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I fully support this message; having performed an instrument rating renewal check just yesterday in sub-optimal weather I experienced a frozen pitot-tube (the t

I fully support this message; having performed an instrument rating renewal check just yesterday in sub-optimal weather I experienced a frozen pitot-tube (the thingie that measures dynamic pressure; or a component of the airspeed). Having no speed indication is scary in instrument conditions (i.e. no visibility) but continuing flying is the best decision you can make (that and turning on pitot-heat). But please apply this 'motto' to other fields as well. No matter how bad the situation is; do the thing you're supposed to do: Fly the damn airplane, Talk to your customer, Keep your hands on the steering wheel and: keep breathing.

yread 15y ago
in order of priority: aviate - navigate - communicate I.e. make sure to stay in the air, know where are you flying and tell others about where you're going or what you've learned
- einhverfr 15y ago
  I think that this can be a good order of priorities for different disciplines too. In fact I recently came out of a major project that ended up with multiple issues that surfaced and threw us off. As a result, I spent three years "flying the plane" if you will rather than trying to figure out how to get my own business going in the direction it needed to go. The result was a hard transition after, but not as bad as I might have feared. When I have seen projects "crash and burn" it has always been due to someone not "flying the plane." One thing one can do also is see where customers are in this process and if they are not flying their planes, avoid taking them on. But beyond this, process breakdown is a real thing. Once someone loses confidence in a system compensating measures can often cause more harm than good. Once you don't know what's happening, you can lose control very quickly. One of the roles of a consultant is to get people back up to safe processes while you get everything back up to speed. But this can be a big task.....
- jodrellblank 15y ago
  They tried aviating. The person with control knew he was on manual controls, and did the wrong thing. This is why the message "FLY THE PLANE" is a useless exhortion - he thought he was doing that. Had the priority been: communicate - aviate - navigate, they might have been alive. Imagine instead: "Manual control" "check" "pulling back rudder to gain altitude and avoid storm" "we can't go much higher, and we don't want to lose speed" "ok, flying straight on"
  - sokoloff 15y ago
    In that context, communicate is scoped to flight crew outside, not within the cockpit crew. Surely, the notion that if you have a departure from controlled flight, or are lost, that each crew member must refrain from speaking to each other is silly. That guidance is instead intended to say "ATC's questions and needs can wait; tell them 'Standby' and fly the airplane."
    - jodrellblank 15y ago
      According to the articke they didn't speak to each other to resolve the problems. Asking them to refrain from talking would be silly, but an explicit instruction to communicate might help.
      - mikeash 15y ago
        This falls under crew resource management and is one of the fundamental things taught in pilot training: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crew_resource_management http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crew_resource_management
  - gvb 15y ago
    Beg to differ, but he wasn't flying the plane. He knew he was on manual control, but he apparently did not understand or did not appreciate the implications of the fact that the plane was flying on "alternate law". With the normal flight laws, the pilot cannot stall the airplane because the flight laws prevent it. On "alternate law", that protection is removed and the aircraft can be stalled. When flying "normal law", pulling full back on the stick is arguably a reasonable approach to stabilize the flight of the aircraft because the flight control system will fly the plane in a stable, just above stall, attitude and speed.[1] On "alternate law", pulling full back on the stick resulted in the plane no longer flying, but stalling and falling. I would contend the copilot was not flying the plane, he was relying on the flight control computer to key off his "nonsensical" input and take over flying the plane. Trivia: the report indicates the flight speed sensors de-iced and the flight system recovered full correct data input quite soon after the incident started. I'm rather surprised that the flight control system did not go back to "normal law" mode, but rather stayed in "alternate law" mode. I don't know what it takes to revert the flight mode - if it is a manual reversion or if the plane simply has to get back into normal flight, which never occurred for AF447. [1] AF296 crashed at an airshow while the pilot was flying with full aft stick. It crashed not because it stalled, but because the pilot ran out of energy (altitude) and the engines could not spool up fast enough to stop the plane's descent before it hit the ground. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Air_France_Flight_296 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Air_France_Flight_296
unwind 15y ago
The article was clearly not limited to literal flying, it ends: So, the next time you’re in a crushing situation, remember how irrational humans are under stress and remember to FLY THE AIRPLANE. After observing that people today tend need their brains much more now during moments of extreme stress, since it often involves interacting with machines, as opposed to just running away or putting up a (physical) fight.

