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Another Boeing 737 Max-8 crash

Discussion in 'General' started by SPL170db, Mar 10, 2019.

  1. ChemGuy

    ChemGuy Harden The F%@# Up!

    Back in the day yes.
    But then a regional airline with a pilot who had failed several check rides (not a cool thing to do in the piloting world) and wasnt fired made some really stupid mistakes and crashed the plane on approach, killing all on board and 1 in a house.
    Congress...in its wisdom and pressured by the families to "think of the children" changed the laws to require all these little regional jet pilots, even the FO (co-pilot) to have an ATP. An ATP requires 1500hrs of flight time. You used to get your commercial certificate (min 250hrs in the US) and go fly checks, auto parts, Flight instruct, sky divers, banners, etc...for a while and get a few hundred more hours. Get on a regional fly for a while get your ATP and hopefully move onto a major. Now you have to get to 1500hrs to get hired at a regional, thats why they keep talking about a pilot shortage the last couple years.

    NOW...a commercial pilot with 250-300hrs can have a hard time getting on even at a drop zone....i see jobs posted and because of insurance they really want 500hrs flight time....

    So think about that...overseas you can have a FO flying right seat in a passenger jet....and he couldnt even get a job flying a single engine plane full of skydivers in the US.
     
  2. speedluvn

    speedluvn Man card Issuer

    When I was seriously considering a flying career in the early-mid 90's they were predicting a pilot shortage by the late 90's.
     
  3. ChemGuy

    ChemGuy Harden The F%@# Up!

    Easy. They are button pushers and didnt have, or let their, basic hand flying skills diminish to the point he couldnt hand fly an approach in clear weather. Something you do from lesson 1...

    Dont necessarily blame the pilot though...most airlines require the auto pilot be engaged right after takeoff, maybe a couple thousand feet. And the AP has to be used to fly the whole flight and the pilots take over and hand fly for the last several minutes. Those hand flying skills and judgement atrophy, just like racing skills, if not used.
    @Gino230 the hand flying policy on your line?? allowed...discourged but allowed....verboten?

    The lack of basic airman skills shows up in some of these overseas crashes from time time. But Europe and the US are not immune to bad pilots...see my post above about the regional guy.
     
  4. speedluvn

    speedluvn Man card Issuer

    I was floored when I learned of that crash and some airline policies that encourged the "extreme" use of the auto pilot. Gino mentioned the point earlier in this thread that the Airbus 320 was designed for increased auto pilot use.
     
    ChemGuy likes this.
  5. ChemGuy

    ChemGuy Harden The F%@# Up!

    And that one never really materialized.
    I got my PP in 94 and thought about using my GI Bill to fly instead of college. If I had internet back then and would have seen all the other cool pilot jobs vs airlines I may have gone that route. And been hammered by the downturn after 9/11...

    It's sometimes nice not make your hobby a job.
     
  6. ChemGuy

    ChemGuy Harden The F%@# Up!

    I guess I'm old school...I hate the way Airbus did the controls....the fly by wire side stick vs a yoke and the flip out keyboard where a proper yoke should be.

    Shows what they prioritize.....typing away instead of flying. :D
     
  7. speedluvn

    speedluvn Man card Issuer

    I'm so aware of this now!!!! ;)
     
  8. speedluvn

    speedluvn Man card Issuer

    When I first saw the cockpit layout I thought that side stick was quite odd for a commercial airline. The F-16 also had that side stick if I recall correctly?
     
  9. ChemGuy

    ChemGuy Harden The F%@# Up!

    Yep... The Viper is side stick. Lots of GA certified (Cirrus) and experimental also have side stick. But those are mechanically linked, like all planes form the beginning of time. The Airbus isnt. The only way the computer knows who to believe is either A...the only stick moving.. or B who presses the "priority" button. If both are moving then the computer averages it. I personally feel this arrangement was a major contributor to AF 447. The guy flying who got teh plane nose up kept his stick back and priority button pushed. The other guy has his stick forward and the computer just averaged it and left the nose where it was.
    If the sticks were linked, the right seat guy could ahve felt he was pushing against the other guy and said...WTF are doing...nose down.
     
  10. SPL170db

    SPL170db Trackday winner

    There's another I happened across called "DJ's Aviation"....its not about crashes per say, but general air travel and airline info.....its pretty interesting.
     
  11. speedluvn

    speedluvn Man card Issuer

    Or effective communication between the two of them but at that point there adrenaline was maxed out. :(
     
  12. RossK6

    RossK6 Grid Filler

    I heard reporting last night describing a database where pilots are able to report any issues that have occurred. At least 2 instances of the auto pilot going into a nose down attitude after take off. In both instances, the flight crew (US carriers), disengaged the AP within seconds and returned to climbing. I didn’t catch the name of the database, but this sounds bad for Boeing. The reporting also referenced a delay in the work on a corrective software release that may be related.
     
  13. Spang308

    Spang308 Well-Known Member

    A lot to be said for basic airmanship. When I got my private, I thought my instructor was a psycho with a death wish. He had me recover from every extreme attitude imaginable. While doing power on stalls in a Cessna 152, he'd stomp the rudder pedal just at the right moment to put us into a full spin, cross his arms and say, "save my life." The first one of those got my attention! Power to zero, opposite rudder to stop the rotation, slowly back on the yoke to pull out of the dive and power up. After awhile it got fun.
    He once called me and said the winds are whipping across the runway today. Get up here and lets do some touch and goes. We did simulated engine out dead stick landings all the way to the ground dozens of times.
    Within 1 month of being on my own with my newly stamped private, I understood his level of training. Once on approach to a coastal airport with winds whipping off the ocean in a Piper Archer that seemingly refused to lose altitude until I performed a slip and once when a controller in class B space vectored me too close to a dirtied up jet on approach to BWI and the wake turbulence turned me into Bob Hoover.
    Non issue both times.
     
    Gino230 likes this.
  14. jksoft

    jksoft Well-Known Member

    Buffalo?
     
  15. Jed

    Jed mellifluous

    What are y'alls thoughts on the global pilot shortage that's been reported? I know down in Newnan they train a shit ton of Chinese pilots through multi engine piston. I'm not sure what happens to those guys afterwards but my guess is left seat on a 787.
     
  16. baconologist

    baconologist Well-Known Member

    Yup, shaping up to be either;
    the code wasn’t writen for how the crews use the tool. <- not uncommon in application engineering across every market of products

    Or the crews wern’t trained for the new tool properly.
     
  17. speedluvn

    speedluvn Man card Issuer

    Are you referring to that crash in Buffalo, NY that shed light on the small regional irline pilot issues here nearly, maybe, 2 decades ago?
     
  18. jksoft

    jksoft Well-Known Member

    Yeah, Colgan Air 3407. I was wondering if this was the crash that prompted changes that ChemGuy was talking about.
     
    speedluvn likes this.
  19. speedluvn

    speedluvn Man card Issuer

    This has been my question concerning the procedure as to how an aircraft manuafacturer turns over a new plane, in this case the Max 8, who is responsible for training/introducing pilots to this new plane and its new avionic systems? It would seem like Boeing is taking the fall for training the airlines should have been doing.
     
  20. Newsshooter

    Newsshooter Well-Known Member

    Most of them go back to China. We have a local school that mostly seems to teach pilots from Singapore. I've heard good arguments for changing the ATP rule and focus more on the training than the hours.
     

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