Concorde or Cub, the thinking is the same: “If everything was going absolutely perfectly, then you could just sit there and watch the thing fly itself across the Atlantic at twice the speed of sound. But all the time you had the think about what you would do if there was some sort of an emergency.” Concorde Captain John Hutchinson. …
Tag: emergency
Eric ‘Winkle’ Brown Talks Flying
Legendary Captain Eric ‘Winkle’ Brown was a British Royal Navy test pilot who flew 487 types of aircraft, more than anyone else in history. He was the most-decorated pilot in the history of the Royal Navy. Some of his ‘firsts’ include first to land a jet on an aircraft carrier and first to land a twin-engine aircraft on an aircraft …
Some Pilots Know . . .
Deep system knowledge is only needed on rare occasions. Unfortunately those occasions, when things break, when checklists and abnormal procedures are not enough, tend to require you have that knowledge NOW. Dr. Nicklas Dahlström is Human Factors Manager at Emirates, and a former researcher at Lund University School of Aviation in Sweden. Quote from his presentation at the 69th International …
Lost SA?
What to do when you lose situational awareness. (And we’ve all been there!) Adapted from BAE Systems paper Airmanship Training For Modern Aircrew, presented at the RTO HFM Symposium on ‘Advanced Technologies for Military Training’, held Genoa, Italy 13 – 15 October 2003, and published in RTO-MP-HFM-101.
Aerobatic Training?
“The real need is for a fully aerobatic training aeroplane to be provided so that airline pilots can practise real flying manoeuveres and recovery from unusual attitudes. … There are too many senior transport pilots flying who have just about forgotten how to fly an aeroplane.” The Chief Test Pilot of the UK Airworthiness Authority wrote this in the last …
The Word is “Pilot”
American Airlines Flight 383, a Boeing 767, during takeoff roll from ORD suffered an uncontained catastrophic failure of their starboard engine yesterday. Just like the sim. Except in the sim you don’t have 161 passengers, the wing doesn’t melt, and people don’t make meme’s from your super cool pilot picture:
Sudden Power Failure on Initial Climb
Total power loss at 300 ft. Eighteen year-old solo pilot glides back safely by flying the plan he’d verbally self-briefed. Very short, very cool video: Plan your flight. Fly your plan. Control your airspeed.
It’s No Accident — It’s a Crash
Interesting article yesterday in the New York Times, titled ‘It’s no accident: Advocates want to speak of car ‘crashes’ instead’. It’s about safety advocates changing language use from a car accident to a car crash. The AP recently revised their style guide. Dr Rosekind of the US National Highway Traffic Safety Administration is on board, saying, “When you use the …
Pilot Perception
Some pilots will make an emergency out of a bad magneto check. Others, upon losing a wing, will ask for a lower altitude. In thrust we trust! And opposite aileron. Lots of opposite aileron. For more details on this and other damaged but flyable F-14s see this article on aviationist.com. And for the equally amazing F-15 see this very cool …
It’s Not About Split-Second Skills
You never know when it will happen. It could be your first solo. It could be after 42 years of flying. As Captain Gann titled a book: Fate is the Hunter. Best be ready. BA Captain Chris Henkey was. The press has praised his ‘split-second’ skills in aborting the takeoff on the runway. But I think the more praiseworthy airmanship …