Commercials pilots: stall warning, and they pull up!

Anvilfolk · #1 09-01-2011, 03:16 AM

So I saw these news today: http://abcnews.go.com/Technology/wir...inglePage=true

I was super surprised... so commercial airline pilots get a stall warning while in level flight, and their instinct tells them to pull the nose up? Then the plane stalls for real and crashes, killing everyone. This is serious! I mean, really? I'm wondering whether I want to fly again!

I was just wondering what your thoughts on this were...

ATAG_Doc · #2 09-01-2011, 03:20 AM

They need to lay off the AI control.

TomcatViP · #3 09-01-2011, 11:29 AM

It's a very good question and a freaking matter to be concerned with as a citizen.

I do have noticed this trend since the last ten years with pilot "natural" skills falling down. The fact is that young commercial airliner pilots (as might be in military) hve less and less interest in aviation than the years before.

The career (old) advantages have drawn a new array of public in aviation jobs (pilots, engineer, mechanics) that does not makes any diff btw average technologies and aviation sciences. [I do recall engineer's talks about the relative technological advance btw auto industry and planes with a surprising opinions candidly surfacing as the end result -And I won't name the plane manufacturer's plant were this conversation has occured

]

The direct effect is that such individuals are not committed them self the way it should be. I mean that the level of awareness in competencies has drop from active research motivated by personal interest, passion and the desire to excel down-to minimal requirements for job qualifications.

Obviously this is not to be generalized to the majority of individuals but as more the aviation industry (in North country) is seen as a job heaven with sexy outfits (you see my pilots wings) the more it will drag in that kind of individuals and screen out by direct Newtonian relation the more talented ones.

Sadly when flying in Eu as a can packed passenger I can feel alrdy the diff btw companies only during climb out and landing.

But what is scaring me the most with the kind of story like the airfrance crash is the wall of smoke layered by professional representatives in such accidents when any Aviation professional should hve agreed much earlier that the pilots reacted strangely to the situation.

Note1 : A330 hve rear CG balancing resulting that "bckward" pilot's induced oscillations during stall might be needed to put the plane out of a stabilized stall - only pure speculation from me due to the size of the balancing arm

Note2: for the AirFrance fight 447 crash go to : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Air_France_Flight_447

Wolf_Rider · #4 09-01-2011, 02:17 PM

Cockpits of the future will carry a pilot and a dog...

The pilot's job is to feed the dog, and the dog's job is bite the pilot if he tries to touch anything

bongodriver · #5 09-01-2011, 06:41 PM

I can assure you none of us are trained to pull up, the case in point was not the whole story, the aircraft was caught in severe weather with much windshear, and the pitot probes were blocked, the pilots had alot of confusing information to deal with, ultimately their response was a gamble...

Tomcat is right to suggest newer pilots are loosing many basic skills, here in europe we have pilots flying the heavies who have never flown a 'propper' light aircraft in training, they hold these new and bizarre 'multi-crew' licenses having done all their training in simulators, he is also right in saying the newer guys are doing the job because 'they can', instead of it being a life long ambition it is now just another career path with a nice uniform.

Jungmann · #6 09-01-2011, 09:21 PM

For an exhaustive look at this issue in regards to the Air France 447 crash, take a look at the several threads at http://www.pprune.org/rumours-news/4...age-found.html. See what the pros say about it.

Jungmann

IvanK · #7 09-01-2011, 10:17 PM

Keep the multi crew licences out of the cockpit would be a good start !

Blackdog_kt · #8 09-02-2011, 12:42 AM

I was having a similar conversation today with a friend from back in high school who is a pilot in a charter airline.

I was asking his opinion about all the automation that exists and how in many accidents the subsequent investigation came up with pilots focusing all their attention on getting the automatic systems back online, instead of focusing on flying the aircraft first and foremost.

Let's just say he's not very appreciative of the existing trend. He told me he's glad that while flying a jet he still flies a smaller plane that is hand-flown for much of the flight and there are many people who really are in it because they like it.

He also said that a lot of people just get into it because it's a well-paying carreer that their parents can subsidize before them landing their first job. According to him, it's mostly this part of the demographic that tends to aim for landing a first job at a major airline in a big jet and a lot of them tend to end up being more of a systems monitoring agent than a pilot after a while.

I think this is because of the way aviation is in Europe. In areas of the world like Canada, Alaska, Australia or Africa, conditions and geography make smaller aircraft very useful. A sizable portion of pilots tend to get valuable stick time in bush-flying conditions, flying smaller aircraft with less sophisticated systems and not much in the way of automation. These guys really are in the driver's seat and they rack up not only a good amount of hours, but hours logged in diverse conditions and mostly under their direct control.

However, Europe is mostly about the big jets and in all fairness, it seems that it doesn't make sense for a new pilot to pursue a career that will start in smaller airframes and work up from that, simply because there's not enough demand for this kind of flying to create the needed jobs that will absorb pilots willing to start off small and work up from there.

I don't know how things are in terms of cargo airlines, but as far as passengers go it seems to be a case of big jets mostly with everything that entails for building pilot habits when a 25 year old is placed into a highly automated cockpit straight out of flight school.

Madfish · #9 09-02-2011, 08:00 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by bongodriver

I can assure you none of us are trained to pull up, the case in point was not the whole story, the aircraft was caught in severe weather with much windshear, and the pitot probes were blocked, the pilots had alot of confusing information to deal with, ultimately their response was a gamble...

You make it sound like you're a pilot with a major airline. Without looking into the details let me say one thing: I'm suprised that you say it's a gamble!

At that flight altitude with a stall warning - bad weather or not (should've been over-, underflown or avoided in the first place?) - it was only a gamble because they didn't do what would've been done ususally - either leveling out that plane OR descent to get out of that stall, or am I wrong there?

Would there be any reason to not descent until you get out of the stall or at least level it out before pulling the controls back?

I guess the age of safe travel is over until we get fully automated machines. Real people can't ever be good pilots by sitting there sleeping for the whole flight and only flying simulators back home to get some experience. That's not trained at all - it's the opposite.

bongodriver · #10 09-02-2011, 08:56 AM

Quote:

You make it sound like you're a pilot with a major airline. Without looking into the details let me say one thing: I'm suprised that you say it's a gamble!

At that flight altitude with a stall warning - bad weather or not (should've been over-, underflown or avoided in the first place?) - it was only a gamble because they didn't do what would've been done ususally - either leveling out that plane OR descent to get out of that stall, or am I wrong there?

Would there be any reason to not descent until you get out of the stall or at least level it out before pulling the controls back?

I guess the age of safe travel is over until we get fully automated machines. Real people can't ever be good pilots by sitting there sleeping for the whole flight and only flying simulators back home to get some experience. That's not trained at all - it's the opposite.

No I'm Not, I fly Bizjets, but we all go through the same training....what difference would it make if I fly for a 'major airline' or not?
Why is it not a gamble? those guys found themselves in exeptional circumstances, with limited information, I don't need to fly for British airways to be able to say that whatever happened must have been extremely confusing for them and their actions were based on whatever information that lovely super-duper airbus computer alowed them to see.
as for replacing pilots......I'd like to see how you feel being replaced by a computer, thats what this world really needs isn't it?