AAMP
 

Who here remembers the American Airlines Advanced Aircraft Maneuvering Program lecture series?
How many of these principles still apply today?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=35Zy_rl8WuM
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FxXwqAm1a-Y
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WfNBmZy1Yuc
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pN41LvuSz10

Some of these are still shown during indoc.

What a great series of lectures. Really keeps you engaged. click click, click click. And im happy that pilots are no longer using autopilots to avoid midairs in the sims. I hope.

Which ones are still used for indoc? Im guessing children of the magenta and cfit?

Absolutely remember this stuff! Really REALLY good presentation, even twenty years on. Thanks for finding it.

Read the NTSB AA 587 crash report. They faulted the AAMP program in the report.

I thought it was a good program.

I haven’t re-watched these vids yet, but I don’t remember him ever advocating rapid full rudder usage, with rapid reversals of rudder input.

As far as I and many others are concerned, that FO panicked and over-reacted with the rudder. However, we all learned as a result of that accident that the rudder was never designed for that sort of rapid back and forth use, even well below Maneuvering speed.

Overall, that program was a huge asset to us.

They did advocate that....

I remember seeing a video of it on a documentary years ago.

From what I understand, that rudder technique has some applicability for planes with small wings-like fighters..... But I don't think it had any place being taught in regards to airliner ops.

Rewatch the videos. Vandenberg didn't advocate rapid rudder inputs reversals.

It has to do with rudder crossover speed. It applies to light aircraft, airliners, fighters, etc. At high AOA the rudder can have more roll authority than the ailerons. Vandenberg said "if you're at high AOA and the plane isn't rolling with the ailerons, considering using some rudder. But as anyone who's done spin training will tell you that's also how to enter a spin. So be very careful using the rudder."

You can verify where it occurs in any aircraft. Put in large cross control inputs and check at which speed the plane won't roll. Lower AOA will reduce in rolling with the aileron input. Higher AOA will roll with the rudder input.

Panic isn't the right word. The A300 was the most sensitive rudder in the airline industry. That, and the sensitivity of the old style rudder limiters, wasn't well known prior to the crash. So a healthy rudder input by the startled FO resulted in a 'startle' reflex and he put in an oppposite rudder input, and that surprised him. Similar to a PIO and it went back a forth a couple more times before the vertical stabilizer failed due to loads above the design limit.

AA 587 was a classic example of a huge world supplier of aircraft (Airbus) being protected by the investigative agency (NTSB) to cover up Airbus's gross negligence.

The rudder limiter on the A300-600 was a monster very few pilots knew about. But to blame Airbus would have put that company in serious jeopardy. So, what to do?

Find a convenient vehicle to channel the blame and protect Airbus at all costs. That vehicle was AAMP and the pilots' rudder inputs.

Case closed, "pilot error." What a crock.

AA 587 had **NOTHING** to do with AAMP and **EVERYTHING** to do with the poor design and lack of info on the A300-600 rudder limiter. F/O Sten Molin had no absolutely no idea the rudder was deflecting fully when he made very small inputs to help arrest the high roll rates that full aileron inputs only were not arresting. Every one of us would have done the same thing. Full aileron not stopping the roll rate? Of course we add some rudder. But we don't wanna put Airbus out of business now, do we?

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=crwVUwg7STQ

The event starts at 4:01. Vertical stabilizer failure occurs at 4:08.

So why did the NTSB blame AAMP? From what I saw in the videos, Vandenburgh didnt really touch on over controlling with rudder.

If anything, what occurred in THIS video is insane and im betting that the PF had to do the carpet dance after this landing.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=roS6oFjCDhc&t=24s

Its like 30..20...10... BOOM full right rudder BOOM full left rudder BOOM right BOOM left BOOM right. Real good way to overstress that rudder. What are you guys thoughts on it?

What were other airlines' training programs, like FedEx, about rudder inputs? I remember having talked to an old friend flying the A300/310 at LH about this and he found this rudder correction to be very unusual. If my memory serves me right, the general feedback on pprune was not very supportive of this rudder input method.

Again, just hearsay. Never flew the A300. Just an outside point of view.

Completely different loads at 140-150 kts on the ground and 250 KIAS airborne.

The A300 had the lightest flight controls, to include the rudder, in the industry.

The rudder design system is/was the same as the 707/727/737. The kicker is the amount of input(force in lbs), and rudder travel required, to get X deflection of the rudder is less on th A300. That's where the A300 was the more sensitive. The inputs made might have snapped vertical stabilizers on other airliners. The difference is the onset rate on other aircraft would have been slightly slower(due to force and rudder pedal travel required) so the risk of 'startle effect', and/or PIO, would have been less.

The NTSB report is very heavy on testimony from 3 or 4 Captains this FO had flown with (including aircraft other than the A300 IIRC, but it has been a while since I read it), and they all reported his tendency to grossly over-manipulate the flgiht controls when any non-standard situation was encountered.

