Singlecoil

In the Colgan crash, the airplane was no where near stalling when the stick shaker activated. The captain then pulled 2 g's pulling back on the stick. The FO raised the flaps, which would have improved climb performance. I would guess she had no idea that the guy sitting next to her was not just doing a missed approach, but was going to continue to pull the nose up so high that he would cause a stall.
To say she should have known that an airplane that had enough energy to pull 2 g's was about to be flown right through that recovery and into a stall and hence she should have left the flaps down is a bit of a stretch. In hindsight that may be true, but her retracting the flaps didn't cause that accident.

BlueMoon

Quick question?

Would the shaker go off in a tail plane stall? I'm not sure where the q400 has AOA vanes, but would a tail plane stall cause the vanes to exceed the trigger point for the shaker to go off?

80ktsClamp

Very likely not. Having heard conversations of guys in their close kin regional crew rooms talking about , though... I'm of the belief that they both could have assumed tail stall. They did exactly what was being stammered about by various people to a T. With the amount of conversation about it going around, I think it negates the NTSB's assumption that the "tailplane stall" could not have been assumed.

However, his reaction is also what the training department culture forced into him thinking- that any altitude loss and getting the pusher will cause a failure. I have seen multiple people of his background profile (fundamental background being middle aged career changer that went through an accelerated program) react in identical manners to stalls in the sim. They tend to jump and make a hurried and aggressive reaction when something goes wrong hoping that they guess right.

There are unfortunately a lot of these types out there...

Skyone

Follow the logic here. It seems most accidents recently had pilots "hand flying" a perfectly good aircraft. So management sees the "statistics" and assumes pilots really aren't very good at "flying" anymore. So now comes FOQA or some variation of it that reports to cubicle dwellers and proves their point. Then comes some SOP stating that automation should be used at the greatest extent as possible (with some exceptions). Pilots know their day to day flying will be scrutinized by the CDs (cubicle dwellers) through snitch automation, so they just engage the automation so they don't have to deal with the CDs or their managers. These SOPs or general practices are there to control the pilots and remove the perceived threat of lack of flying skills. It will only get worse. Look at the philosophy of Airbus designed automation. The A380 autmatically takes care of any TCAS resolution with zero pilot input.

My airline prohibits hand flying above 10K and the autothrottles must be engaged at all times. Remember what Sully has in his book....."We are hired for our experience and judgement, but evaluated on our compliance". All of this stuff is so highly reliable that the CDs will use risk assesment to disuade hand flying. When things go wrong......well it happens so infrequently that we'll deal with the consequences when it happens.

So airline hiring practices seem to be going in the direction for those who have "managed" their automated cockpits, not whether or not you have been regularly flying NDB circle to land approaches. Great....you have been hand flying your Beech 1900 six legs a day into uncontrolled airports in all types of weather. But can you manage a highly automated cockpit in the busiest airports in the world and make instant changes, blah blah blah.

Friends, that's the future of commercial aviation with major airlines around the world. Good luck to all of us.

forgot to bid

That is true. Part 135 cargo jobs flying Barons and so forth are not that easy to come by, require as much time as what it takes to be competitive on the regional side. I don't know if there are lifers doing those jobs or what but starting out by flying a C210 or a Lance with no de-ice equipment in areas of the country where in flight icing is extremely common in the hopes of moving up to a Baron is a bizzare move to me.

Or you can get in line at a regional and start building turbine time and have your hat in the name that much sooner for an upgrade and hopefully 1000 TPIC and a new life.

And is JB still saying B1900 time doesn't count towards their minimums?


Interesting post.

Road Dawg

Anyway, my intent is not to start a prop vs jet debate, but to make the point that I do believe experienced prop drivers are under-valued when applying to major jet operators.[/QUOTE]

HERE, HERE!!! Grab a heavy iron pilot and stick him in a Baron or a Navajo for 6 hrs and he will squeal, take a Baron driver and stick him in a CJ or similar and he will spank it. I have flown them and yes there is a difference.
R.D.

Hacker15e

Absolutely spot on.

Of course, I also think that anyone with a Commercial ticket should have at least had basic acro, too, for the same reasons stated.

DAL73n

Agree - when I came off furlough (4 Years) I was WAY BEHIND. I had 25 years flying experience before furlough (never been grounded before). It took quite a while to get comfortable again. I found even in my early years in the F-16 that the new guys became HUD/INS cripples - I can only imagine what it's like for the 250 hour wonders going straight into glass. I now hand fly quite a lot to keep my skills up.

bcrosier

Nahhh, you're just THAT smooth - even the IRUs can't tell you're rotating!

Winged Wheeler

If automation could be installed on passenger cars that would reduce the risk to a level similar to that of airline travel it would be done quickly. On a slow news day they'd worry if people were forgetting how to drive.

WW