Way way in the past, at my flying school, I flew with many Qantas Cadets getting their hours up before returning to the airline. One of them did my instrument training. Now that seems to all have gone, and because of the sheer volume required, all the airlines have to recruit from the various academies, where ex airline and military pilots are not available?

In an ideal world, where would you like to see the pilot recruits coming from? I presume in your early days, while you were a military aviator, you needed theory and flying training on civilian types? Do our Australian Airlines provide this level of training, or select the recruit and farm them out, and get them back with their shiny new ATPL?

Qantas hasn't recruited for many years, and may be about to find out how popular or not it is these days.

The ideal source of pilots is a mix from military, GA, smaller airlines, and even some cadets. The worst option is pure cadets.

When I joined from the military I already had a civil licence and all of the theory and air leg subjects. Civil instrument rating and multi endorsement came with my QF training. That was done on my various 747 courses. I haven't flown a light aircraft since joining QF.

 

[Captain Halliday]

A few posts back JB wrote about pilots losing situational awareness in IMC. It's an area of interest for me after losing colleagues and friends in this way in rotary wing crashes.

Do any of the major passenger aircraft types have a yaw string? Would it make any difference even if they did?

Alternatively, would a yaw string fitted inside the flight deck give some indication of excessive roll or pitch?

 

[ChrisGibbs]

JB - did the QF11 service earlier this week from SYD-JFK via LAX. This used to be the old QF107 744 service. These days there is an equipment change in LAX from the 380 to the 744 which is the extension of the QF15 BNE-LAX service. As is typical this time of the year there was a prevailing southerly into JFK and as approaches go, from a passenger standpoint, I find the approach into JFK one of the more exciting. It appears the aircraft tracks just to the north of the airfield in a ESE direction then does a series of right hand turns to track back northbound towards to airfield. Around 5 miles out it then does a series of right hand turns (even up to late finals) for a landing onto RWY13L. When I was disembarking the aircraft the Capt and FO for the return JFK - LAX sector were on the aerobridge and I commented on how unusual the approach was from a passenger perspective with the sensation of turning onto finals very late. The FO smiled and responded "that's the Canarsi (sp?) approach - you should see it from my seat". A couple of questions for you: given the proximity of JFK to LGA I can't imagine this would have been an ILS approach. If so what sort of approach would it have been - VOR or RNAV? Is this approach typically flown using the automatics or would it have been flown by hand. As with most approaches but especially in this instance I would imagine that if you don't have the speed under control early and the correct rate of descent things could get very messy trying to get onto finals? Do you have to be rated or route / sim checked for many approaches including the Canarsi approach into JFK?

Thanks in advance.

 

[FlyboyAl]

Wow, this post hits home to me big time.
Mods, please delete if you feel its off topic, but it is related to what JB said.
When I was 17, I did my PPL before I could drive a car.
On my first solo nav for my licence I flew into cloud which was not forecast when I took off.
My thoughts were "I'll fly through this, it won't last long"!
The way my senses reacted while in the cloud made me think I was climbing, turning or had one wing or the other up or down.
THE ONLY THING THAT SAVED MY LIFE IN THAT FLIGHT WAS TRUSTING THE INSTRUMENTS! I'd had 3 hours instrument flying training, and that was what gave me the confidence to believe the instruments and not the seat of my pants.
I managed to do at 180 degree turn, and fly out of the cloud, redo my flight plan, and return to where I left without any issues, but my instruments saved my life.

This is probably topical, and will be far outside the experience of most people.

The average time that a non instrument rated pilot takes to lose control of an aircraft in IMC is 178 seconds. The instruments themselves aren't all that hard to read, and most pilots (before instrument training) think that they can do so....so why all the fuss (and training) for an instrument rating. The difference is that when they are flying in nice weather and looking at the instruments...they aren't in cloud. So, they're actually looking outside most of the time, which has the effect t of constantly resetting the brain/ear.

But, when you actually enter cloud, you can now experience various illusions.

I'm sure there are many here who can describe the design of our inner ears much better than me, but the upshot evolution that did not including flying, is that our ears are subject to a number of illusions. These can be incredibly strong...not just some vague feeling.

Once you take away the visual cues, the ear cannot distinguish any difference between 'down' as defined by gravity, or 'down' as caused by any aircraft movement. And to make it more fun, another part of the ear confuses acceleration with pitch.

This shows itself a number of ways in aircraft. Probably the one that is seen most often is called the 'leans'. In this case the aircraft has slowly rolled away from level, without the pilot noticing. When he looks at the AI, he corrects the error. His ear notices the correction...and even though he's now level, the ear thinks the aircraft has some roll. The feeling fades after a couple of minutes.