Anyone who reads the report's references to the rudder techniques taught in AAMP (and has watched the AAMP video about upset recovery), taken in context with the testimony, and concludes that the root cause of the FO's actions was something the accident FO learned in AAMP doesn't have very good critical thinking skills.

AAMP upsets a lot of apple carts with the techniques it advocates. It is almost funny how many pilots, when discussing the AAMP series today, will immediately cite the A300 crash and massively overstate AAMP's relation to the cause, and use that to discredit Capt Vanderburgh and/or nearly anything/everything advocated in the AAMP series.

You can almost set a watch to someone making the comment, "well, that stuff works well for fighters, but not in transport category aircraft....", as if Warren just woke up one morning and decided to poop all this stuff out in a lecture hall without actually knowing if it worked or not in the airplanes flown by him and the pilots he was teaching.

There is a lot to learn in that series still for pilots today, regardless of what kind of experience is in your background prior to the airlines (or side-experience in aviation outside the airlines).

Bingo x2.

Funny that the FAA stall training has gone back to AOA reduction. Vandenberg talked about that as well as rudder inputs at high AOA. His point, almost verbatim, was "don't forget it's there (the rudder) if you need it." He didn't advocate it as a primary roll device under normal operations.

Again. 587 had nothing to do with AAMP and everything to do with protecting Airbus and its deficient rudder limiter, something no A300-600 pilot really knew about at the time.

When Sten Molin was "banging the rudder left and right" full travel, he had no idea. He thought he was making very minor rudder inputs. He certainly wasn't about to apply full rudder reversals, in fact his pedal movements should have corresponded with small rudder movements. He was applying rudder because full aileron inputs were not arresting the roll rates. But he had no idea that the rudder limiter did not work as he thought.

In other words. A300-6 pilots never had any idea of the monsters they were dealing with WRT the rudder.

The NTSB may claim that they are nothing more an investigative branch of the government in place to protect the travelling public but in reality the corruption that flows out of that place to protect certain interests is astounding.

Interesting.

I’ll have to look for that again.

Been ages since I saw it.

I also heard a theory that the plane may have had clogged up drain holes for the fuselage and perhaps a lot of water sloshing around in the belly-which would have multiplied the inertial effect.

I am familiar with that happening on some smaller airliners.

Sounds like denial. Even your own AA coworkers that flew with him testified he slammed the hell out of rudder pedals in wake encounters. While the AAMP never said to hit the rudder pedals back n forth repeteadly, SM used it as his justification for what he did to the CA of the 727 he flew with. This portion is in the final report. Testimony of people who flew with him prior.

The main problem with the AAMP that the NTSB had a real issue with was the instructors comments about how limit the bank to 70 degrees in unusual att recovery, because what he saw in the sim was at 90 degrees, there wasn’t much horizontal component of lift to roll back fast enough. The theory sounds great and all, but what alarmed the NTSB and Airbus is AA’s open admitedness that they were using the sims to 90 degrees bank. Those sims are not certified to reflect actual flight and reactions at that bank angle. Also disturbing, is that the NTSB found for the wake encounter excercise, the crew would be told they are behind a 747, and then the sim would bank one way for 10 degrees, and then flip the other way to a 90 degree bank. And during this time, pilot control inputs are locked out/ignored by the sim. Once at 90 degrees, then the sim allowed control input effectiveness. But all that did was negatively teach pilots that a wake could actually flip you 90 degrees and your controls are useless in the initial get go. The A300 has too much mass, momentum, inertia, and large wing to roll a FULL 90 degrees from a wake encounter. It wouldn’t happen. But this was SM’s sim practice. So when he launched in the real world behind a JAL 747, he was already prepped for a worse case 90 degree potential roll. His actions were immediate and obviously overkill.

While the theory of the AAMP is good, it was completely inaccurate in some of the sim excercises that rolled and pitched the airplane sims beyond what the sim was certified for.

Your explanation of his rudder use and how he meant small angles on the rudder are not matching reality. SM was lost in a world of his own. Already at 250 knots, climbing safely, he asks for max power twice. The CA never did (rightfully so). Just shows you the mindset of SM and what he was feeling (potential imminent ground contact, need to power out of this situation, etc). On a wake encounter in which the plane rolls, even 45 degrees, it should have been countered with pure aileron roll. The A300 at 250 knots in a slight climb AOA did not need any rudder. He was never on the back side of the power curve, and certainly above cross over angle of attack.


He screwed up, I don’t see a cover up for Airbus or the A300. No other A300 crashed for this reason. This time isn’t like the DC10 aft cargo door issue that took out several DC10s...

I have always mainly faulted the design.

NO way should AB have designed any plane which can lose it's damned tail with any rudder inputs like that.

I do still think the crossover speed stuff is a bit inappropriate. It's more of a "gee whiz, that's kind of interesting to know about" thing than any kind of advice which could ever really be applied to an airliner.

The closest I can think of that sort of situation was Air France 447, and they had a hell of a lot bigger problems than crossover speed.

