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[Sternjaeger II]

I have several friends who switched from Boeing or MDD to Airbus, and they all tell me the same thing: you need to change your mentality when flying one, because in fact you're not flying it, you're telling the computers your intention and they let it happen in the safest (according to their parameters) way.

IMHO there's one major design fault in the Airbus mentality: it dramatically limits the pilot's emergency decisions.

Airbus is a concept designed by engineers, and most of them don't think with a pilot's mentality.

Another issue is that many of the modern pilots don't have experience with conventional large jetliners or smaller aircraft, and consequently don't have a full grasp of unusual flight envelopes and how to recognise/deal with them.

A 737 will give you a totally different feedback when you fly it, the intention of Airbus is to cut the pilot's error off of the risk equation, but it's been demonstrated by several accidents how sometimes the cause of the accidents is because de facto the pilot is put in a secondary decisional position.

To give you an example: if your TCAS has a malfunction (or the other plane's TCAS does) and you have a visual contact that you need to avoid, the flight computers will not allow you to go beyond certain parameters in your avoiding manoeuvre. This is meant to safeguard the plane's structural integrity (which has redundant structural parameters anyways), but the computer doesn't think about the possibility of an unusual manoeuvre or going beyond the preset limits just for the sake of collision avoidance.

The whole idea of letting a machine do the thinking job that a pilot should is insane to me

[bongodriver]

+1

[Sternjaeger II]

Originally Posted by bongodriver

+1

High five for the old fashioned aviators Bongo!

[Sternjaeger II]

here, have a read at this for some extra info on the "Airbus mentality"

http://www.airbusdriver.net/airbus_fltlaws.htm

[bongodriver]

Originally Posted by Sternjaeger II

High five for the old fashioned aviators Bongo!

Absolutely, more and more jobs are going to computers and the x-box generation, it's going to bite the world in the ass hard.

[JG52Krupi]

Originally Posted by bongodriver

Absolutely, more and more jobs are going to computers and the x-box generation, it's going to bite the world in the ass hard.

!!!!!!!!!!!

It about safety, surely any attempt to make flying safe for passengers should be commended?

[bongodriver]

Originally Posted by JG52Krupi

!!!!!!!!!!!

It about safety, surely any attempt to make flying safe for passengers should be commended?

Sadly it has nothing to do with safety but is all to do with making money, you do realise comercial pilots are taken into the simulator just twice a year, and for some it's the only time they even come close to manual flying and even then not all emergencys are practiced, this is all about saving money for the airlines, unlike the military who get continuous training.
No........ real safety will come from properly trained pilots who are well practiced, but because humans are slightly less efficient than computers and burn slighly more fuel (seriously) the airlines discourage hand flying.

[JG52Krupi]

Originally Posted by bongodriver

Sadly it has nothing to do with safety but is all to do with making money, you do realise comercial pilots are taken into the simulator just twice a year, and for some it's the only time they even come close to manual flying and even then not all emergencys are practiced, this is all about saving money for the airlines, unlike the military who get continuous training.
No........ real safety will come from properly trained pilots who are well practiced, but because humans are slightly less efficient than computers and burn slighly more fuel (seriously) the airlines discourage hand flying.

Of course its do with safety, the money side of things is pretty much what is expected when you design a system based on what a airliner requires...

But aren't you seriously over generalizing a bit on the training... sure some airliners don't train nearly of often as they probably should but the "top" airlines have a good record for a reason.

[JG52Krupi]

Originally Posted by Sternjaeger II

I have several friends who switched from Boeing or MDD to Airbus, and they all tell me the same thing: you need to change your mentality when flying one, because in fact you're not flying it, you're telling the computers your intention and they let it happen in the safest (according to their parameters) way.

IMHO there's one major design fault in the Airbus mentality: it dramatically limits the pilot's emergency decisions.

Airbus is a concept designed by engineers, and most of them don't think with a pilot's mentality.

Another issue is that many of the modern pilots don't have experience with conventional large jetliners or smaller aircraft, and consequently don't have a full grasp of unusual flight envelopes and how to recognise/deal with them.

