Recently a crew in the sim elected to hold until the completion of the Fuel Imbalance checklist before commencing an Approach. Since fuel balancing can take quite some time, they were in for a long wait …
Practices And Techniques
V Australia 777 Delivery Flight : #9 Seattle Tour – 12:00L 05Feb09
In February 2009 I was part of the team that picked up Virgin Australia’s (then V Australia) first Boeing 777-300ER. Having arrived into the airline in June 2008, it had been a long 7 months – very long – but now we were about to get an aeroplane – and fly it. For the benefit […]
Hands on the Controls, Please …
Recently I conducted some research into the concept of the requirement for the Pilot Flying (PF) to guard the flight controls when the autopilot is engaged during critical phases of flight such as takeoff or landing. Something I thought was clear cut – is apparently not.
LNAV for a Localizer Approach
I was recently asked whether we could still use LNAV to fly a Localizer Instrument Approach, and whether that was the preferred mode. This question was asked during a briefing on PBN which has caused some confusion. Recently we’ve seen some changes in the way we do aircraft Navigation, or at least in the way […]
B737NG Type Rating
So … for the second time in 2 years and the third time in 25 … I’m doing another Type Rating. This time it’s the Boeing 737NG and it’s very … different. For the first thing – I have LOTS of time. As practically every other pilot who’s ever gone through a type rating knows […]
P&T Update : Visual Reference at the Minima
I’ve been operating under the miss-understanding that if the visibility observed at the airport matches the minimum required to commence the approach – you’ll have a reasonable chance of completing the approach to a landing. As it turns out – for JAR OPS compliant NPA’s – this is not the case.
B777 EICAS/ECL Guide
Some time ago I wrote down all that I had been taught and learned about operating the Boeing 777 Electronic Checklist (ECL) in conjunction with the onboard Electronic Indication and Crew Alert System (EICAS). I’ve updated it along the way as I became an instructor and it’s become more and more of a formal document […]
Basic Modes Engine Out Drift Down
An engine failure at altitude above the maximum engine out altitude, followed by the obligatory engine out drift down is a bread and butter event for a cruise pilot. Typically this is practiced and evaulated using the highest levels of automation in LNAV and VNAV. For more information see Engine Out Drift Down and the […]
B777 Slats Drive & Flap Retraction
The recent recurrent training phase included a SLATS DRIVE failure during takeoff at high weight. At some point, the crew is confronted with the decision about whether to retract flap or not. The results of doing so would not be so amusing had I not done the same myself ……
Handling B777 Engine Malfunctions
This article further expounds on the paradigm established in the Post and Training Video B777 Engine Failure Analysis. The following resource material were drawn on for the contents. Airbus Flight Ops Brief : Handling Engine Malfunctions Flight Safety Foundation : Understanding Airplane Turbofan Engine Operation Rolls Royce : The Jet Engine Book. Boeing 777 FCOM/FCTM/QRH […]
EICAS CABIN ALTITUDE – Controllable?
I’m working on an update to the Practices and Techniques document I developed in 2008. While this has been a published document in my airline for several years, it was recently taken offline and is now a training background reference, as was the original intention for it’s development. Just one of the many subjects currently […]
Airspeed Unreliable
The Airspeed Unreliable scenarios is one of the more challenging non normals faced by pilots in the simulator. Of the many serious malfunctions I’ve witnessed crew deal with in the simulator – this one more than any other has caught crew out to the point of a serious limitation exeedence (high/low airspeed) or potentially an […]
B777 Dispatch without ECL
The next phase of refresher training includes dispatch without the benefit of Electronic Checklist (ECL). No ECL requires some (very) rusty skills on the part of our Glass Cockpit Crews. This is going to such fun to watch …
Reading Into/Beyond the Checklist
Firstly, it has to be said that most of the time, this is not a good idea. Broadly speaking Aircraft Manufacturer checklists are designed to be followed and not second-guessed. When you’ve lost all your hydraulic fluid, and therefore hydraulic pressure, and the checklist tells you to turn first one and then another hydraulic pump […]
VNAV Path Intercept from Above
With the airline industry moving progressively towards GPS and GPS Augmented based approaches and away from the more traditional ground based navigation aid approaches, the use of LNAV/VNAV – with all it’s eccentricities – are becoming the norm for many airlines, rather than the exception. The boon of flying such approaches more often is that […]