Hawker Down near AKR

Hacker15e said:
Aircraft are all-attitude vehicles. If the flight environment were so predictable so as to always remain straight and level at 1G, we wouldn't even need pilots, much less instruments to indicate aircraft performance for pilots to interpret.

It is all well and good to say, "the aircraft shouldn't have been in that position in the first place," but the fact is, we live and operate in a chaotic world where things occasionally happen that are not ordinary, or even planned for. Sometimes we get into those situations because of lapses in SA or decisionmaking, despite high levels of training and experience. In these situations, we have to use airmanship and knowledge of the aircraft to get back to safety. In many cases, these involve being in unusual attitudes or near the edges of aircraft performance capability.

FWIW, it is generally people who have substantial time flying in aircraft with AOA gauges that are stridently for having them, and people who haven't flown with them who say they're not needed. Correlation or just coincidence?
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I'm not saying it's not necessarily needed. I'm just saying it wouldn't have made a lick of difference in this situation, and clearly it didn't as @Champcar just established that these pilots indeed had an AOA instrument available to them anyways. Obviously it didn't make a lick of difference in this situation.

I agree with you wholeheartedly in your first two paragraphs, but what bothers me most is the CA recognized the situation. He HAD the situational awareness the whole time to go *gee this isn't right,* but he never acted upon that until it was way too late. How they got through so much flight training, and so much experience and not know when it's time to call it quits pour the coals to the fire get some altitude and regroup and try again is beyond me...
 
JustinS said:
what bothers me most is the CA recognized the situation. He HAD the situational awareness the whole time to go *gee this isn't right,* but he never acted upon that until it was way too late. How they got through so much flight training, and so much experience and not know when it's time to call it quits pour the coals to the fire get some altitude and regroup and try again is beyond me...
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I agree, but we all have to realize that reading about the events in retrospect, at 1G and zero knots from the safety of the ground, is different than what those guys were experiencing real time.

The question of intervention is one of the core airmanship decisions that any one on a multi-pilot crew (including instructors teaching) have to determine for themselves -- how far are they willing to let another crewmember go before physically intervening.

When teaching primary flying (especially early on), it is a much easier process, as the instructor knows the other guy flying doesn't have much knowledge, experience, or airmanship. The further on down the line you go, though, the more difficult that point of intervention is to determine. When you have two qualified and experienced pilots (and the assumptions about perceptions, decisions, and performance that come with those quals and that experience), it is an even muddier line.

I've instructed at three different levels of the training pipeline (basic, advanced, and operational) and the size of my "donut", e.g. how far I'd let things go before I intervened, differed based on who I was flying with and what we were doing. The size of that donut changed the more experience I got as an instructor, too. Captains and FOs have to go through this same calculus and evolution, since they die at the same time as the other guy in the cockpit with them. Either way, those decisions aren't black and white.

Bottom line, you're right -- knowing what we know now, different decisions should have been made at many steps of the process, to include the Capt taking the controls and going around...but IMHO those are easy spears to throw from where we're sitting.
 
Hacker15e said:
This sounds like the name of a tranny stripper there in 'Nam...not that there's anything wrong with that. Story?
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toobeacoup.jpg
 
mojo6911 said:
Because in nearly every normal flight regime, airspeed is a pretty good facsimile for AOA.
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Again, the point is, why make derived data (e.g. stall speeds, green dots, PLIs, etc) the primary reference when the primary data is easy to obtain, easy to interpret, and 100% true?

AOA is true for every configuration, every weight, every speed, every G loading, every attitude.

The same is not true for derived or indirect indications of AOA.
 
Hacker15e said:
I agree, but we all have to realize that reading about the events in retrospect, at 1G and zero knots from the safety of the ground, is different than what those guys were experiencing real time.

The question of intervention is one of the core airmanship decisions that any one on a multi-pilot crew (including instructors teaching) have to determine for themselves -- how far are they willing to let another crewmember go before physically intervening.

When teaching primary flying (especially early on), it is a much easier process, as the instructor knows the other guy flying doesn't have much knowledge, experience, or airmanship. The further on down the line you go, though, the more difficult that point of intervention is to determine. When you have two qualified and experienced pilots (and the assumptions about perceptions, decisions, and performance that come with those quals and that experience), it is an even muddier line.

