OT. - Great Article re. Air France 447 crash

[shiny!]

Re: OT. - Great Article re. Air France 447 crash

and then you have the crj's.... Esp the ones mesa flys.... 'landing' isnt quite the word i use to describe touchdown..
Altho they are cheaper than my other option, i cant keep "if it isnt a boeing, i aint going" out of my head....
But i do like the screens on the back of the seats that the airbus' have

"crj"?

[Fiat Currency]

Re: OT. - Great Article re. Air France 447 crash

"crj"?

Canadair Regional Jet by Bombardier. Been to that plant more times than I can remember.

[lakedaemonian]

Re: OT. - Great Article re. Air France 447 crash

"crj"?

Bombardier CRJ(Canadair Regional Jet)

A family of regional jets or RJs that fill the space below the Boeing 737 and equivalent Airbus in the 50-100 seat range.

There's a couple of companies that make RJs.

Bombardier and Embraer ERJs

[lektrode]

Re: OT. - Great Article re. Air France 447 crash

Bombardier CRJ(Canadair Regional Jet)

A family of regional jets or RJs that fill the space below the Boeing 737 and equivalent Airbus in the 50-100 seat range.

There's a couple of companies that make RJs.

Bombardier and Embraer ERJs

now there's a RJ: the embraer is sooo much better of a plane (at least from the POV of the PAX)
we had a few of em out here for short time, gave the crj's a real run for the money - but the owner decided there wasnt enough demand to justify the operation and sent em to indiana, as i recall....

[BiscayneSunrise]

Re: OT. - Great Article re. Air France 447 crash

Perhaps they've fixed the problems and now train their pilots better? I don't know...

There really isn't anything intrinsically wrong with Airbus. The problem lies in the training with the human-automation interface. In the Air France accident, the level of training for the pilots was directly implicated in their failures.

There was so much faith placed in the automation that the pilots didn't have the fundamental airmanship and cognitive skills to fall back on when the automation failed. Hence, this accident has been a wake up call to the industry, even before the final report was published. In just the past year, airlines and training departments for corporate flight departments have placed a new emphasis on basic airmanship especially in high altitude regimes and deep into slow flight and stalls.

[Chris Coles]

Re: OT. - Great Article re. Air France 447 crash

By far the best question to ask is not who built the aircraft; but if they were ever glider pilots.

It is now only full cross country capable glider pilots that get the full airman ship treatment. Every form of stall and incipient spin entry imaginable. Another being very unusual attitudes under the hood when simulating cloud flying on the good old fashioned turn and slip with the air speed indicator and altimeter covered..... You only get to fly cross country AFTER demonstrating full spins in BOTH directions while solo. For years now, power flight training has eliminated many of the fundamentals of airman ship.

Flying a glider cross country for 8 hours or more, covering a pre-determined course of, say, 500 or more Kms is a lot of fun and I recommend the sport to everyone. Height record beyond 60,000 ft. Distance in a day now 3,008 KM.

Fly glider pilots. every time for better safety.

[BiscayneSunrise]

Re: OT. - Great Article re. Air France 447 crash

Hey Chris, Good point. Along with ultralights, gliders are about as close to pure flight that a human can attain. 100 years ago, every airplane was an ultralight and every pilot was well steeped in glider flying. The problem, if you will, began when cockpits were enclosed and pilots began relying less on "seat of the pants" and raw sensory input but more on instrumentation. It was as early as the 1930s when pilots really stopped being pilots and became systems operators of highly complex machines. Ironically, it is automation that in some ways has allowed pilots to concentrate on the pure aspects of flying while the computer does the drudge work of operating systems and navigating.

The dilemma for training department budgets is where to devote the limited training resources: to airmanship or automation management? The answer, obviously is somewhere in the middle. It looks like at Air France, the pendulum swung too far towards overemphasis on automation and to your point will now swing back towards airmanship.

Since this is an economic forum perhaps we can draw an analogy between the trust misplaced in aviation automation that ended in tragedy and the trust misplaced in various financial models and automated schemes that ended in tears.

[Chris Coles]

Re: OT. - Great Article re. Air France 447 crash

Greg, you give the answer to the dilemma, they need only go look in their local gliding club for all the applicants they need. But commercial flying has got a lot like F1 motor racing; the driver with money to pay for the access gets the job. Flying training is now so expensive, corners get cut. But the one corner you just have to retain is good old fashioned airman ship.

Once read a book written by an early jet pilot where he described the job as years of utter boredom interspersed with moments of pure terror.

What was so sad about AF447 was the aircraft was in perfect mechanical flying order; all they needed to do is push forward on the stick. People under pressure lock up; training for the unexpected has to create the confidence to make a small correction without having to think about it. That takes some time and dedication by competent instructors and has to be well thought out as an exercise. The Lasham syllabus, White Card, Red Card, Yellow Card and Blue Card with everything, (Cross Country, Field Landings and Aerobatics), www.lasham.org.uk would make most power pilots hair stand on end; but by golly, we sure know how to fly at the end of it. Not to mention you make friends for life helping each other push and pull your gliders at the launch point.

And just to top that off immense self respect for the achievement.

If you can fly an Open Class glider cross county, you can fly anything. (Once properly trained on type and cleared to fly).

http://www.glidingvideo.com/