Now - I ask you - is there something incredibly stupid on top of stupid about that NTSB excuse letter? A LOW LEVEL SUMMER INTERN is given the task of confirming crew names for a major air disaster??? What's next - one of the flight attendants was allowed to fly that messed up approach???
Bob- Did you forget the Russian airliner lost because the captain let his son fly the Airbus until it was too late to recover the aircraft?
I can see that I have lived to see the degradation of many things in our country. We cannot do for ourselves anymore, we shun the hard physical work and ask that others do it for us. We cannot manage to lower our own personal standards from the " our lifestyle" to things less frivolous. We let our children vegetate in front of a TV or computer screen and give them devices that have robbed them of the ability to think, imagine, and explore. They don't play outside and kick the can or run very much. This generation has lost the ability to write cursive and some now can't read it. Too many other things to list but now the latest Asiana crash illuminates the absence of personal accomplishment and earned skill required to achieve a goal of competence when many lives are at stake. I know that the above venting doesn't apply to all but I can see a trend presaged by, " Ah! Whatever."
Read closer - NTSB does not confirm crew names. A (now former, I imagine) summer intern did something they were not supposed or authorized to do.
How does an intern get into a position to even know if a network is looking for name confirmation? How did he get that email? Kai
Wow. Are we going to do 10 pages on this crap....??? Some kid sucessfully punked a TV station... end of story.
SEOUL – Asiana Airlines said Sunday its reputation was damaged by a report on a San Francisco TV station that used bogus names and racially offensive names for four pilots on its plane that crashed earlier this month and is considering legal action. LOL! Yes, some funny pilot names are what damaged the Airlines reputation... Not the crashing of a perfectly operating 777 on a sunny SFO day. And then photos and video of it happening and a carcass sitting burned out next to the runway for a week.
Traditionally, when an airliner came to grief, the first guys to show up would whitewash out the name of the carrier. This did not happen in this case; anyone know why not?
Because one of the very few responsibilities an intern has is to answer the phones. Not to talk on the phone, but to answer and pass on to appropriate party. This intern forgot about the second part, I bet.
One of the guys I work with was sitting in the copilots seat of a C-130 that flew 20 something miles down the Grand Canyon below the rim. This was a problem as he is a flight engineer rather than copilot. The seat was vacant because the copilot was strapped to the ramp of the aircraft so he could shoot video of the thing. They probably could have gotten away with it but they made a second low pass by Hoover Dam.
Having watched the simulation of the actual flight path vs 'ideal', I just can't get my head around this whole incident. I know I am just a humble Cessna jockey, but this is really mind blowingly bad. Regardless of how reliant the crew may have been on auto aids for most of their flying hours, this approach profile was clearly and obviously wrong. Shocking that a more obvious attempt to correct wasn't made until way passed the point of no return. On the other hand - my admiration of the 777 has gone up big time. That plane had no right to survive the crash as well as it did. I have never seen a big jet do something as dramatic as that - with a complete 360 pirouette - and survive with the fuselage intact. Amazing strength. Properly impressive and quite comforting to know. Well done Boeing.
Part of this is to keep people from lining up at its competitors ticket counters and eschewing theirs. Asiana Pilot Training: Airline Will Enhance Training For Pilots Switching To New Airplanes Not sure how much difference these changes will make... time will tell, I guess. That time will not include me on an Asiana plane (or KAL)...
I mean not to demean the airline pilots but when I see 10,000 hours "flight time" attached to a pilots record, I wonder just how much of that time is spent actually flying an airplane and how much is sitting and chatting. Especially in the case of the Asiana crew. I know many airline pilots and I know that most of them have many hours " at the wheel" but I have to wonder about some of those who claim umpteen thousands of hours in the log book. In the early 70's I flew with the pilots of an airline in the San Juans and some had "only" 2000 hours but every minute of that was flying, sometimes 50 to 60 landings a week into bush type strips with one on a beach. They flew in bad weather and bad winds with never bending an airplane. These are the flight hours that one must respect.
