5 ms·

> Now, do I think telling pilots what thrust they should use to take off is wise? I dont know - I'm not a pilot, and I'd want pilots feelings on the matter befo

> Now, do I think telling pilots what thrust they should use to take off is wise? I dont know - I'm not a pilot, and I'd want pilots feelings on the matter before commenting further, but it feels to me like a loss of authority that would make me uncomfortable Pilot here :) the journalist got it a bit wrong, performance data isn't primarily about how much thrust to use. It is part of the calculations, but crews are free to deviate from reduced thrust calculations and will do so. This incident is much more about the calculated speeds to use and aircraft trim settings. That's what caused the tail strikes, trying to lift off at a speed that is too low for the weight. Those numbers are required by every airliner taking off. And getting them from software is standard everywhere. The alternative is doing the calculations manually using paper charts, every pilot is required to know how to do that, but nobody does it that way for commercial operations.

Aloha 4y ago
Thank you for the thoughtful comment! I thought I was missing something in the way the story read, I'm glad to know I was.
konschubert 4y ago
How do you feel about the pilots getting blamed for relying on the software? > “Still, the mishaps point to the need for more vigilance by pilots in checking automated data.”
- t0mas88 4y ago
  In aviation incidents there isn't really a "blame", it's about finding all contributing factors and working together to eliminate those. The intention of investigations is never to assign blame, because that stands in the way of finding all factors and improving them together. So the conclusion "pilots should check the automated data" is a correct one. It's not the only cause, but it is one of the factors and thus it needs to be discussed. In commercial aviation there can never be a single point of failure that could lead to catastrophic outcome. The performance calculations are such a thing, so there must be validation steps. In many airlines for example if the performance calculations are done manually (or by an app based on manual input) they need to be done by both pilots independently and the results cross-checked. Otherwise a single typo could have a big impact.

Aloha 4y ago

Thank you for the thoughtful comment! I thought I was missing something in the way the story read, I'm glad to know I was.

konschubert 4y ago

How do you feel about the pilots getting blamed for relying on the software? > “Still, the mishaps point to the need for more vigilance by pilots in checking automated data.”

t0mas88 4y ago
In aviation incidents there isn't really a "blame", it's about finding all contributing factors and working together to eliminate those. The intention of investigations is never to assign blame, because that stands in the way of finding all factors and improving them together. So the conclusion "pilots should check the automated data" is a correct one. It's not the only cause, but it is one of the factors and thus it needs to be discussed. In commercial aviation there can never be a single point of failure that could lead to catastrophic outcome. The performance calculations are such a thing, so there must be validation steps. In many airlines for example if the performance calculations are done manually (or by an app based on manual input) they need to be done by both pilots independently and the results cross-checked. Otherwise a single typo could have a big impact.