Ask The Pilot

[NM]

Not at all. It's purely a commercial decision. The sims I hate the worst are the 1am briefing followed by the 2am-6am time slot. That requires a lot of coffee. The Ansett sim is great for that. They've got a proper coffee machine.

Surely the cabin crew are required to participate in the sim program, delivering coffee to the flight deck as required

 

[straitman]

Are the sims run 24 hours to replicate body clock problems with disrupted sleep and overnight flying, in addition to saving $$$ by not buying more sims?

Does the airline try to help address these body clock issues for pilots in any way?

We used to go to West Palm Beach Florida for our sims. There was a company requirement to be on the US east coast for at least 2 days prior to the sim and also a requirement to have reasonable hours.
On one occasion the times were stuffed up and we had to be there at 0600. The only place open for breakfast was a Burger King where we had the worst breakfast I have ever had. The place was filthy and the food was awful.

 

[AviatorInsight]

Surely the cabin crew are required to participate in the sim program, delivering coffee to the flight deck as required

I think the coffee machine does a better job...at least I know what’s in it

 

[harvyk]

Not at all. It's purely a commercial decision. The sims I hate the worst are the 1am briefing followed by the 2am-6am time slot. That requires a lot of coffee. The Ansett sim is great for that. They've got a proper coffee machine.

Do they at least run those sims in the dark so it feels like you're flying at night?

 

[straitman]

Do they at least run those sims in the dark so it feels like you're flying at night?

Older Sims were all night light. Newer Sims have the capability to operate as day or night.

 

[AviatorInsight]

Do they at least run those sims in the dark so it feels like you're flying at night?

They usually set the sim to a night time setting anyway, regardless of what time of day it is outside.

It’s supposed to make it harder being under the night lights.

When you’re flying the best hand flown raw data ILS and single engine, and then the sim does this at 3am...so you’ve got to do it again.

 

[jb747]

Are the sims run 24 hours to replicate body clock problems with disrupted sleep and overnight flying, in addition to saving $$$ by not buying more sims?

There is zero point in practicing how to bleed. The only reason they run 24 hours per day is financial.

Does the airline try to help address these body clock issues for pilots in any way?

Until a few years back, the answer would have been ‘not at all’. Generally licence renewals were scheduled for start times from 6am to about 6pm. The late night sessions were mostly for conversion courses. The people on those would tend to get the same timing consistently, which did help with their sleep management. I recall doing most of my 767 and 747 conversion sims in the wee hours. When I moved to the 380, I was fairly early in the piece, so it wasn’t so busy, and the sim wasn’t running all night.

 

[jb747]

Older Sims were all night light. Newer Sims have the capability to operate as day or night.

The visuals in the later sims are very impressive. There were quite a few sessions in which progressive sunrise and sunset happened, though you rarely had time to enjoy it. I don’t think I can put a percentage on it, but I think that the 380 would incorporate about 25% daylight in the sessions. To be honest, it made very little difference to us.

In one instance, daylight sessions could be more difficult than at night. Low vis (fog) was often practiced in daylight, simply because it is much harder to see the lights/markings through the sun lit fog than it is at night.

 

[serfty]

I came across this video from 1995:

---

U.S. Naval Institute

#OTD in 1995, the engine of an F-14 from USS Abraham Lincoln exploded due to compression failure after conducting a flyby of USS John Paul Jones. The pilot and radar intercept officer ejected and were quickly recovered with only minor injuries.

https://www.facebook.com/14136042172/posts/10158630125962173

Was such an event as an armed services pilot ever seriously planned for?

 

[straitman]

I came across this video from 1995:

---

U.S. Naval Institute

#OTD in 1995, the engine of an F-14 from USS Abraham Lincoln exploded due to compression failure after conducting a flyby of USS John Paul Jones. The pilot and radar intercept officer ejected and were quickly recovered with only minor injuries.

https://www.facebook.com/14136042172/posts/10158630125962173

Was such an event as an armed services pilot ever seriously planned for?

Interesting that I found the same video yesterday. That sort of uncontained turbine engine explosion is extremely rare and is certainly unplanned for. What is planned for is what to do when you have an emergency of any type.

Personally I'm not sure what they mean by compression failure. A turbine engine has a compressor and a turbine so maybe they mean compressor failure. Turbine (jet) engines are so much more reliable than piston engines because of their simplistic design as much as anything else. Testament to this is the number of extremely expensive single engine aircraft around these days. eg the F 35 fighter and AS 350 helicopter. See How Jet Engines Work.

 

[jb747]

I came across this video from 1995:

---

U.S. Naval Institute

#OTD in 1995, the engine of an F-14 from USS Abraham Lincoln exploded due to compression failure after conducting a flyby of USS John Paul Jones. The pilot and radar intercept officer ejected and were quickly recovered with only minor injuries.

https://www.facebook.com/14136042172/posts/10158630125962173

I have a friend who flew F14s, so I'll ask him.

Was such an event as an armed services pilot ever seriously planned for?

Not quite sure what you mean. We took the potential use of the ejection seats very seriously.

 

[serfty]

Not quite sure what you mean. We took the potential use of the ejection seats very seriously.

As one would ... I phrased the question badly.