The illusion that is possibly topical at the moment is called somatagravic illusion. It can manifest itself in two ways. Basically, you experience a rapid increase in speed and sense that as a pitch up. The reverse also happens. Catapult launches would probably be the extreme case, but it has been implicated in many accidents over the years. Rostov may simply be the most recent.

The most important lesson of instrument flying is that you MUST believe your instruments. Yes, they can go wrong, but that is extremely unlikely, and even then there are workarounds. But, you must never believe your senses....they will be wrong every time.

 

[por930]

Hi Chris,
A great daytime visual for the Canarsi approach. At about 1:16 you hear the autopilot coming off: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v5Ml4bqIZDw

A great night time visual, in the rain. Gets interesting at 4:07...All of a sudden a light appears? Eventually, the approach lights show the way: JFK VOR Runway 13L (Canarsie) Approach: Night IFR/Rain - Video Dailymotion

 

[Awesom Andy]

I did my PPL

IMO, You're definitely qualified to post both questions and answers here. Please make yourself at home.

 

[jb747]

Does this tend to cause motion sickness? I recall a few F1 drivers were no good on the simulators due to lack of accurate forces!

I've never heard of anyone becoming sick in the sim...other than by their performance.

 

[jb747]

Do any of the major passenger aircraft types have a yaw string? Would it make any difference even if they did?

I had never heard of one of these, and had to look it up. Which I guess answers the question, because any aircraft that relied on a bit of string stuck to the windscreen doesn't sound like something I'd want to fly in cloud.

Alternatively, would a yaw string fitted inside the flight deck give some indication of excessive roll or pitch?

Its theory isn't that much different to that of your ear...so it would be subject to exactly the same errors. Which would have the effect of making it worse than useless.

Even a turn and slip indicator can tell lies. Just roll into a turn, wait for it to show the correct 'turn', and then, whilst continuously pulling a couple of g, take it to a turn in the opposite direction...and it will get its right and left wrong.

 

[jb747]

Hi Chris,
A great daytime visual for the Canarsi approach. At about 1:16 you hear the autopilot coming off: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v5Ml4bqIZDw

A great night time visual, in the rain. Gets interesting at 4:07...All of a sudden a light appears? Eventually, the approach lights show the way: JFK VOR Runway 13L (Canarsie) Approach: Night IFR/Rain - Video Dailymotion

I've never flown this approach, but we all had to qualify for it in the sim. You can use the automatics in the early part, but the turn and final has to be manual. There was a trick to getting some GPS vertical guidance around the turn (on the 747), which was helpful. It's poorly designed, and I expect exists because, well, it always has. It requires the last section to be flown visually, but to achieve that it is designed to drop you well below the 3º path. So it requires descent, level off, descent, at about the time you're looking for finals...that's why the aircraft in the videos look to be quite low.

JFK is a pretty good example of just how old the US airport system is.

The blooms of light that happen on the second video are cloud/heavy rain being illuminated by the landing lights. Gives an idea of just how little you can see at times.

 

[Boris spatsky]

A few posts back JB wrote about pilots losing situational awareness in IMC. It's an area of interest for me after losing colleagues and friends in this way in rotary wing crashes.

Do any of the major passenger aircraft types have a yaw string? Would it make any difference even if they did?

Alternatively, would a yaw string fitted inside the flight deck give some indication of excessive roll or pitch?

I have never seen yaw string on fixed wing aircraft, only helos.

Edited note: i have never done gliding.

 

[RobYg]

A yaw string is a vital instrument in any glider to help achieve a co-ordinated turn at normal thermalling speeds not far above stall speed.

 

[Boris spatsky]

But, when you actually enter cloud, you can now experience various illusions.

I'm sure there are many here who can describe the design of our inner ears much better than me, but the upshot evolution that did not including flying, is that our ears are subject to a number of illusions. These can be incredibly strong...not just some vague feeling.

Once you take away the visual cues, the ear cannot distinguish any difference between 'down' as defined by gravity, or 'down' as caused by any aircraft movement. And to make it more fun, another part of the ear confuses acceleration with pitch.

This shows itself a number of ways in aircraft. Probably the one that is seen most often is called the 'leans'. In this case the aircraft has slowly rolled away from level, without the pilot noticing. When he looks at the AI, he corrects the error. His ear notices the correction...and even though he's now level, the ear thinks the aircraft has some roll.

The most important lesson of instrument flying is that you MUST believe your instruments. Yes, they can go wrong, but that is extremely unlikely, and even then there are workarounds. But, you must never believe your senses....they will be wrong every time.