Visual Approaches. As the aviation section here on FChat has quite a diverse audience, I thought I'd write this for those who don't fly large airliners. A little background...I've flown C-152s to 747s, but definitely not everything in between. While I've flown most the single engines, I've only flown one jet, the 747. So this might be a good insight for the single engine pilot. That said, I have flown Brasilias and Jetstreams (turboprops). These are my techniques........ Light single engine visual approach: I don't fly light singles as much as I'd like too. Maybe 2 or 3 times a year. Jumping from the 747 back into a Cessna is actually really easy. Very relaxing,with plenty of time to look around and take everything in. I always fly on good VFR days, with no real concern for the wind (living in SoCal the wind is pretty predictable). My landings are always visuals. Typically a pattern, but sometimes a straight in. The runways I use aren't ILS runways. They do have PAPIs, or VASIs. I can't remember which. With a typical approach speed of around 70kts, vertical speed needed to keep a 3 degree slope is around 350 fpm or so. If you're really high, you may end up doubling that. So maybe 700fpm. Most private pilots use pitch to control airspeed and power to control descent rate. Not sure what I do. Sorta just do what it takes. My basic scan is to look outside, with constant checks inside at the airspeed indicator. I rarely look at much else. Heavy Jet Visual Approach: Most my flying is the USA west coast to and within Asia. I can't remember if I've ever done a visual in Asia (maybe once in Kansai). But I do many visuals into LAX, SFO, and ANC. I'd say 99% of the visuals are backed up with an ILS. 99% are also with a PAPI, or occasionally a VASI. I can only remember 3 approaches in the last 15 years (NCA) that didn't have one or the other (ILS / PAPI). One was a visual into SFO 28L a couple weeks ago. Typical approach speed is 140 - 160 kts. Descent rate is around 850 fpm. If you're high, the descent rate can get pretty high to get back on glideslope. In a large jet, power is used to control airspeed. Pitch controls descent rate. When setting up for a visual approach (ILS backup), my scan pattern is almost entirely inside, with occasionally glances outside at the runway. The ILS is setup, and the FD (flight director) shows me where to put the airplane. For those unfamiliar with a flight director, it's basically showing you where the autopilot would be in pitch and roll if it were flying. It's superimposed on the PFD. You just try and match it. So my scan is PFD most of the way down. I have FD, LOC, GS, and airspeed all right there. I occasionally look at the power (N1) so see if its in the ballpark. This is especially important on the 747-8 as opposed to the 400 when the other pilot is flying as you can't hear the power changes. Then the occasional look outside. Airspeed is looked at every few seconds. FD, Airspeed, FD, Airspeed, outside, etc. it's not until 200 ft that I switch to mainly an outside watch, occasionally looking at the airspeed. From 100 ft, it's just about all outside. Flare starts at 50 ft. Recently, I ferried a 747-400 to Pinal Air Park. It was a pure visual. No ILS, PAPI, VASI, FMS GS. I extended my downwind to make sure I wasn't high on final. My scan pattern was very different compared to the one described above. The FD was off, as there wasn't anything for it to reference to. I'd say most of the approach was made looking out the window. When I did look inside, airspeed and vertical speed were my 2 main instruments. I knew that if I was close to the glide path (visually), I just had to keep my vertical speed close to 700 - 800 fpm. You'll notice I never even mentioned the VSI on the "normal" visual approach above. While I wouldn't call it an intense approach, I must be honest and say I had to concentrate a lot more than usual without any glide path info. I wish I could view how my approach looked compared to a standard 3 degree slope. Comparison: 1: Outside Watch....in a light single, it's mostly outside. In a heavy jet, it's mostly inside. 2: Pitch for Airspeed.....Most light single pilots use pitch for airspeed and power for glideslope. In a heavy jet, it's the opposite. 3: Descent rates and speeds....obviously at higher speeds, the jets need much higher descent rates, especially when correcting for high glide path situations. 1000 ft final on final in the jet is about 1 min to touchdown, compared to 2 1/2 mins in the Cessna Conclusion: You'll notice no matter what aircraft type, or approach aids available, airspeed is obviously looked at constantly. I'm relation to the accident, I initially thought their approach had no glide path references. In that case, you could expect to see glidepath deviations. With a PAPI but no ILS, you could expect to see small glidepath deviations. But at no time would you ever expect the airspeed to fall so far below approach speed. I honestly don't know how that could happen.
Great point, Bob. Someone on here posted... pages ago... that to them, flying meant about 2 minutes taking off, letting the plane 'fly itself' for 10 hours and "watching", then landing for about 2 more minutes, so less than 5 minutes of 'piloting'. So that 10,000 hours is probably actually only in the hundreds of hours of actulal piloting time.
Sounds like multiple people assumed a great deal of risk in this endeavor. PIC, the Speilberg wannabe Copilot, and the engineer? Sounds like a less risky way to get the same result would have been someone other than the copilot acting as videographer? Or did the copilot want to be the star of this movie? Not that I expect you to defend or apply logic to their decision. I would love to see the video but I'm guessing it didn't make it to youtubes.
So, they obviously got "Behind the Power Curve" at the worst time to do that -- Low and Slow on the backside of the curve. Even if they had applied full power early enough to the engines to spool up, they would not have been able to overcome the induced drag until they lowered the nose to increase airspeed to be able to climb. By lowering the nose, you immediately reduces induced drag and allows the airplane to accelerate out to front side of the power curve. As airspeed increases, so does lift. Remember, lift increases in proportion to the square of airspeed/velocity. Of course, on short final, low and slow, it is alien to student pilots and these guys, apparently, to reduce angle of attack when the ground it coming up at you. Instead, they just rely on the engine to brute furce them through it. The urge to pull up close to the ground is as strong as the urge to take a breath when your lungs run out of air underwater. Doing either is usually fatal. How often to airlines pilots receive a refresher course in basic aerodynamics? It makes me sick to see the Air France, Buffalo and Asiana pilots revert back to student pilot habits of pulling back on the stick and expecting the engine to overcome drag at high pitch attitudes. That is fine if the thrust to weight ratio is over one, but not in normal aircraft and with every large diameter turbofans that take even longer to spool up. How can the Air France crew keep the nose up in a stall at full power and not realize that to regain flying airspeed, they need to push the nose over? Anyway, a refesher in aerodynamics is needed and maybe some glider time to understand how the wing generates lift and drag and how to manage energy (altitude/airspeed) without relying on an engine. Image Unavailable, Please Login Image Unavailable, Please Login
