Fun times at Skywest

CFIscare

CFIscare

Well-Known Member
Dear Pilots,

You’re well aware of our ongoing efforts to provide awareness, training, SOP updates, bulletins, and more regarding high altitude low speed events, and as an airline we have made continual improvements. However, even one event produces unacceptable risk. As professional aviators, it’s important to understand that any occurrence of these types of events is a failure of our responsibilities as a pilot and undermines our credibility as pilots and as an airline.

That’s why effective Monday, June 22 at 08:00Z, an amendment to our Operations Specifications will mandate the following operational limitations:
CRJ200 operations are limited to FL280 and below with a minimum cruise airspeed of 250 knots indicated airspeed

CRJ700/900 operations are limited to FL350 and below with a minimum cruise speed of Mach .74 or 250 knots indicated airspeed (whichever is less)
Please reference FOAB 062115-1 for full restriction details. Compliance with these altitude and speed limits is mandatory. It’s important for you to know that strict monitoring will be accomplished by our OCC and the FAA.

I know this may produce new challenges; if you have questions, please ask. We will continue to keep you updated and Flight Ops leadership is available to answer questions. As always, our primary focus must be the safety of each and every flight. Thank you for remaining vigilant and focused on this essential responsibility.

Fly Safe,

Captain T.T. Gallo
Vice President Flight Operations
 
Errrrrrr........Perhaps my reading comprehension isn't the greatest. But are you saying CRJ200's are limited to FL280 and CRJ700/900's are limited to FL350?

Was SKWY acting out of an abundance of safety or did the FAA push this on them?

Yuck-a-roo.
 
Baronman said:
Errrrrrr........Perhaps my reading comprehension isn't the greatest. But are you saying CRJ200's are limited to FL280 and CRJ700/900's are limited to FL350?

Was SKWY acting out of an abundance of safety or did the FAA push this on them?

Yuck-a-roo.
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Appears to be that way. I'll have to let the Skywest guys answer those questions for you since I am not affiliated with any Skwest, Inc. companies*.




*Included, but not limited to, Skywest Airlines, ExpressJet, and ASA.
 
Baronman said:
Errrrrrr........Perhaps my reading comprehension isn't the greatest. But are you saying CRJ200's are limited to FL280 and CRJ700/900's are limited to FL350?

Was SKWY acting out of an abundance of safety or did the FAA push this on them?

Yuck-a-roo.
Click to expand...

My guess is pushed on them by FAA...
I am sure this will cost the airline a ton of money in effecincy and possibly cost contracts.
I fear thunderstorms and that moderate or greater turbulence!
 
skyw82 said:
never understood why climbing in speed mode wasn't mandatory?
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Why?

Climbing in VS is just fine as long as one minds AOA and airspeed. VS will bite you when you stop paying attention to the attitude and airspeed of the aircraft. But just because a few inattentive iPod/backpack generation pilots have gotten into that situation doesn't mean an entire climbing/descending method should be prohibited.
 
well the thing is yeah I agree flying the plane is number one. However seeing as this has caused a rule change there are obviously too many people who don't pay attention. When I was there I remember hearing about a few of those incidents back then. Speed mode is a good "barrier".
 
PSA had a high altitude stall event with several VERY large pitch oscillations that ended up flaming out both engines, and planting the FA on the ceiling. Fortunately the auto ignition came on during the stall event (as designed) and managed to get one engine restarted). The other engine was melted which involves something like 4000 C to do. The whole incident was very hush hush and two years later there is still no NTSB final report.

The CRJ200 can make it up to 38,000 (or was it restricted to 36,000? I can't remember any more). It can actually make it to 41,000. It just takes some really careful monitoring and number checking before you take it there. Regrettably, when some pilots run out of fingers and toes to count on, stuff gets kind of bad.
 
BobDDuck said:
PSA had a high altitude stall event with several VERY large pitch oscillations that ended up flaming out both engines, and planting the FA on the ceiling. Fortunately the auto ignition came on during the stall event (as designed) and managed to get one engine restarted). The other engine was melted which involves something like 4000 C to do. The whole incident was very hush hush and two years later there is still no NTSB final report.

The CRJ200 can make it up to 38,000 (or was it restricted to 36,000? I can't remember any more). It can actually make it to 41,000. It just takes some really careful monitoring and number checking before you take it there. Regrettably, when some pilots run out of fingers and toes to count on, stuff gets kind of bad.
Click to expand...

flamingtext_com_MTQ0MTMzMTM4ODc.jpg
 
When I was at Eagle almost all the high altitude events in the 700 were because guys would use the .74 chart and not cross check against the buffet boundary and LRC chart. They would get up to altitude and not be able to hold speed, the margin between .74 and 1.3Vso on most days in the 700 was only a few kts.
 
There's the wing chart. There's the engine chart. And a whole lot of caveats on each.

The engines can sometimes make the altitude, but you're not going to have the buffet margin on the wings.

Sometimes the wing can make it, but the ISA is too high for the engines to make it.

Be conservative, never be complacent in a jet.

The 767 could do FL420* (I think) but the answer was always "rarely, in very special, optimal, odd ball circumstances".



*I can't remember, but it was something ridiculously high for a transport category jet and even if the FMC said you could, I'd still dig in the books. Still a 727 FE at heart.
 
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