Advanced phase begins - Handling failures

I am now three lessons into the advanced phase. During this phase, there are 'sign-off' items that are required to ensure we have reached the competency for various parts of flying the airbus. The first lesson was another automation exercise, simply conducting mostly normal flying and non-precision approaches, with a few go-arounds thrown in for good measure. 

I really enjoyed the first lesson, having been given another opportunity to further consolidate the way to handle an entire flight with all multi-crew aspects from before start to after landing. Although I think there were a couple of places where I could have been slightly more polished, more thorough, we all performed well and got through to the next lesson. 

We continued to fly some normal aspects of flying, including precision approaches (manual and automatic) as well as getting into failure scenarios. The second and third lesson focussed on electrical failures. 

In Electrical Emergency Configuration - note how dark most of the cockpit is (hence the grainy iPhone picture)

In the airbus, electrical failures can be a pretty serious issue, since It is very reliant of electrics. However, as mentioned in other posts, the redundancy level in the aircraft is very impressive. Even with some of the most serious electrical failures the aircraft was still flyable and landing safely was never in doubt when running the procedures. 

A Picture of the Ram Air Turbine (RAT) underneath the aircraft. It's normally stowed away never to be seen, unless you have an emergency

The electrical systems page in Electrical Emergency Configuration. As always, amber =  faulty. The main systems are all inoperative (AC 1 + 2, DC 1 + 2)....yes I dislike electrics, too!!

We ended up running through the Emergency Electrical Configuration (EEC), where the aircraft is electrically powered by an emergency generator only, which is powered by a RAT (Ram Air Turbine) that pops out from under the aircraft when the engine generators fail to work. When the failure starts, the right hand screens go blank and most of the lights in the cockpit go dark. A quick assessment of the situation needs to be made (in our case necessitating a handover of control to the left seat pilot) and the A.N.C.E. philosophy followed. 

A.N.C.E. is a way to ensure the correct sequence of operating is followed, and works for any stage of flight and for any situation:

Aviate - Fly the aircraft!!! most important thing to do. This can be as simple as ensuring the aircraft is still flying straight and level, or to regain control if the flight path is not as desired

Navigate - Ensure the aircraft is going where required. On takeoff, this could be to fly an emergency turn to ensure terrain clearance. 

Communication - Only now should you take time to communicate a problem with ATC if appropriate. It is no use telling ATC that you have a problem if you then fly into the ground due to lack of 'aviating', for example.

ECAM - Once the situation has been stabilised, then the crew can move into the ECAM procedure to assess the problem and run the procedures to attempt to fix (or at least secure) the issue. 

It's important to have a structure of priorities when flying to ensure that, even with a very obscure or surprising failure or situation, the correct actions are taken. We used this structure throughout these lessons, leading to good performances and safe landings all round. 

It's now less than a month until we join the airline, and we are all very excited to get there. Preparation for the LST (Licence Skills Test) continues....

Intermediate phase - Complete

As the title suggests, MPL01 have now completed the intermediate phase of training. Despite my lack of blog updates, it has gone well. The intermediate phase involved a larger use of automation systems focusing on managing flights with both normal and abnormal scenarios.

Saying that, the first four simulator sessions were focussed solely on manual landings and flight law protections, giving us a further consolidation of the techniques and knowledge that we have been practicing from the basic phase. A further sense of reality was given in the fact that for the entire intermediate (and advanced) phase, we have full motion simulation. This gives that extra bit of realism when flying and, particularly, landing. Although perhaps not a 100% accurate level of force feedback, it gives both an advantage in being able to feel more what the aircraft is doing as well as the disadvantage of being moved and bounced around while trying to fly!

Running out of new photos now - this time you get to see the audio control panel/radio management panel

After those four 'handling' lessons, which were very useful after a month out of the sim during ground school, we moved on to LOFT exercises (Line Oriented Flight Training). Basically, given a route to fly using all the SOPs and learning to correctly program the flight management systems. These evolved into low visibility operations and decision making in difficult scenarios.

The next three sessions focussed on adverse weather and emergency maneuvers , including thunderstorms and windshear (and using the weather radar etc), cold weather operations and TCAS & EGPWS. These are systems to avoid other aircraft and terrain, giving aural warnings and resolution advisories to help you get out of trouble. It was quite fun flying around at low level hunting for a big hill to set off the EGPWS (Enhanced Ground Proximity Warning System). It's impressive how many advanced systems there are to aid the pilot to avoid and escape dangerous situations within the flying environment, yet also a bit daunting having to know how to use them in all situations having come from such lowly aviation backgrounds. One thing's for sure, we are all up for the challenge!