I'm still amazed that the tail broke off in any case. The guy was rough on the controls perhaps, but was nowhere near the stops.

it’s a cover up, all right. I personally know several of the AA/APA investigators who were blown away at the lengths the NTSB went to protect Airbus. Remember, they will include/fabricate/doctor any testimonies to suit their agendas. They will purposefully distort data to do the same.

After all, this is the same agency that refused to investigate Eastern 985 (Mt Illimani, Bolivia crash in 1985) claiming that it was “too high of an altitude” to investigate...meanwhile, the wife of one of the victims went up there with no problems at all, along with several other expeditions later on. They refused to investigate it due to the potential of incriminating evidence in the wreck that would have placed several high level government figures at risk...

This is also the same agency that blamed TWA 800 on a “fuel tank explosion” and Egypt Air 990 on a copilot suicide. Please. The level of corruption to protect governemtns and aircraft manufacturers is truly shocking. 587 is no exception.

All airliners are at risk. They're not built to withstand multiple rudder reversals.

From the NTSB report (page 24) -

The A300 fleet standards manager also stated the following:
Most pilots think that a limiter on some system will protect...the pilot from exceeding whatever parameter that limiter is limiting. And in this case...and it’s not unique to Airbus aircraft...the pilots think that the rudder limiter will protect the aircraft structurally, and if it can’t...they think...that there would be a limitation or a warning or caution or a note that would indicate...that the rudder limiter couldn’t protect [the aircraft] structurally.
Regarding the rudder pedals, the A300 fleet standards manager stated that, before the flight 587 accident, American Airlines did not teach its pilots during training that rudder pedal movement would become restricted as airspeed increased. The fleet standards manager also stated that he did not know that the rudder pedal movement would become restricted because the pedals are not normally pushed to the stop in flight. In addition, the fleet standards manager stated that, before the flight 587 accident, he did not think that any pilot would have thought that full rudder could be gained from about 1 1/4 inch of pedal movement and 10 pounds of pressure (above the breakout force) at an airspeed of 250 knots.

Even Airbus' experts agree, at a level rarely needed, that rudder use is available for roll control. That's the AAMP point that mistaken became a primary input vs a rarely ever needed input (page 23) -

1.6.2.1 Public Hearing Testimony on the A300-600 Rudder Control System
At the public hearing for this accident,44 the vice president of Airbus’ flight control and hydraulic department stated that the rudder was not normally used during cruise flight to control roll.45 The vice president of training for Airbus North America customer services stated that the ailerons and spoilers were used to control roll.46 This Airbus vice president also stated that the rudder was used to control yaw and sideslip and that the rudder “is not a primary flight control to induce roll under any circumstances unless normal roll control is not functional.” He further stated that, if pilots were to experience a roll for any reason, “they will intuitively try and counter the roll with their normal roll control. If they exhaust their normal roll control, they will then go to rudder to try and induce a roll.” He added that it would be “a long path to get down to that level of degradation to where a pilot would be exposed to using rudder.”

APA's submission to the NTSB investigation -

http://pages.erau.edu/~rogers/as471/AA587/APA587.pdf

The charts provided show the 757 has very similar forces.

Pages 26-28 of the NTSB report show the forces and rudder pedal travel of different airliners.

https://www.ntsb.gov/investigations/...ts/AAR0404.pdf

What scares me is you think TWA 800 was shot down and that Egypt Air 990 wasn't pilot suicide.

There's no end to pilot conspiracies. Which is sad, because really as pilots we ought to know better than to believe wild unproven stories. For the record, TWA 800 was not shot down by a missile and Egypt Air 990 was suicide by the co-pilot when the CA stepped out for a bathroom break. He turned disconnected the AP, pitched down, repeated an arabic phrase over and over again (I rely on god), and then turned off both engines once the CA came in.

You are buying exactly what the NTSB wants you to buy. You don’t know the true investigation.

Egypt Air 990 was flying with one faulty elevator accumulator that evening (out of 3).. perfectly fine. Then the #2 accumulator failed. Even test pilots later on in simulators couldn’t control it with two out of three accumulators faulty. The aircraft entered a sharp nose dive, which flamed out both engines. The copilot (alone in the cockpit, the Ca was in the lav) started the dual engine out procedure which involves recycling the fuel control switches (that was the “fuel control switch shutoff”) and just happened to be praying while he was doing it (that was the “God help me” heard on the cvr.) He wasn’t able to save it.

Suicide, my a$$. It was a Boeing cover up, just like TWA 800 and AA 587. The government will go to great lengths to protect an aircraft manufacturer (and a lot more when there is an agenda.) If you don’t know this you’re quite naive.

Don’t believe everything you read in an NTSB report.

https://www.ntsb.gov/investigations/...ts/AAB0201.pdf

Page 4-6
Page 40-46
Page 50-5x

No evidence of jam.
Jammed elevators could be trimmed to fly hands off in level flight
FO pushing after CA attempted recovery resulted in split elevators.

I respect you given your background and experience. But this has to be filed under the wildest of conspiracy theories.

You used to be a reasoned and valuable info source on all things AA, and the industry overall.

But now? Yikes.