yread 15y ago

in order of priority: aviate - navigate - communicate I.e. make sure to stay in the air, know where are you flying and tell others about where you're going or what you've learned

einhverfr 15y ago
I think that this can be a good order of priorities for different disciplines too. In fact I recently came out of a major project that ended up with multiple issues that surfaced and threw us off. As a result, I spent three years "flying the plane" if you will rather than trying to figure out how to get my own business going in the direction it needed to go. The result was a hard transition after, but not as bad as I might have feared. When I have seen projects "crash and burn" it has always been due to someone not "flying the plane." One thing one can do also is see where customers are in this process and if they are not flying their planes, avoid taking them on. But beyond this, process breakdown is a real thing. Once someone loses confidence in a system compensating measures can often cause more harm than good. Once you don't know what's happening, you can lose control very quickly. One of the roles of a consultant is to get people back up to safe processes while you get everything back up to speed. But this can be a big task.....
jodrellblank 15y ago
They tried aviating. The person with control knew he was on manual controls, and did the wrong thing. This is why the message "FLY THE PLANE" is a useless exhortion - he thought he was doing that. Had the priority been: communicate - aviate - navigate, they might have been alive. Imagine instead: "Manual control" "check" "pulling back rudder to gain altitude and avoid storm" "we can't go much higher, and we don't want to lose speed" "ok, flying straight on"
- sokoloff 15y ago
  In that context, communicate is scoped to flight crew outside, not within the cockpit crew. Surely, the notion that if you have a departure from controlled flight, or are lost, that each crew member must refrain from speaking to each other is silly. That guidance is instead intended to say "ATC's questions and needs can wait; tell them 'Standby' and fly the airplane."
  - jodrellblank 15y ago
    According to the articke they didn't speak to each other to resolve the problems. Asking them to refrain from talking would be silly, but an explicit instruction to communicate might help.
    - mikeash 15y ago
      This falls under crew resource management and is one of the fundamental things taught in pilot training: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crew_resource_management http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crew_resource_management
- gvb 15y ago
  Beg to differ, but he wasn't flying the plane. He knew he was on manual control, but he apparently did not understand or did not appreciate the implications of the fact that the plane was flying on "alternate law". With the normal flight laws, the pilot cannot stall the airplane because the flight laws prevent it. On "alternate law", that protection is removed and the aircraft can be stalled. When flying "normal law", pulling full back on the stick is arguably a reasonable approach to stabilize the flight of the aircraft because the flight control system will fly the plane in a stable, just above stall, attitude and speed.[1] On "alternate law", pulling full back on the stick resulted in the plane no longer flying, but stalling and falling. I would contend the copilot was not flying the plane, he was relying on the flight control computer to key off his "nonsensical" input and take over flying the plane. Trivia: the report indicates the flight speed sensors de-iced and the flight system recovered full correct data input quite soon after the incident started. I'm rather surprised that the flight control system did not go back to "normal law" mode, but rather stayed in "alternate law" mode. I don't know what it takes to revert the flight mode - if it is a manual reversion or if the plane simply has to get back into normal flight, which never occurred for AF447. [1] AF296 crashed at an airshow while the pilot was flying with full aft stick. It crashed not because it stalled, but because the pilot ran out of energy (altitude) and the engines could not spool up fast enough to stop the plane's descent before it hit the ground. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Air_France_Flight_296 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Air_France_Flight_296

unwind 15y ago

The article was clearly not limited to literal flying, it ends: So, the next time you’re in a crushing situation, remember how irrational humans are under stress and remember to FLY THE AIRPLANE. After observing that people today tend need their brains much more now during moments of extreme stress, since it often involves interacting with machines, as opposed to just running away or putting up a (physical) fight.