Autopilot Disconnection
- Thread starter blakman7
- Start date
SlumTodd_Millionaire
Most Hated Member
Then that's a different story. Smart pilots use all of the resources at their disposal in the most effective manner. If an AP isn't at your disposal, then you make do with what you do have.
jtrain609
Antisocial Monster
True dat, but you guys also are not shooting Cat II approaches in the 19 hundy or the Lear.
Don't get me wrong, it was a blast hand flying the Chieftain or Beech 99 down to minimums and then doing the entire missed by yourself without anybody there to help, but it's a whole different ball game with this Cat II monitored crap.
Don't get me wrong, it was a blast hand flying the Chieftain or Beech 99 down to minimums and then doing the entire missed by yourself without anybody there to help, but it's a whole different ball game with this Cat II monitored crap.
PCL....by my post I didn't mean to fly the ENTIRE missed without the autopilot, just the initial portion. Hitting the TOGA buttons in the CRJ automatically disengages the autopilot anyway. As per our POH we're not allowed to re-engage untill 600 feet. Now, in the time it takes to press TOGA, pull back, push up the thrust levers and start your initial turn, it's usually time to re-engage....but the AP cannot do all that initial stuff for you. Gotta man up and do something for yourself (sarcasm)
Only when I was flying part 91 while instructing. Generally I took over around 500'. Normally I was able to do a better job than Otto. I know I'm not that good, so it had to be a shnitty AP.
-mini
jtrain609
Antisocial Monster
I meant an actual coupled, monitored approach that's approved by the FAA in a 121 or 135 airplane.
I understand your argument bro, I used to work at Amflight so I understand where you're coming from flying Chieftain's around in the crap, but this is just simply a completely different ball game.
I understand your argument bro, I used to work at Amflight so I understand where you're coming from flying Chieftain's around in the crap, but this is just simply a completely different ball game.
Well let me do more of a response that my "drive by" I did on it.
If the weather is dog poop or there's a complicated departure or arrival procedure (the SIDS and STARS in Europe are freaking Donkey Kong, some of them), get the autopilot on because it decreases the NFP (non-flying pilot) workload in most circumstances. Not ALL but most.
If it's an LNAV departure and a special climb procedure, I'll turn it on fairly soon in the initial climb because I want to monitor the performance of the aircraft and watch for any lateral deviations from the flight path so we don't end up with a massive cross track error and get an expensive noise violation.
Our FOM mentions flying with the highest level of automation. Generally, if the weather is above CAT-I, many will hand fly the aircraft. If the weather is at CAT-I, many pilots will start thinking about setting up the aircraft for CAT-II if available. If the weather is at CAT-II, we're thinking CAT-III.
I do think some hand-fly when it'd be a great benefit to situational awareness to have the autopilot on. I remember doing a departure in a round-dial 737 out of EWR years ago where the captain was hand flying and I was working the radio, watching the DME's and programming his turns into the heading selector AND monitoring his progress. Then EWR departure issued us a low-altitude hold down so it involved another series of modifications to the AP/FD.
Whew!
If the weather is dog poop or there's a complicated departure or arrival procedure (the SIDS and STARS in Europe are freaking Donkey Kong, some of them), get the autopilot on because it decreases the NFP (non-flying pilot) workload in most circumstances. Not ALL but most.
If it's an LNAV departure and a special climb procedure, I'll turn it on fairly soon in the initial climb because I want to monitor the performance of the aircraft and watch for any lateral deviations from the flight path so we don't end up with a massive cross track error and get an expensive noise violation.
Our FOM mentions flying with the highest level of automation. Generally, if the weather is above CAT-I, many will hand fly the aircraft. If the weather is at CAT-I, many pilots will start thinking about setting up the aircraft for CAT-II if available. If the weather is at CAT-II, we're thinking CAT-III.
I do think some hand-fly when it'd be a great benefit to situational awareness to have the autopilot on. I remember doing a departure in a round-dial 737 out of EWR years ago where the captain was hand flying and I was working the radio, watching the DME's and programming his turns into the heading selector AND monitoring his progress. Then EWR departure issued us a low-altitude hold down so it involved another series of modifications to the AP/FD.
Whew!
As I said, I've only done them part 91 so I didn't need any "approval" to fly an approach using an autopilot other than an approach clearance and the limitations in the AFM.
Does a King Air count?
Citation?
An airplane is an airplane. The regulations you operate under don't change the approach or make it a "completely different ball game".
-mini
jtrain609
Antisocial Monster
Oh and here's a problem with hand flying; when the guy next to you screws up programming the autopilot and you don't catch it.
I ran into a situation where the controller asked for a tight turn and when we hit Vfs, I commanded Flight Level Change, which in our aircraft gives us speed hold 240 knots. So I'm climbing up, kinda following the flight director, kinda accelerating on my own and I see the FD pitching further and further up. I start to think to myself, "Huh, that's kinda strange that this thing wants 20 degree's nose up to hold 240 knots." A second or two later I see my speed tape decelerating way faster than it should be and I say, "Why are we setup for speed hold 180?"
Turns out the skipper thought it was a good idea to climb out at 180 knots for the tight turn, which wouldn't have been a bad idea if he had:
-Told me what he was doing instead of putting what I asked for into the box
-Rembered we had a 2000' restriction
-Remembered we were in a REALLY light XR with 15 people in the back
So there I was, shooting up at like 4,000 FPM to begin with trying to figure out what the heck was going on with the flight director and trying to not put the poor folks on the ceiling.