Maybe better asked in that with my assumption they ejected before the aeroplane disintegrated and would they have been made aware of warning signs in earlier training.

 

[jb747]

The F14 used the TF30 engine, which it inherited from the F-111, specifically the B model. It was never an engine that was suited to fighter use, and compressor stalls, especially during transitions (power or aircraft) were not uncommon. Generally though the engines were far enough apart, that issues with one didn't immediately affect the other. In this case, the engine has failed structurally and elements of some portion of the discs have simply chopped their way through the aircraft into the other engine. Very late in the piece there was a 'Super Tomcat', with much more suitable engines, but apparently they only ever converted about 80 of the aircraft.

Unashamed advert here. I asked Kevin Sullivan about this, and he got back to me almost immediately. He said that he even had an engine fail on his very first conversion flight on the aircraft. This is his book about automation, and it's an excellent read.

‎No Man's Land

‎Biographies & Memoirs · 2019

books.apple.com

 

[Mozza]

Totally agree JB I've just read Kevin's book it is indeed an excellent read.

 

[jb747]

Maybe better asked in that with my assumption they ejected before the aeroplane disintegrated and would they have been made aware of warning signs in earlier training.

There are no warning signs for this sort of failure. Good one second, gone the next. They most certainly did not eject before it went bang!

Two seconds can be a long time in aviation. Bang, huge motion, one or the other of the crew pull the handle. Both go. The USN would normally operate with both front and back seat command ejection active. That means that if the front seater pull his handle, the canopy goes, then the back seat, then his seat. If the back seater pulls the handle, canopy, he goes, then front seat goes.

Another big issue with this event is that the aircraft was transonic. They ejected at very high speed, and it's surprising that the sequence itself wasn't fatal. When I spoke to Kevin about this, he referred to another, very similar, event, that was a double fatality.

 

[jb747]

Following on...why is a high speed ejection so dangerous?

Well, first up the obvious... You've all stuck your hand out of a car's window at 100 kph. The air is pretty solid at that speed. Now imagine it at over 1,000 kph. It's literally a brick wall. Any extremity that isn't restrained is likely to be severely damaged, if not removed. Yuck.

But that's not worst part of it. You can see (or at least hear) from the video, that there's a very short interval between the breakup, and someone calling out the 'chutes. In the parachute, you'll be moving at about 20 kph, so in a couple of seconds, you've gone from 1,000 kph to 20 kph. Parachute opening isn't necessarily moderated. Some systems even explosively blow the chute open. The theory is that if you aren't given a chute quickly enough, you're going to hit the ground. That will certainly be fatal, so the slight chance of you surviving the opening shock is still the better alternative.

Needless to say, any premediated ejection will be at as low a speed as possible.

 

[flyer89]

And the compression fractures to boot. Don’t know where I read it but there was some anecdotal evidence that those who ejected have a far higher incidence of brain cancer later in life. One would assume something to do with the disruption of the spinal fluid.

 

[flyingfan]

Needless to say, any premediated ejection will be at as low a speed as possible.

Are there many scenarios where pilots can even try to slow down before ejecting? I'd have thought if they get to the stage of considering ejecting, it's either do that ASAP and have say a 30% chance of dying, or not eject and have a 99.9% chance of dying.

 

[serfty]

That means that if the front seater pull his handle, the canopy goes, then the back seat, then his seat. If the back seater pulls the handle, canopy, he goes, then front seat goes.

Those 10th's of seconds between ejection could be an eternity. While trying to look into this more I came across an F14 fatality where such a delay of 0.4 seconds meant the back set occupant survived but the pilot did not.

F-14A crashed on approach to USS Abraham Lincoln

 

[straitman]

And the compression fractures to boot. Don’t know where I read it but there was some anecdotal evidence that those who ejected have a far higher incidence of brain cancer later in life. One would assume something to do with the disruption of the spinal fluid.

Thanks for that (I think). Not sure about when jb747 did his training but in my time (circa 1970) we all did a trial half charge ejection up a set of rails as part of our Aviation Medicine training.

In 1976 I went for a back seat ride in a Mirage from Townsville to Shoalwater Bay during Exercise Kangaroo 1. Several days later that aircraft had an undercarriage problem at Williamtown and both pilots ejected. One of those who ejected (Geoff Shepherd) went on to become Chief Of the Air Force.

Earlier in 1976 I was at Williamtown watching a low level display practise of a formation 4 of Mirages. During the display we were called indoors and then the crash alarm sounded. We ran back outside to see only three aircraft flying. The pilot was uninjured and was in the bar a few hours later.

Here is a link to a supersonic ejection in Australia and another to ADF link to all Australian military ejections

Mirage A3-001 ejection

ADF ejections

Two seconds can be a long time in aviation. Bang, huge motion, one or the other of the crew pull the handle. Both go. The USN would normally operate with both front and back seat command ejection active. That means that if the front seater pull his handle, the canopy goes, then the back seat, then his seat. If the back seater pulls the handle, canopy, he goes, then front seat goes.

Just to clarify one thing. Many aircraft, possibly most aircraft, don't have command ejection. The Macchi, Mirage, PC-9 and PC-21 as examples do not have it.