Airline Pilots "Forgetting how to fly"?

Everskyward said:
Unless he's a pretty small guy he isn't teaching in the Denver area in 150s. :)

Seems like we had a conversation about this the other night. I've taught in 152s here but I'm only 2/3 of a person.
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We were both a lot smaller back then. And even then, we still never had more than 1/2 tanks. I was skinny, he was a starving airline pilot. Haha.

All on Aurora Airpark's (formerly 01V) crumbling runway in the 90s. :(

http://www.airfields-freeman.com/CO/Airfields_CO_DenverE.htm

In some ways I hate that website for being, and in other ways it's nice that someone has taken the time to document (my) history. Aurora Airpark, Ft. Collins Downtown, Lowry, Avon STOLPort...

That website always makes me wonder which airport is going to die next...? Sigh.
 
Just curious, of those making accusations as to what "most" airline pilots want, how many have spent time in an airline cockpit?
 
rottydaddy said:
Airline pilots in general aren't doing much hand-flying or navigating while on the clock these days, but I don't know to what extent that has become a liability. I also know a few airline pilots who spend a lot of time flying bugsmashers and old-school heavy props, and they do just fine without the jet airliner "toys". They are among many, I'm sure.
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I had an interesting chat with a first officer on a Southwest flight about a few months ago. I sometimes pull my blue card out on the ground if the flight isn't overly busy and say something stupid like "can I visit the boys in the flight deck?" to the stewardess, more often than not it gets me in during preflight. As a result, I am now pretty familiar with the cockpit layout on those 737s that Southwest flies (silly considering I'll never fly one).

Anyway, that's besides the point.

So at some point I was asking some questions about the throttles and related automation, and then he said something that caught me by surprise, which is that the SW planes never fully autoland themselves - the AP disconnects automatically at 4000ft AGL. He mentioned it also saying he liked it that way because he felt like it kept him at least a little bit more a pilot.

I can't confirm or deny, just relaying a conversation.
 
Autopilots do not disconnect at 4000' AGL. Some companies have policies regarding autopilot use in certain regimes (required in RVSM, generally required for most approaches, can't engage below 400' on departure, etc), but I very much doubt anyone indicated that their autopilot disengages at 4000.'

SWA, like all operators, wants their crews using the automation, including on the approaches. They may be doing a Cat I approach, disengaging the autopilot at 200', but that's a far cry from 4000' AGL.

Crews usually have some discretion to hand-fly the approach, and some of us do like to hand fly when we can, but I'v never seen any requirement to disconnect the autopilot at 4000', or any system that automatically disengages at such an arbitrary altitude. Given that radio altimeters don't start reading until 2,500' and approaches can be conducted to fields with varying terrain around them, at what point would they establish 4000' AGL anyway? Airline operations don't reference that, except for minimums on the approach.
 
onwards said:
I had an interesting chat with a first officer on a Southwest flight about a few months ago. I sometimes pull my blue card out on the ground if the flight isn't overly busy and say something stupid like "can I visit the boys in the flight deck?" to the stewardess, more often than not it gets me in during preflight. As a result, I am now pretty familiar with the cockpit layout on those 737s that Southwest flies (silly considering I'll never fly one).

Anyway, that's besides the point.

So at some point I was asking some questions about the throttles and related automation, and then he said something that caught me by surprise, which is that the SW planes never fully autoland themselves - the AP disconnects automatically at 4000ft AGL. He mentioned it also saying he liked it that way because he felt like it kept him at least a little bit more a pilot.

I can't confirm or deny, just relaying a conversation.
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I think you misheard him on the 4,000' thing.

Also, no need to whip out the blue card. Just tell them you're a pilot.
 
BellyUpFish said:
I think you misheard him on the 4,000' thing.

Also, no need to whip out the blue card. Just tell them you're a pilot.
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But isn't it cooler to 'whip out the blue card'
:rofl::rofl::rofl:

(never done it myself - just asked to walk up and did so)
 
DouglasBader said:
Autopilots do not disconnect at 4000' AGL. Some companies have policies regarding autopilot use in certain regimes (required in RVSM, generally required for most approaches, can't engage below 400' on departure, etc), but I very much doubt anyone indicated that their autopilot disengages at 4000.'

