Week 70: Manual handling, incapacitation, and ECAM

Quite a busy week of flying for us, working through a lot of manual handling so we feel more confident in a wider range of possibilities. Of note were TCAS and EGPWS manoeuvres, which if completed correctly should see the aircraft avoid trading paint with another aircraft, or bumping into terrain. TCAS stands for traffic alert and collision avoidance system, and is a useful system that prevents mid-air collisions. Put simply if both aircraft are equipped with TCAS, they will recognise there is a potential for a loss of safe separation, and come up with a complimentary resolution to solve the problem. These resolutions will only give a command in the vertical plane, requiring the pilot to either climb, descend or level off, and they are designed to achieve a miss and not full legal separation. 

TCAS encounters can be quite stressful, because the system 'waking up' indicates the potential for a collision, so the pilot must respond quickly and accurately to any commands. In the case of terrain avoidance, a system called the enhanced ground proximity warning system (EGPWS) is used, which utilises a terrain database to enhance warning. Again put very simply, the system is designed to prevent unplanned comtact with the earth, normally referred to as CFIT (controlled flight into terrain), which unfortunately was to blaim in many accidents a few decades ago. 

In both cases, the pilot must respond quickly an accurately. The procedure is what is known as a memory drill, so the response must occur without reference to any written material or checklists; quite obvious considering how quickly the situation may deteriorate, and faffing with checks might end up with sheep and cows getting quite a bit closer!

On one of the flights, we had the opportunity to see what an incapacitation scenario feels like. As cadets in the Captain's seat we had to pretend to lose consciousness, so whilst flying as First Officer we had complete control of the aircraft. It's easy to say this is what we had to do during earlier training on light aircraft, but the Airbus is a tad more complex and having two pilots to spread the load makes normal operations more manageable. That said, with a bit of thought the whole affair is doable.

Finally we've also looked at ECAM operations, specifically what happens during failures. ECAM is the electronic centralized aircraft monitoring system, and rather than running through dozens of paper checklists, the ECAM should indicate the failure and give a work-through to solve the problem. There arent ECAM drills for everything, but the majority of problems encountered in normal operations should be catered for. 

Tomorrow we have a nice early sim starting at 0515, then I have my competency assurance on Tuesday morning. Here's hoping the next few days go well, then its a week off ahead of the final push through advanced!

Week 69: LOFT routes and autoflight

As intermediate has rapidly progressed, we've taken advantage of full motion to hone our skills when it comes to landing the Airbus, as well as gently allowing our trust in the automation to increase. It's very easy to say that engaging the autopilot takes no effort as the aircraft's doing all the work, but if we as pilots don't actually understand what it's doing (ie. we lose our situational awareness) we very quickly arrive in an undesirable and potentially dangerous scenario. 

The first system we have looked at is the auto-thrust, which effectively gives control of engine thrust to a computer. I could for example tell the aircraft I want to fly a selected airspeed, and dependent on the aircrafts position (eg. nose high) the computer will tell the engines how much power is required. On the approach this is an incredibly handy tool, as it frees up a significant amount of mental capacity to concentrate on the aircrafts flight profile, as well as monitor the progress of the flight and any changes required. The aircraft can also be in managed speed, where it understands what stage of the flight we are in and what speed is required.........the important thing here is maintaining situational awareness, because if no-one monitors what the aircraft is doing and it's wrong, the results could potentially be fatal. 

We continued to develop our understanding of the automation on what are called Line orientated flight training (LOFT) routes, utilising the full flight management and guidance system, interfacing through the MCDU (pictured). In the real world of line flying the vast majority of the flight is controlled through the MCDU, as its direct link to the Flight management computer works a lot quicker than our human brains. That said the system's capability can be seen as something of a curse, as there's so much it can do learning all of it's functions takes time. Fortunately the MPL provides us with opportunity to work through many of the funcitons without feeling too rushed, thus far having looked at routing direct (ATC give us a short cut), holding (entering holds, changing them, creating a new hold), as well as changing the approach mid-flight. It all seems like a lot, but with practice I personally feel more comfortable in using the MCDU, but can guarantee I will still be learning when I arrive at easyJet for my line training!

On our final flight this week we also got to experience low visibility operations (LVO's), to start gaining some experience of the visual cues we will have from the flight deck, and just how much more challenging flying becomes. Initially we were just looking at Cat 1 operations which is the least restrictive, but at certain point our instructor changed the visibility to give us a greater appreciation of deteriorating conditions. One notable point was on line up when we started with about 400m visibility which we initially thought was very restrictive. However, as he gradually reduced the outside visibility to a thick fog of 75m (Cat 3b) and we felt like we were in thick pea soup, when the visibility was increased to 400m again it felt like a clear day! For the LVO flights we also looked at the approach, discovering just how limiting forward visibility can be when attempting to complete a landing, the decision whether to land having to be left right until the last second (a point called minimum, an altitude below which the aircraft must not descend unless the pilot has the necessary visual cues to continue). This was a new experience as we had previously been given a generous margin above minimum to settle, but now the scenario is more reflective of the real world.

As we've had the weekend off i've been able to relax (a bit), but always had my work to keep me company. This is really the business end of the course and there's a huge amount of knowledge to consolidate, and rather scarily I only have 7 more intermediate sims, 16 advanced sims (which include my licence skills test), and in 10 weeks tomorrow I commence induction at the easyJet Academy, Luton. Even more scary is that when I write this next Sunday I will only have 2 more intermediate sims left, proof that time is flying by and I have no opportunity to let up!