Lessons? Don't trust the guy next to you to press the right buttons, look through the flight director a little bit more than I have been and make sure you're on the same page! Oh and if you put something else in the box besides what the guy next to you asks for, but real clear about what you're doing and why. The skipper thought I knew what was going on, but didn't tell me that he hit speed hold 180 and didn't explain to me why he was doing it (I had never done that procedure before to bring the aircraft around quickly, but it makes a ton of sense!). A few minutes later we were climbing through 10,000' and we talk about what happened, no harm, no foul and we're all back on the same page again, but lessons were for sure learned on that one!
I ran into a situation where the controller asked for a tight turn and when we hit Vfs, I commanded Flight Level Change, which in our aircraft gives us speed hold 240 knots. So I'm climbing up, kinda following the flight director, kinda accelerating on my own and I see the FD pitching further and further up. I start to think to myself, "Huh, that's kinda strange that this thing wants 20 degree's nose up to hold 240 knots." A second or two later I see my speed tape decelerating way faster than it should be and I say, "Why are we setup for speed hold 180?"
Turns out the skipper thought it was a good idea to climb out at 180 knots for the tight turn, which wouldn't have been a bad idea if he had:
-Told me what he was doing instead of putting what I asked for into the box
-Rembered we had a 2000' restriction
-Remembered we were in a REALLY light XR with 15 people in the back
So there I was, shooting up at like 4,000 FPM to begin with trying to figure out what the heck was going on with the flight director and trying to not put the poor folks on the ceiling.
Lessons? Don't trust the guy next to you to press the right buttons, look through the flight director a little bit more than I have been and make sure you're on the same page! Oh and if you put something else in the box besides what the guy next to you asks for, but real clear about what you're doing and why. The skipper thought I knew what was going on, but didn't tell me that he hit speed hold 180 and didn't explain to me why he was doing it (I had never done that procedure before to bring the aircraft around quickly, but it makes a ton of sense!). A few minutes later we were climbing through 10,000' and we talk about what happened, no harm, no foul and we're all back on the same page again, but lessons were for sure learned on that one!
Sorry, but your situation isn't a problem with hand flying, it's a problem with crew communications. The captain didn't tell you what he put in the box and you were expecting something else. That has nothing to do with hand flying and everything to do with communicating with each other. CRM.
You can hand fly off of raw data too, if the FD isn't giving you what you think you should be getting. Check, check again, then do it all over again.
-mini
flyguy
Well-Known Member
Nick
Well-Known Member
From a few posts back, yes there is no way I'd disconnect the ERJ autopilot at 80'AGL on the missed unless it did something to show me it wasn't going to do it correctly. I have no reason to believe it would screw up; I have yet to see something goofy inside a 5 mile final from this autopilot and I would prefer to watch it start the missed approach as I monitor the pitch and speed and RA and then make sure the PNF is correctly setting up the missed approach procedure since we can't fly it in LNAV.
As to what JTrain said about the ERJ autopilot screwing up, I've had similar experiences in that 80% of the time it does something goofy it is because the person manipulating it did something equally goofy.
Like, "Flight 123 proceed direct San Marcus" and the pilot flying on autopilot in heading mode first spins the heading but towards the VOR (as if to save a huge amount of time?) and three seconds later clicks direct in the FMS and engages LNAV while the plane is in the heading mode turn, which after three legs on IOE you see it doesn't do very well. If people would just do direct to the VOR and then select LNAV after a second or two, they will see it has perfectly calculated the turn it needs to make.
The localizer capture is sometimes a bit bizarre but then again, that's often when we are outside of the standard service volume of 18 miles. Closer it in does a reasonable job almost half of the time.
As to what JTrain said about the ERJ autopilot screwing up, I've had similar experiences in that 80% of the time it does something goofy it is because the person manipulating it did something equally goofy.
Like, "Flight 123 proceed direct San Marcus" and the pilot flying on autopilot in heading mode first spins the heading but towards the VOR (as if to save a huge amount of time?) and three seconds later clicks direct in the FMS and engages LNAV while the plane is in the heading mode turn, which after three legs on IOE you see it doesn't do very well. If people would just do direct to the VOR and then select LNAV after a second or two, they will see it has perfectly calculated the turn it needs to make.
The localizer capture is sometimes a bit bizarre but then again, that's often when we are outside of the standard service volume of 18 miles. Closer it in does a reasonable job almost half of the time.
Type what you mean. You either intended to discuss a problem with hand flying, which is in fact a CRM issue...or you intended to discuss a CRM issue. Which is it?
-mini
kellwolf
Piece of Trash
Yep. I don't think anyone was suggesting hand flying the entire missed. It's WAY too workload intensive on a missed approach to do that to your PNF. But you really don't have a choice on the intial portion.
Baronman
Well-Known Member
No Kidding????
Couldn't resist
Hate to tell you but fog isn't the only way to get visibility down to CAT 2 mins.
What I was saying was that most of my Cat 2 approaches have had weather with 1600RVR and 100'OVC with winds around 10 knots as opposed to snowy-windy nights in Halifax or St. John's with metars that look like 27022G32 0SM +SN 100OVC M03/M04 A29.76
Big difference shooting a precision to mins getting knocked around in icing and weather as opposed to going through some ground fog layer.
SlumTodd_Millionaire
Most Hated Member
On the CRJ, that's obviously the case. Without autothrottles, you really can't have an autopilot that automatically pitches up with a press of the TOGA. But as you said, by the time you've hit the TOGA, called for flaps 8 or 20 and gear up, and advanced the thrust levers, you're already at the 600 feet and it's time to get Auto back in control so the crew can focus on monitoring things and planning ahead. On the 717 (and I imagine just about any other modern airliner with autothrottles), hitting the TOGA will command the autopilot to pitch up and the throttles to advance to GA power. At 400 feet, you just hit NAV and it follows the procedure perfectly.