OK, tell ya what. How 'bout I sit on your jumpseat and give you a series of instructions that will mimic the STAR. Instead of letting you know where to plan to be all the way down to 3,000', I'll give you a speed, minimum altitude, and maximum altitude for the point which is 40 miles ahead of you. Only when you reach that point will I give you the airspeed and altitude constraints for the next point 15 miles ahead. When we get there, I'll tell you how to fly to the next point 8 miles down the road. Just for grins, I'll throw in a few "Increase rate of descent", "Max forward speed", and "Turn 30 degrees right for traffic" instructions.

Or you can have the whole plan on the page in front of you, and I'll clear you for the entire procedure -- no surprises.

How can that make for more work?



It sounds like your beef is with OPDs, not "Descend via" clearances.

If you can't do an optimum profile descent on a "descend via" procedure, you won't get a clearance that will allow you to do an optimum profile descent without one. The altitude gates are there for a reason, and the speed constraints serve a purpose. If you don't have a STAR to "descend via", you're going to receive a series of instructions that will have you meet those same needs -- you just won't know about it until you get the call from ATC.

Not stable? What's not stable? Adds more stuff to do? Like what? Push the throttles up? Raise the nose? You have a certificate from the FAA to do that kinda stuff, right?


You poor thing -- vertical speed mode ... constantly adjusting for your advisory VNAV glideslope ... it must be exhausting. Oh, and you have to play with the throttles, too? Oh, my word. You must be exhausted after a flight.



You're obviously not very good at math, or you're not very good at flying airplanes. If you have to manipulate the controls more than once per second, you can't possibly know what you're doing.

Since you insist on that number -- 60-80 per minute, no, MORE than 60-80 per minute -- I regret that I attempted to reason with you. Come back to reality if you want a meaningful discussion.






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You claim that you want a "meaningful discussion" but then disregard the actual numbers and continue to make an @$$ out of yourself. Let me get this straight. You believe your own superstitions about descend-vias over an actual data point from FOQA that says 60-80 control applications are made per minute? And I'M the one who isn't living in reality?! Oh this keeps getting better and better. Please tell me you fly boxes...human beings truly deserve better.

The nice thing about numbers is they don't lie. If FOQA shows that descend-vias more than TRIPLE pilot workload, that's a conclusive data point. Yet you still claim it's easier to fly a descend-via! You're the delusional Kim Jong-Un of this thread!

Then you go on to question my piloting skills, and in doing so infer that the vast majority of pilots who are working 3X as hard on descend-vias don't know how to fly either. When everyone is doing something differently than you are, but you think they are wrong, chances are it's really you who doesn't know what's going on. The best part is, you still think you're better'n everyone else. You are completely and utterly clueless!

In your fancy automated jet, descend-vias are easier. In an RJ, they are not. What is so hard to understand about that???

 

What I believe is that your number is B.S.


xjtguy believes the same thing:
I fly boxes.

Feel better?






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New company policy has decided it is not stable . We are New company policy has decided it is not stable . We are expected to fly ODPs as if we had autothrottles and vnav because according to the company, if you dive and drive to simplify the arrival, the lag time to start the next descent may leave you too high to cross the next gate 5 miles ahead.

I actually like flying ODPs. It gives me a satisfying feeling to navigate a long ODP without vnav and hit each point smoothly. What I don't like about them is they present plenty of opportunities that can put my certificate in jeopardy. If a tailwind picks up or a controller has given me a speed change that makes me recalculate the descent and I get off of the ODP slightly, it can be nerve racking to try to catch back up with it. If instead a controller gave me vectors and manually descended me, and I am not exactly at the point the controller wanted, that is their problem and they will have to move traffic out of the way. Having a controller descend you gives you a little more wiggle room and an ODP does not.

And for the controllers out there if you know you are going to give me a descend via clearance, please tell me as soon as I check in. There are a few places where the controllers wait until you pass the planned descent point to make the first restriction before telling you to descend via.

 

Regionals have changed. I do many 2.5-3 hour flights into larger airports with multiple runways. At ORD you don't know what runway you will get until 12,000 feet sometimes. Even going to a smaller airport like RDU, I often get assigned the runway I didn't brief.

 

Soooo ...

Your policy says an ODP is stable, and your FOQA data says it requires 60-80 control inputs per minute.


If that's stable, I can't imagine how many more control inputs are required for "un-stable."


I think a more accurate adjective is smooth. There's nothing unstable about idle descents to step-down altitudes.






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Quote:

Originally Posted by TonyC

Soooo ...

Your policy says an ODP is stable, and your FOQA data says it requires 60-80 control inputs per minute.

You and I know that “stable” means “on vertical and horitzontal course, properly configured, flying at the correct speed and rate of descent, and the engines spooled up or down as needed.” The exact definition varies from OM to OM, but that’s the gist you’ll find in every one. Trying to draw a relationship between stability and control inputs is like comparing apples to oranges. If it takes 60-80 control inputs per minute to be stable, so be it. It takes the same diligence to stay on speed, loc and g/s when you’re flying an ILS in gusty winds, right? But if you do a good job and keep the bars crossed the whole way down, you don't call that unstable, do you? The same applies for descend-vias. Maybe not "smooth," but definitely "stable," and I'll take the latter any day.

In fact, when you’re not stable, it is likely because you have made FEWER control inputs (i.e. corrections) to prevent the flight from destabilizing, not more conrol inputs. And when you have so many parameters for being stable, such as on a descend-via with lateral, vertical and speed restrictions, you have to make far more control inputs to be sure the flight doesn’t deviate from these standards.

 

I agree, but the world of the training department is very different from the line. If they made me fly a box all day long I would probably come up with some silly things too after a few months. Every couple of months they have to come up with a new procedure just for the hell of it. Even on a LOC approach, we have to calculate our descent path so that we arrive right at the MAP and the MDA, because the idea of leveling off from a 700 fpm descent is dangerous!

 

Please tell me you don't fly people.



I notice you have abandoned your defense of "60-80 per minute."






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I haven't "abandoned my defense" of anything. My argument is factually supported and I'm standing by it, because it's right. Your argument has more holes than the Iraqi Navy and you should jump ship before things get even more embarrassing for you. Haven't the past few @$$-whoopings been enough?