Week 68: Final written exams and back in the driving seat

I have finally completed my last written examination with CTC aviation, so as of now any testing I get will be purely practical inside the A320 simulator. To say it's a relief is an understatement, but I have no doubts about the difficulty of any further tests. After the written exam (performance) our final day of technical ground-school was actually a lot more relaxed, the focus switching to crew resource management. Our instructor used the session to actually look at what was going to happen when we arrived at easyJet, discussing any fears or anxieties we had before joining the airline. I definitely found the session most beneificial and it certainly answered most quesitons I had about moving to full operations. 

As I had a few days off in the middle of the week, Alice and I chose to go for a walk on the beach at Lepe, a fairly quiet beach west of Southampton water. Although the beach is quite nice for a walk, the weather was pretty wild and we looked more like members of Scott's expedition with the amount of layers we had on! As well as some old fortifications left from the second world war (many troops/vehicles left from the beach at Lepe during the Normandy landings) conveniently there was a great view of stricken car transporter Hoegh Osaka, that only a couple of days before had been beached on the Bramble Bank sandbar. As the transporter left Southampton docks it began to significantly list, and the harbour pilot knowing the waters of the Solent decided that beaching the vessel was the best course of action. 

After a couple of days off, on Friday (and after a month of no flying) I had my first lesson of intermediate, the focus of which was landings. I know it's a stupid thing to say, but officially I hadn't flown the Airbus as the requirements of basic were to fly a generic jet, and we were just lucky the jet on offer at CTC was an A320. Now that intermediate has started and the motion has been switched on, we are now learning the formal technique for flying the A320 starting with one of the most difficult manual manoeuvres, landing. The reason it's so difficult is the aircraft whilst airborne has a huge amount of energy, so the landing can be seen as a controlled crash! Ideally the technique should remove most of the energy to avoid damage, which is very similar to a light aircraft but with one subtle difference; in a Cessna the plan was to hold the aircraft off the runway until it ran out of energy, only allowing touchdown when the aircraft was incapable of staying airborne. In the Airbus, if this technique was employed the aircraft would touch down a significant distance down the runway as it's going so much faster, and therefore any performance figures calculated would be redundant. Instead, at about 30ft the thrust levers are closed (or 'retarded') and the nose is pitched up to merely arrest the rate of descent and allow the main gear to absorb the landing load. This I was initially struggling with as I couldn't get out of the habit of soft touchdowns, but as the lesson wore on I became more comfortable with the 'positive' landings. For once the saying "If there's no smoke your landing's a joke" actually has some truth!

In our second lesson we continued with manual handling, this time looking at circling approaches. For a circling approach the instrument approach is flown towards one runway, and when visual (and close enough) a visual circling manoeuvre is flown with the intention of landing on the opposite runway. This may be because of the wind or terrain which prohibits an instrument approach to the in to wind runway, and is one of the more challenging flying tasks. The crude picture i've drawn gives an idea of the circle, firstly with the green instrument element, followed by the red visual part. I went first and annoyingly I cocked up my timings, so had to perform a go-around as I didn't manage to stabilise my approach. That said, it gave me practice at flying the missed approach from a circling manoeuvre, and thankfully my second approach was as planned and I landed successfully. 

Day off tomorrow so going in to CTC to use one of the virtual flight deck and flight computer trainer. There is a hell of a lot of information to learn and commit to memory, so the workload can only go one direction!

Weeks 66 & 67: Christmas, New years, and a bit more study

Firstly apologies for the lack of last weeks post.....I did mean to write one but got distracted (by study!) and by the time I remembered it was the middle of the week so i've just combined the two.

We were lucky to get a few days off for Christmas so I was able to go and visit lots of family and have my fill of festive spirit (and mince pies) which nicely broke up technical groundschool. Unfortunately on Boxing day I had to make my way back down to Southampton as I had lectures at 9am on the 27th, but i'm happy to have got the chance to head home, and it's really a sign of things to come when I start line flying. 

New years was very similar in that we were given a few days off (probably because even our instructors didn't want to be there), but with our tech exams looming these were mostly filled with seemingly endless sessions of looking through the crew operating manual. I did however take my instructors advice and not go overboard, so I enjoyed new years eve with Alice at one of her friends and was able to relax on new years day. Hopefully you all enjoyed the holidays too, but for me I was back to CTC with a bump!

We were back in class yesterday for our last chance to pick the brains of our instructor, before part A of the A320 technical exam. We took this earlier today, and i'm happy to report that I passed so some of the knowledge must have stuck! Tomorrow we have another exam (part B) but this is an open book style one, looking at things such as performance or mass and balance, so I have another night of studying to try and firm up some of the details we went through today. In essence this exam isn't quizzing us on how the aeroplane works as part A dealt with that; instead the focus is now on how we legally operate the aircraft, from working out if the runway is long enough for our intended operation, to how we work when the fog rolls in and it looks like pea soup through the window. Would you depart with the snow like this.....?

Looking more specifically at easyJet, my collegues this week on EZMP01 have been flying their LST details. The LST is the licence skills test, and it marks the culmination of training with CTC aviation, at which point a pass secures you the legal right to call yourself A320 type rated. Why is this significant? Well EZMP03 are two calender months ahead of me in terms of their training, so it's a bit of a nudge that there really isn't that much left before I start flying the bus for real. With my being sent to the Gatwick base, my induction which will be held at Luton is on the 23rd of March, which is 11 weeks tomorrow! Between then and now I have to complete groundschool, fly 13 intermediate sims, 14 Advanced sims, 2 LST check flights, then find and move into a new home somewhere near Gatwick. I feel the next few months will redefine what I previously understood by 'busy'!