SWA, like all operators, wants their crews using the automation, including on the approaches. They may be doing a Cat I approach, disengaging the autopilot at 200', but that's a far cry from 4000' AGL.

Crews usually have some discretion to hand-fly the approach, and some of us do like to hand fly when we can, but I'v never seen any requirement to disconnect the autopilot at 4000', or any system that automatically disengages at such an arbitrary altitude. Given that radio altimeters don't start reading until 2,500' and approaches can be conducted to fields with varying terrain around them, at what point would they establish 4000' AGL anyway? Airline operations don't reference that, except for minimums on the approach.
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Huh. Thank you for the input. Maybe he meant the throttle controls then? he definitely told me they don't land "fully automatic", although for sure it may be by policy rather than technology.
 
BellyUpFish said:
The guys who just came up and said "Hey, I'm a pilot.. Can I take a peek?" were received much better than the guys who were all "HEY FELLAS! I'M A PP-ASEL!!!!! LOOK AT MY CARD!"
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Yaknow... there ARE approaches that fall in between these two :D

Mine tends to be self-effacing. I usually get a couple laughs and they do make fun of me, but what do I care, I get to sit in the cockpit for a few minutes. I'll take being laughed at to do that every time.
 
onwards said:
Huh. Thank you for the input. Maybe he meant the throttle controls then? he definitely told me they don't land "fully automatic", although for sure it may be by policy rather than technology.
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SWA 73's are not auto land capable.
 
onwards said:
Yaknow... there ARE approaches that fall in between these two :D

Mine tends to be self-effacing. I usually get a couple laughs and they do make fun of me, but what do I care, I get to sit in the cockpit for a few minutes. I'll take being laughed at to do that every time.
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Having been there, I'd say there are few and far between that use anything between those approaches. ;)
 
onwards said:
Oh! so it IS true! that's what I understood from that FO... do you know more?
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Yes, it's true. The autopilot on SWA 73's are not capable of auto landing.

The 4000'AGL autopilot disconnect thing isn't accurate.

I've got a few friends at SWA, I can find out whatever you'd like to know. :)
 
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BellyUpFish said:
Yes, it's true. The autopilot on SWA 73's are not capable of auto landing.

The 4000'AGL autopilot disconnect thing isn't accurate.

I have several friends at SWA, I can find out whatever you'd like to know. :)
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I wonder what I misunderstood... I'm pretty sure he said something about 4000ft in this context.
 
Not sure. I can ask.

Maybe you heard 400'?' I believe is the min alt for engaging the autopilot on departure at SWA. It was 600' at my old company. Our ops spec called for 600' min alt of take off, mandatory AP usage on an RNAV departure, 80'AGL min alt on an ILS and 200' on a visual.

There are no significant call outs or automation events at 4,000 at SWA.

There are a few instances where the AP will auto disconnect, but it always follows another "event." Such as hitting the TOGA switches on a go around, but even then, you can fly a coupled go around.
 
Yes, maybe he said "four hundred" and I heard "four thousand".
 
he definitely told me they don't land "fully automatic", although for sure it may be by policy rather than technology.
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Autoland is very different than disengaging the autopilot during the approach. SWA does things a little differently; their policy on the use of auto brakes, for example, is different than almost everyone else.

Autoland is the capability of the aircraft to flare and land, while retarding the thrust levers, and must meet certain criteria, not the least of which is aircraft and equipment (and crew) certification. There are varying levels of capability and certification with respect to auto land, not all of them are fully automated.

Generally the minimum for autopilot engagement on departure is 400', though in many cases, it can't be engaged until flap retraction. That is the case in the classic 747; the autopilot remains off during the departure, which is hand flown, and the autopilot can only be engaged after flaps-up. Whereas we typically use the NADP-1 (noise abatement departure procedure, international procedure 1), we don't begin retracting flaps until 3000' above the departure point, and are typically 4,500-5,000 before the flaps are up...sometimes much higher. Everything is hand flown until that point. My preference is normally to hand fly until about 27,000', just prior to entering RVSM, before engaging the autopilot, and I try to do every other landing hand-flown, and every other landing using automation to stay proficient both ways.
 
onwards said:
and say something stupid like "can I visit the boys in the flight deck?" to the stewardess.
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You really say that???? In 2012 you may note that many of the "boys" in the flight deck are female whie the "stewardesses" are male.
 
