Understanding Weight and Balance
To “feel” the aircraft response through the flight controls as being “heavier or lighter” than anticipated at take-off can result from a weight & balance inaccuracy. In fact, when the CG is out of the operational limits, the safety consequences can be far more critical than just a strange feeling.
Wind shear: an invisible enemy to pilots?
Weather plays a significant role in aviation safety and is regularly cited as a contributing factor in accidents or major incidents. Wind shear in the form of microbursts particularly, can be a severe hazard to aircraft during take-off, approach and landing.
Tidy cockpit for safe flight
One would not normally think of everyday life objects, apparently as inoffensive as a pen or a cup of coffee, as being a real threat to the safe operation of a commercial flight. Yet, leaving them unsecured or forgotten in a cockpit could rapidly turn them into real trouble makers…
Control your speed… at take-off
One of the most critical decisions that every line pilot may potentially encounter during every take-off is to continue or abort the procedure; hence the essential need to properly monitor the airspeed during this phase.
Learning from the evidence
In September 2014, Airbus will inaugurate its new A350 pilots Type-Rating course. The drivers for this development were both the EBT (Evidence-Based Training) principles and an analysis of natural learning mechanisms.
Airbus Brake Testing
Regulatory aircraft performance is certified as a set of performance models and aircraft physical characteristics that are built and validated from flight test data. While the primary purpose of these models has always been to allow computation of aircraft performance for dispatch, the models used to determine the in-flight landing distances during approach preparation are derived from the same testing. Part of this model, affecting both the accelerate-stop computation at take-off and the landing distance computation, are the characteristics of the braking system installed on the aircraft.This article explains which flight tests are involved in the identification of the system characteristics and how they are conducted.
Hard Landing, a Case Study for Crews and Maintenance Personnel
In this article, Airbus would like to take you through a case study and use it to learn some lessons and share our safety first culture. The article is split into three distinct parts:The first will describe the eventThe second, targeted at flight crews, will discuss and develop the stabilization criteria and present a prevention strategy against unstable approaches. It will also insist on the need to use the appropriate level of automation at all times.The third part, targeted at maintenance personnel, will illustrate the need to always use the Aircraft Maintenance Manual (AMM) as the source document for maintenance operations.
Flying a Go-Around Managing Energy
Airbus recently performed some research on the quality of go-around execution. This involved examining nearly 500,000 approaches flown by many airlines from around the world.The results highlighted that in some cases crews are choosing not to apply the Airbus Standard Operating Procedure (SOP) for the go-around phase.Particularly when a go-around was performed above 1,200 ft, the flight crew often decided to adapt the engines thrust selection instead of setting TOGA thrust. Feedback from operators also indicates a similar tendency. As a result, Airbus received several reports of unexpected aircraft trajectories and energy management techniques during the go-around procedure.Therefore, it was decided to address these issues by:Better defining an optional thrust levers management tech-nique during the a go-around, as per Airbus SOP.Developing a “Discontinued Approach” technique that wouldallow crews to effectively “abort” the approach without selecting TOGA detent.The Flight Crew Training Manual (FCTM) and the Flight Crew Operating Manual (FCOM) were updated accordingly end 2013 (updates respectively in March and May 2014 for the A300/A310 and A380).
Flight Data Analysis (FDA), a Predictive Tool for Safety Management System (SMS)
Flight Data Recording