I've instructed at three different levels of the training pipeline (basic, advanced, and operational) and the size of my "donut", e.g. how far I'd let things go before I intervened, differed based on who I was flying with and what we were doing. The size of that donut changed the more experience I got as an instructor, too. Captains and FOs have to go through this same calculus and evolution, since they die at the same time as the other guy in the cockpit with them. Either way, those decisions aren't black and white.

Bottom line, you're right -- knowing what we know now, different decisions should have been made at many steps of the process, to include the Capt taking the controls and going around...but IMHO those are easy spears to throw from where we're sitting.
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I agree to an extent. On rare occasion I've had to speak up flying with CAs with 20 years more experience on the jet than me. The good captains don't take it personally, and honestly I've never had a captain take it personally. Conversely, I have CAs speak up to me when something is amiss, and equally I don't take it personally because we're doing our job, and people's lives are in our hands. You see something going a direction that's unsafe, or will get you violated you say something. 9 times out of 10 the captain will thank you for looking out for them, and keeping the ship in good order and keeping us from looking like clowns. I know if I was put in that situation I wouldn't hesitate to say something or do something even as an FO. Yes I'm sitting here at 1G and zero knots saying that, but this situation is clear cut and dry to me. If a captain barked at me for telling them to go missed, and/or having to taking the controls after no response to being challenged two or three times, I would have some choice words for that captain when we got on the ground about why we were doing 2,000 FPM not stabilized and close to stall speed while carrying around precious lives in the back. Hurt feelings are a lot less painful than lost lives...

I totally agree there's different sized donuts for different situations. I rarely have been put in a spot where I've had to speak up, but when I see it going outside my donut, I really don't care how much experience they have, I'm going to say something, and if I need to eventually step in I will... I would expect they do the same for me if I go outside their donut.... Obviously the captain's "donut" in this situation was too big, or completely nonexistent...
 
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Hacker15e said:
Again, the point is, why make derived data (e.g. stall speeds, green dots, PLIs, etc) the primary reference when the primary data is easy to obtain, easy to interpret, and 100% true?

AOA is true for every configuration, every weight, every speed, every G loading, every attitude.

The same is not true for derived or indirect indications of AOA.
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While I've never flown with an AOA gauge, I see the value in having one. I imagine that once I actually use one, I'll see even more value.

To answer your earlier question about Part 25 airplanes, the CL-65 has an AOA vane, and it is used to display a green line on the airspeed indicator at 1.27Vso for your current state. It's interesting to watch it as turns and climbs are initiated and ended as that line floats up and down. You can also watch it float around some in turbulence. While it's not exactly an AOA indicator, it's real time and derived from the AOA vane.
 
Hacker15e said:
Again, the point is, why make derived data (e.g. stall speeds, green dots, PLIs, etc) the primary reference when the primary data is easy to obtain, easy to interpret, and 100% true?

AOA is true for every configuration, every weight, every speed, every G loading, every attitude.

The same is not true for derived or indirect indications of AOA.
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No amount of instrumentation will override bad decision making from the flight crew. You're creating a strawman argument here. You are also assuming that AOA data is easy to interpret. It isn't, because up until very recently, this gauge wasn't introduced during primary training.

f-4s_aoa.jpg


This doesn't look terribly easy to interpret to me.
 
mojo6911 said:
No amount of instrumentation will override bad decision making from the flight crew. You're creating a strawman argument here.
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Never said it was, in fact, quite the contrary. See post 378.

mojo6911 said:
You are also assuming that AOA data is easy to interpret. It isn't, because up until very recently, this gauge wasn't introduced during primary training.

f-4s_aoa.jpg


This doesn't look terribly easy to interpret to me.
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This would be a valid point if that were the only format of AOA gauge in existence...which it isn't.

If you want to get down in the weeds on the different ways AOA can be displayed, and what different pieces of that information means, I'm more than happy to go down that route, but needless to say pasting a picture of a single type gauge here in a vacuum, and saying you don't understand what it is saying, isn't actually valid discussion to the contrary.

