Asiana officially blames crew for flt 214...and the autothrottle.

The issue with Boeing FLCH inside the FAF is that FLCH deactivates the autothrottle servos (THR HOLD). Unlike VNAV where the TLs will come back alive if you get slow, they won't do it in FLCH. As one poster mentioned, if you're hand flying, you need to be aware that the autothrottles would be providing no protection. Best to just turn everything off at that point and fly errplanes.

It's essentially the same for the E190. For a descent the thrust levers will either go to idle, or to a reduced power setting for shorter descents. They aren't technically deactivated, but they are fixed, and will not wake up no matter how slow you go, even if you get a shaker. In fact, that's one of the demos we do in the sim, a stick shaker with the AP off and AT on, with the pilot looking outside during a visual. The plane will happily let you stall in FLCH with the AT engaged.

We don't turn the ATs off, but we do not use FLCH on approaches for that reason. If the flight directors are off, the auto thrust mode becomes speed on thrust, so once you aren't using the flight directors anymore, they are mandated to be turned off. That provides an additional level of protection.

I have flown with handful of guys that click off the auto thrust when the AP is off, but that's fairly rare. Most, including myself, just keep a hand on the thrust levers and override it as necessary.
 
The 717 (#notreallyaboeing has become my new favorite hashtag) does this on takeoff at 80 knots by putting the autothrottles in CLAMP (which is actually unclamping the servo) so you can adjust the power as needed. The only other time it does this is if you are hand flying in "speed on pitch" mode (similar to the speed on elevator that @PhilosopherPilot mentioned). That said, there is still a low speed wake up that will power up the engines if you get near the stall speed.

I'd say that about 95% of the guys out here dump the auto throttles either before or at the same time they get rid of the autopilot during the descent and landing. The guy I flew with yesterday is actually one of the only ones I've seen that often leaves the autothrottles on all the way down to the pavement.

It makes sense that the thrust levers wake up! I'm not sure why the E190 doesn't have that functionality. Seems like common sense to me. :)

I will say that the closest I've come to getting a stick shaker in the E190 was with a captain who turned off the auto thrust on an approach. When we leveled off at intercept altitude, I felt like something wasn't right, noticed the pitch increasing, and then noticed the speed decreasing. A simple, "Hey watch your speed" avoided the shaker, but we were pretty close to the red snake. It's simply amazing how quickly things can go from A-OK to "something doesn't feel right."
 
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It's odd how different airlines flying the exact same equipment can have such different cultures on this stuff. It's a really rare pilot here at the Tran who turns off the autothrottles at all on an approach, including visuals. They're usually on until the pavement. I only turn them off if it's incredibly gusty and I'm spending all of my time overriding them.

You just described about 90% of our weather here.

I think it's a cultural thing. Pretty much all of the captains on the 717 either flew the DC9 or flew with captains who flew the DC9 so there is still a direct link to the culture and operations of that plane. It leads to a minimum reliance on technology, even if it is there to use. That's not to say that guys are afraid of the technology or don't use it ever, but the majority of the time the autopilot and autothrottles come off somewhere just after top of descent or when the first turn to head towards the runway is required.
 
The 717 (#notreallyaboeing has become my new favorite hashtag) does this on takeoff at 80 knots by putting the autothrottles in CLAMP (which is actually unclamping the servo) so you can adjust the power as needed. The only other time it does this is if you are hand flying in "speed on pitch" mode (similar to the speed on elevator that @PhilosopherPilot mentioned). That said, there is still a low speed wake up that will power up the engines if you get near the stall speed.

I'd say that about 95% of the guys out here dump the auto throttles either before or at the same time they get rid of the autopilot during the descent and landing. The guy I flew with yesterday is actually one of the only ones I've seen that often leaves the autothrottles on all the way down to the pavement.

The boeing ATs work the exact same way.... they go into "throttle hold" (same thing as CLMP) both around 80 knots on takeoff and during FLCH (speed on pitch). The 777 has the low speed wake up.

DL culture is the exact same... autopilot comes off, so do the AT with most guys. It's less on the bus fleet, particularly with the NW guys that have been on it since its inception, but there has been a big manual thrust push on the fleet due to automation reliance issues.
 
Are you saying you said "gear" to the CA or you said option two "speedbrakes aren't.... [filler]" ?

In my career as FO the one thing I've learned after flying with many of "those" guys is I now find my self verbalizing these kinds of things. In the case you mentioned, I don't think I'd get away with just a gear down. Usually I have to preface it with the second part.

Might have something to do with company culture too. Delta likes to say they hire captains, not pilots. Now, maybe it's because I've been doing it for awhile now, but when it's my leg, I tell the captain what I want him to do, not ask for permission.
 
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What does it say on the side of the plane @ATN_Pilot ?



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They can slap their name on it all they want, but it's still a Douglas!

I wonder how successful Delta will be in convincing Boeing to make updates to the plane as needed. I know that once the line stopped, Midwest, Air Tran, Hawaiian, QantasLink and whomever else had the plane couldn't get Boeing to do anything. Maybe Delta has enough pull to make that happen now.
 