The airline types are sensitive about that, but they're still stewards and stewardesses to me. They strongly prefer "flight attendant" these days. To me, they're crew members. Treat them respectfully, and move on. Getting hung up on titles is too much.
 
I dunno about fancy schmancy airliner autopilots but in everything up to and including a King Air I can hand fly an ILS better than the installed autopilots. I can see whats happening and correct the drift before it gets to even a full needle much less a dot . . .
 
The King Air's I've flown handled the ILS quite well.

Perhaps you've been flying with some poorly maintained autopilots.
 
comanchepilot said:
I dunno about fancy schmancy airliner autopilots but in everything up to and including a King Air I can hand fly an ILS better than the installed autopilots. I can see whats happening and correct the drift before it gets to even a full needle much less a dot . . .
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Every autopilot I've flown in the 121 environment could out fly me.

GA aircraft, up to and including a King Air (though I have very little King Air time) autopilots are no where near as precise as the 121 AP's I've flown.

I was perfectly comfortable letting Otto take me to Cat 2 mins, I don't know how comfortable I'd be in the Mu-2 with the ap down to those same mins.
 
Its not just airline guys.

How many rich guys struggle to get their PPL/IR then never fly. Thing again besides terrible TO's and down right banger landings in their fiberglass wonder planes?

My boss learned that a little 150 has a lot to teach when it comes to hand flying. I always pull the AP circuit breaker when doing training. If you can hand fly raw data and also use a flight director, hitting a single AP button isn't too hard to teach at the very end.
 
What is this auto pilot I hear you speak of? :D Oh, yeah, it's that box marked "inop" in a couple of our club planes. :D:D
 
DouglasBader said:
Autopilots do not disconnect at 4000' AGL. Some companies have policies regarding autopilot use in certain regimes (required in RVSM, generally required for most approaches, can't engage below 400' on departure, etc), but I very much doubt anyone indicated that their autopilot disengages at 4000.'
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Mandatory below 400' AGL on a Non-Precision approach to be Autopilot OFF for most autopilots/carriers
 
Captain said:
It strikes me as odd that folks flying bug smashers often look down their nose at airline pilots. "They've forgotten how to fly!", or "They rely too much on automation", or whatever the complaint of the day is.

The truth is flying a transport category airplane is just different that flying a C172. The 777 pilot is a systems manager. They are very complex aircraft and have multiple layers of redundancy across many systems.

Can you hand fly a 777? Sure, but the passengers are paying for the safest ride possible and that means having the auto-pilot on freeing the pilots up to monitor and do other flight chores. If the AP craps out it is a massive addition of workload taking one pilot completely out of the 'systems management' part of the job. Now there is only 1 pilot to do the work of what was 2.

Add a loss of FMS to the no AP scenario and it's dang near an inflight emergency. (no, I wouldn't declare one just yet but it would be a report to ATC). The point is, anything that takes away from the pilots situational awareness by adding workload is detracting from safety. That is why the AP goes on so soon and stays on for the duration.

Me, I hand fly more than most. I usually take it up to 6 or 7K before turning the AP on and turn it off as soon as I get cleared for the visual. I always back up a visual with an ILS if its available so there's ILS hand flying. If I'm in the soup with pax I don't hand fly approaches. The pax are paying for more safety than that.

Btw, I am a huge believer of turning off the AP when it's not doing what I want. Way too often I see people try to unscrew a situation by banging on buttons on the FCP. If the AP is taking the plane right and you want to go left then programming the box isn't the fix. Turning off the AP and turning the way you want is the fix. Heck, I even saw someone try to recover from a stall with the AP. (long story...I was not impressed!)
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Everything this guy said.
 
It's kind of cool, the way this thread keeps getting revived from the dead. Revival #1 was at post 30 and revival #2 was at post 44. Both times after half a year of death.

I'll bet after this thread dies next time, it will revive again after another six months.

Does anybody know what the story was, anyway, in post #1? It was so long ago that the link is dead.
 
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