A 737 will give you a totally different feedback when you fly it, the intention of Airbus is to cut the pilot's error off of the risk equation, but it's been demonstrated by several accidents how sometimes the cause of the accidents is because de facto the pilot is put in a secondary decisional position.

To give you an example: if your TCAS has a malfunction (or the other plane's TCAS does) and you have a visual contact that you need to avoid, the flight computers will not allow you to go beyond certain parameters in your avoiding manoeuvre. This is meant to safeguard the plane's structural integrity (which has redundant structural parameters anyways), but the computer doesn't think about the possibility of an unusual manoeuvre or going beyond the preset limits just for the sake of collision avoidance.

The whole idea of letting a machine do the thinking job that a pilot should is insane to me

From what I have heard the latest Boeing is more towards an A320 set up than the 737.... (not sure if that's correct!)

Yes your right it was a designed by engineers but it was designed by engineers towards an airlines requirements rather than the pilots, so don't come out with the "engineers don't know this, that etc..." talk.

Its a proven concept and while I understand pilots might find an Airbus boring to fly the airlines like them and there the people who buy the aircraft ...

Originally Posted by Sternjaeger II

A 737 will give you a totally different feedback when you fly it, the intention of Airbus is to cut the pilot's error off of the risk equation, but it's been demonstrated by several accidents how sometimes the cause of the accidents is because de facto the pilot is put in a secondary decisional position.

Agreed... but a mute point as several accidents have shown that if the aircraft had an "Airbus" system the accident might not have happened... unfortunately there is no fool proof system its entirely situational as to which one "Trumps" the other ....

[Sternjaeger II]

Originally Posted by JG52Krupi

From what I have heard the latest Boeing is more towards an A320 set up than the 737.... (not sure if that's correct!)

Yes your right it was a designed by engineers but it was designed by engineers towards an airlines requirements rather than the pilots, so don't come out with the "engineers don't know this, that etc..." talk.

Its a proven concept and while I understand pilots might find an Airbus boring to fly the airlines like them and there the people who buy the aircraft ...

I know you're an engineer, and mine wasn't a take at the category (one of my best friend is a materials engineer for Airbus), my point was that the philosophy of Airbus is one of selling a product that meets a specific requirement: abating costs of all, pilot training as well.
Back in the days every machine had its quirks and syllabus, and getting a rating for a pilot was often a costly business: Airbus thought of a modular integration of the same systems on all their machines, with the intent of a cheaper training and an easier pilot type rating, so that an airline company can use their pilots' organic in a more cost effective manner.
There's nothing wrong in this, but they had to take certain shortcuts that are potentially very dangerous.
As I said before, the ultimate decisional power should stay with the pilot, not with the aircraft, because no matter how "smart", flight computers and their integrated systems lack of a very important thing: a complete situation awareness.

Agreed... but a mute point as several accidents have shown that if the aircraft had an "Airbus" system the accident might not have happened... unfortunately there is no fool proof system its entirely situational as to which one "Trumps" the other ....

The accident of the Air France Airbus is a typical example of a chain of events which is all peculiar to Airbus.

The 737 holds probably the saddest record in aviation: it's the civilian aircraft with the highest number of unexplained air accidents. A study made by the FAA in the late 90s estimated that the majority of the inexplicable accidents were in fact caused by the crew, not by the aircraft. As you know, any structural issue found on an aircraft nowadays almost immediately grounds all the same models in the whole world until a fix is found. Considering the longevity of the 737, it is safe to assume that virtually pretty much every aspect of fatigue and design flaws has been monitored and fixed, so what really makes it a dependable aircraft is its operational life.

The weak link is not the machine per se then, but the quality of training and pilots. Taking decisional power off the crew though is not the way forward.

What emerges from the black box of the Airbus flight is scary not only because of the content per se, but because it emerges that the flight computers were following a cycle of action and none of the three trained pilots were situation aware, they did not understand what was happening.