I personally would rather see initial training in transport category jets focus more on the basics of flying a transport cat airplanes then running a QRH over and over. I really do think training the very basics like how to go Up, Down, Left, Right, and how to decide and the consequences for each Mode would go much farther in controlling the aircraft fundamentally.
I actually asked for that specific training. "Yeah....there isn't time for that" was the answer. I understood, but still, I agree. I'd like some time dedicated to just playing with the automation. The Airbus has really kicked my butt, it is completely different from anything I have flown before. I like it, it's just complicated IMO. It does a lot of neat things for you, and personally I love the auto thrust system. You can focus on flying the plane more, keep your head outside, etc.
 
http://www.usatoday.com/story/trave...sb-san-francisco-boeing-autothrottle/6574165/

Very interesting read. Two things that stick out to me:

When I was working as CS at Air New Zealand back in the day, I asked a 777 crew what the FLCH button did with the autopilot. All 3 F/Os looked puzzled as if they were searching for an answer, then they laughed and asked the C/A if he knew. The C/A gave me an explanation and said they didn't use it much. I thought it was interesting that they didn't understand it's function well enough to explain it.


Yup. While more "just in case" features can't hurt, what it comes down to is pilots need to be able to hand-fly their airplane. Electronics are nice to have, but there's humans up there for a reason. I would not want to anyone I know to be in the back of any plane if the PIC is not comfortable with a visual approach on a perfect sunny day. I guess I shouldn't be shocked that Asiana still thinks Boeing could have done anything more to prevent their pilots from coming in dangerously low and slow, but I sort of am at this point.

This was not a "pilot skill" accident. I would bet you that these pilots, given an aircraft in a known state with all automation off, could fly the thing as precisely as anyone. Calling it "pilot skills" is missing the issue entirely.
 
This was not a "pilot skill" accident. I would bet you that these pilots, given an aircraft in a known state with all automation off, could fly the thing as precisely as anyone. Calling it "pilot skills" is missing the issue entirely.

Sort of like saying Marvin R wasn't a pilot skills issue. Meaning no disrespect, but what you are saying is the Asiana guys got bit by the same thing that bit Marvin. Had they known the problem they would have saved the plane. Quite honestly, I think knowing the problem would have saved a good number of crashes in the history of aviation. Maybe even most of them.

They pay us the big bucks to not crash. How we get there is seeing the big picture. It's not as easy as it sounds but situational awareness of airspeed and altitude when you are close to the ground is huge. Not screwing up a basic procedure is even bigger. All I can say is....by God's grace go I...
 
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This was not a "pilot skill" accident. I would bet you that these pilots, given an aircraft in a known state with all automation off, could fly the thing as precisely as anyone. Calling it "pilot skills" is missing the issue entirely.

What is the issue?
 
Another example, coming into 19L SFO on the arrival, around 12k feet I pull speed 250 and pull alt for open descent. "Why did you do that?!" I get from the other guy. I look at him and say "okay" and push the speed back and altitude back. Mind you, the airplane still did the same thing. Slows to 250 and descent at 500-1000 fpm. We were going to 5000 feet without restrictions so what difference does it make when you are already close to the airport. Our policy has us select speed anyway below 10k when speed constraints have been met in order to activate approach.

Because you wanted to and there are fifteen trillion fricking ways to fly an airplane.

That culture would drive me off the wall if it's endemic there.
 
Might have something to do with company culture too. Delta likes to say they hire captains, not pilots. Now, maybe it's because I've been doing it for awhile now, but when it's my leg, I tell the captain what I want him to do, not ask for permission.

No doubt.
 
That would not end well. If you want to be a doucher and play with my MCP just because you suck, you will buy yourself a discussion on the ground. It used to irk me as an FO when CAs would pull weird stunts like that...but since being a CA, it has really hit me as to how disrespectful that is. I would NEVER just reach up and do crap while my FO is flying, like selecting a different mode or yanking throttles or whatever (yes, I've seen a that). The only time I even suggest something to my FOs is if I am legitimately concerned that if left unresolved it would lead to paperwork or bent metal. I will at least let you try whatever it is you want to do (A/P off, FD off, raw data, whatevs) and if you start sucking it up and I can see that's going to be the norm, then we can discuss other options. If you can't act like a professional then I have zero use for flying with you.
I've had a captain, while it was MY leg, reach up and hit the Autopilot Engage button at 600ft AGL. Unannounced and unbriefed.

Last week I had a captain, who was really nice and cool otherwise, who would override me on the thrust levers and damn near firewall them every time the speed trend vector got anywhere close to touching the ref-bug. Me thinks that in the past an FO of his got a stick shaker or something like that. On every leg I flew, once we got into the terminal environment, he was constantly saying 'Don't get to slow... watch your speed watch your speed'... Dude, I got it. Your firewalling the throttles whilst I'm inside the marker isn't exactly the definition of stable approach!
 
I've had a captain, while it was MY leg, reach up and hit the Autopilot Engage button at 600ft AGL. Unannounced and unbriefed.

Last week I had a captain, who was really nice and cool otherwise, who would override me on the thrust levers and damn near firewall them every time the speed trend vector got anywhere close to touching the ref-bug. Me thinks that in the past an FO of his got a stick shaker or something like that. On every leg I flew, once we got into the terminal environment, he was constantly saying 'Don't get to slow... watch your speed watch your speed'... Dude, I got it. Your firewalling the throttles whilst I'm inside the marker isn't exactly the definition of stable approach!

Guys like that shouldn't be CAs. I had the pleasure of flying with "Captain Captain", the infamous LCA who would quiz FOs of his on normal line flights. 2 legs. Never again.
 
It would be nice if Asiana would just come out and stop blaming the crash on everything under the sun, all except their training culture.
 
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