I had the leans plenty of times in the PC9 in the RAAF, especially when under the 'bag'. The bag is the rear coughpit seat windows completely covered in canvas so you can't see out the windows at all. The front seat pilot takes off and lands and you practice (or are assessed on) instrument flying from the back seat.

I recall my final instrument handling test on pilot's course under the bag. We were near the end when the assessor said we were going to do unusual attitude recoveries. Essentially they put the aircraft in an undesirable attitude and you recover on instruments. Now i had recovered before and had bad cases of the leans (as JB described where you think you are straight and level but you in fact aren't). In this instance, i think the instructor got a little over zealous and he must have done half an aerobatics routine as it went for what seemed like a few minutes before he said 'recover'. I recall the nose attitude was extremely high and we were inverted on the instruments. I rolled and recovered to straight and level. Then i had this nauseating feeling that i was still inverted. The instruments said we were straight and level. I have never had it again (nor do i want to) as it was the most disturbing feeling you could possible have under the bag. It took me a few minutes at straight and level to overcome the sensation.

 

[jb747]

Ah the joys of UA recoveries. On a full panel of instruments they were pretty straight forward (as long as you were like me and actually liked G and aeros). Partial panel in the Macchi meant you had no AI, and then the UAs were doubly fun. I recall doing a partial panel GCA, but I expect that was more a case of exuberance overwhelming common sense.

 

[por930]

I had the leans plenty of times in the PC9 in the RAAF, especially when under the 'bag'. The bag is the rear coughpit seat windows completely covered in canvas so you can't see out the windows at all. The front seat pilot takes off and lands and you practice (or are assessed on) instrument flying from the back seat.

I recall my final instrument handling test on pilot's course under the bag. We were near the end when the assessor said we were going to do unusual attitude recoveries. Essentially they put the aircraft in an undesirable attitude and you recover on instruments. Now i had recovered before and had bad cases of the leans (as JB described where you think you are straight and level but you in fact aren't). In this instance, i think the instructor got a little over zealous and he must have done half an aerobatics routine as it went for what seemed like a few minutes before he said 'recover'. I recall the nose attitude was extremely high and we were inverted on the instruments. I rolled and recovered to straight and level. Then i had this nauseating feeling that i was still inverted. The instruments said we were straight and level. I have never had it again (nor do i want to) as it was the most disturbing feeling you could possible have under the bag. It took me a few minutes at straight and level to overcome the sensation.

Boris, did the 'bag' also blank out the front, eg, behind the front pilot, or could you sort of see past him? When I did instruments, I had the 'hood', so you could not see above the dash or out the sides, and my instructor asked we close our eyes until told to open them from upset positions, which made me nauseous and not a good start to the exercise. I also learnt to keep my head as still as possible, as letting it loll about in the turns accentuated the leans as you so appropriately call them. Did you also have a oxygen mask as well? as this would add to the disorientation feeling.

 

[Boris spatsky]

Ah the joys of UA recoveries. On a full panel of instruments they were pretty straight forward (as long as you were like me and actually liked G and aeros). Partial panel in the Macchi meant you had no AI, and then the UAs were doubly fun. I recall doing a partial panel GCA, but I expect that was more a case of exuberance overwhelming common sense.

Yeah they were pretty straight forward really except you were normally on the standby by then where you had to lean down and left to see it and the gyro toppled easily. Made it pretty hard.

PC9 partial panel was also pretty tricky, especially for an ab initio student...

 

[Boris spatsky]

Boris, did the 'bag' also blank out the front, eg, behind the front pilot, or could you sort of see past him? When I did instruments, I had the 'hood', so you could not see above the dash or out the sides, and my instructor asked we close our eyes until told to open them from upset positions, which made me nauseous and not a good start to the exercise. I also learnt to keep my head as still as possible, as letting it loll about in the turns accentuated the leans as you so appropriately call them. Did you also have a oxygen mask as well? as this would add to the disorientation feeling.

No, it completely enclosed the coughpit - you literally could not see out at all. Yes we also had an oxy mask and a G suit on so it was all pretty uncomfortable when the instructor decided to do aerobatics at 4G when you couldn't see out. Bit like really serious motion sickness. If you were accustomed to it it was bearable; but i nearly threw up when i had to do the bag after a 4 week break over Xmas and had lost all tolerance by then! Still, touch wood, have never thrown up in an aircraft (but come very close a few times).

 

[por930]

Boris, I would have thought, being the air force, you guys would have had the electronic solid state sensors for aerobatics.

If into serious games, we had to cage our gyro system, but even then, some maneuvers would topple it. I seem to recall the cage was really a mechanism for re-establishing it, rather than a lock. The CFI was not too happy with too much aerobatics, as it often accelerated an expensive gyro rebuild.