AOA gauges are used in aircraft in primary military flying training, and the thousands of students annually who learn them, and fly aircraft with them, don't have a challenge using them. It isn't some crazy voodoo magic that takes superhuman knowledge or training to understand and use. If you can understand and interpret an altimeter and airspeed indicator, certainly you can effectively interpret and use an AOA gauge.
 
mojo6911 said:
No amount of instrumentation will override bad decision making from the flight crew. You're creating a strawman argument here. You are also assuming that AOA data is easy to interpret. It isn't, because up until very recently, this gauge wasn't introduced during primary training.

f-4s_aoa.jpg


This doesn't look terribly easy to interpret to me.
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It's easy enough. There's a range its supposed to remain within, with specific values in that range giving you specific things such as max range, max endurance. So unless you're flying a tactical jet, you're really only using a small portion of that gauge. For landing purposes, the gauge itself is normally coupled with a light-illuminated AOA/speed indication, or equivalent marking on the airspeed tapes (if so equipped), or both, or any combo of indications.
 
With how bad this approach got, I don't think an AOA gauge would have helped here, especially with what appears to be an accelerated stall.

These guys totally botched this one. It went way too far before it ever got far enough to even be an issue. The Captain should have taken over as soon as he recognized a problem, and the FO didn't take corrective action, or even acknowledge a problem.
 
So other than mshunter how many of the people commenting here have flown for 135 operator? How many have flown for what they consider a "scumbag" 135 operator?

Because right now I am hearing a bunch of people talk about 135 operations who don't have that in their background.

AOA has nothing to do with this...
 
BEEF SUPREME said:
So other than mshunter how many of the people commenting here have flown for 135 operator? How many have flown for what they consider a "scumbag" 135 operator?

Because right now I am hearing a bunch of people talk about 135 operations who don't have that in their background.

AOA has nothing to do with this...
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135 rocked. VFR/IFR single engine cargo operation here in 207, PA-32 and -32R. Then at a second cargo operator in PA-31 and C208. Got my ATP same day as one of my 135 checkrides about 20+ years ago.

Great experience.
 
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I'll just cut to the chase. This happened because the company operating the flight didn't put the FO through a training program or the training program had no standards. Fairly typical...
 
Hacker15e said:
Is there even a single person in this thread that has stated that, much less actually believes that? Don't distort the discussion of one thing into being about another -- that's just patently untrue.

Everyone is firmly agreed that this was a judgment/decisionmaking issue, and not an aircraft instrumentation issue. The discussion of one, however, led to a discussion of the other.
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It was a judgement decision making issue on the part of the 135 certificate holder. IMO
 
I've spent some time reading a lot of the NTSB interviews with other ExecuFlight pilots, the CEO, former DO, etc. One thing that was very interesting to me is that the general practice and culture at this operator is that the FOs almost always ONLY fly the empty legs--which most of the interviewees estimate to be about 30% of the flights and sometimes pretty short hops as they repo the jet. In fact, there were even some incredulous sounding comments where CAs said something along the lines of, "there's no way I'd let a new FO fly with pax--especially in IMC."

As a 121 guy, my experience is that we swap every other leg or every second leg. Perhaps this is standard practice in the 135 world--I have no idea--but it raises questions for me.

--Is this a reflection of a lack of standards in training? I mean in the 121 world, if a guy gets through the sim and OE, the expectation is that they're as qualified to fly as anyone else. Yes there are some low time restrictions, but we still swap legs.

--What impact did this practice have on this crash? If this was an FO that gets very little "stick time" and suddenly he's thrust into a situation where he's flying an arguably challenging approach, I can see him getting behind the jet. No, it's not a challenging approach by most standards, but if you're used to ILS backed-up visuals and only see a NPA once a year in the sim, I could see how things get challenging.

--What about the CA? Was it his practice to let FOs fly in IMC, or did he acquiesce to the FO for some reason and let him fly this leg? If so, his PM skills could be "rusty." More significantly, he may not have had a well defined threshold of where he takes the jet from the FO or calls for a GA.

In general, the practice of not letting FOs fly very often seems like a bad idea to me. It alters the dynamics of the flight deck and introduces a strange hierarchy to the flight deck that, I believe, introduces an artificial barrier to CRM.

Also, the interviews appear to indicate that there was no real CRM training at ExecuFlight. Also, my opinion only, but there seemed to be some lack of consensus on the definition of a stabilized approach.

One last point, the FAA oversight of this operator seemed woefully inadequate. Partially because the POI was burdened by having responsibility for many certificates. I think that's going to be a contributing factor in the final report.
 
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