Towards the end of the last month we progressed onto ECAM Management, learning to correctly handle emergency/failure scenarios in a disciplined and calm manner. It never ceases to amaze me how much redundancy the aircraft has, so many systems can fail with negligible impact on flying apart from the odd checklist to run and landing distance procedure to apply (working out the new required landing distance based in the failure that has occurred, along with the current conditions). We ended up, during the final sim before our Competency Assurance Flight, having a look at a dual hydraulics failure. Seeing as there is next to zero mechanical links between the controls and surfaces, being down to a single hydraulic system to power the flight control actuators is a very, very serious issue. 

The system display for flight controls during a G+B hydraulic failure. all the amber systems have failed.  (image: usebeforeflight.com)

For example, only having the Yellow system available gives a serious flight control problem. ZERO aileron control, only ONE actuator powering the right hand side elevator etc. Fortunately, roll control is still given with the use of the two remaining speed brakes (of the five normally available). I will not go into any further detail, suffice to say it's a very minute possibility of this level of failure, and the aircraft copes admirably given how many systems are no longer powered. 

So that was it for the intermediate phase, the CA flight went well, having to cope with basic aircraft failures, traffic avoidance advisories and finally a bomb on board scenario. All good fun and I learnt an awful lot! 

I've been reminiscing about flying out in New Zealand recently, having been able to chat to the lucky six cadets who have been selected to join the second Monarch MPL, who have just arrived in NZ to start their flying. Good luck guys and have fun!!

Great times from New Zealand

Next up - Advanced phase!!! Just a month to go!!!

Airbus A320 Technical Ground School Complete

The Airbus a320 series, 5 flight control computers control these surfaces

So the Basic Phase of our training is over, and we have finally got round to the point of needing to know the Airbus a320 from a technical standpoint. The groundschool comes in the form of two weeks CBT (computer based training) with daily reviews, a couple of progress tests and a final exam comprising of 112 multiple choice questions. All of this is interspersed with VFD (Virtual Flight Deck) sessions, where we get the opportunity to practice using the aircraft equipment and to see the systems and failures that we were learning about on a daily basis. 

For the MPL, we have been at a slight advantage, especially in the VFD, due to the fact the cockpit looks very familiar to us. We already knew, to some extent, where all the buttons and switches are. It was really useful to finally be able to get an illustration of the entire cockpit workings and systems. 

My home for two weeks. Computer based training (with narration from American/Australian women) is much better than just reading books. The FCOMs were vital, though.

The CBT is divided up into 21 different subjects:

1. Air Conditioning
2. Aircraft Overview
3. APU
4. Auto Flight
5. Communications
6. Doors
7. Electrical
8. Equipment
9. Fire Protection
10. Flight Controls
11. Fuel
12. Hydraulics
13. Ice & Rain
14. Indicating & Recording
15. Landing Gear
16. Lights
17. Navigation
18. Oxygen
19. Pneumatics
20. Power Plant (CFM)
21. Water & Waste

All of these subjects have a relevant section in the FCOM, Flight Crew Operating Manual. This is basically the bible for pilots with regard to how the aircraft works. The Monarch FCOM has over 3500 pages, and the folders are stacked 5 high!

GS mini function. clever addition to the aircraft systems/logic

Once we got over the shear amount of information we would have to digest, not only over the 2-3 weeks of ground school but throughout our flying careers as well, it started to become clearer what a clever piece of kit the Airbus a320 is. 

While some of the features may not be exclusive to the Airbus, there were some that I found particularly interesting;

• The 'dark cockpit' principle. All lights on the (very well organised) overhead panel etc have specific colour coding and when in completely normal operation the lights of the buttons should be extinguished, so when something is out of the ordinary it will be easily visible (the only button with a light on!!)

• The Fly-By-Wire flight control 'laws' , in normal operation, include various different types of protections such as Angle of Attack (stall) protection, Bank and Pitch protections and high speed protection. These mean that the aircraft can be flown to its maximum performance with less fear of departing controlled flight. For example, if trying to avoid another aircraft, full sidestick inputs can be made and the aircraft will fly just on the edge of the envelope. In conventional aircraft, if full control deflections were made for a sustained amount of time it would likely depart from controlled flight!

• Redundancy - The a320 is an 'electric jet'. It uses many computers to perform various tasks throughout the aircraft and, as such, could cause concern should a computer fail (we've all had the 'Blue Screen Of Death' on our windows PCs!). In fact, should anything on the aircraft fail, most operations continue as normal using secondary systems. For example, there are FIVE flight control computers, and should four of these fail, the last one can still give control of the aircraft. if the last one fails, the aircraft can STILL be flown using the mechanical backup system (though it really wouldn't be your day should that happen!

• GS MINI - As illustrated above, the GS mini function of the aircraft is something that is difficult to explain but makes complete sense. In short, it lets the aircraft maintain it's energy throughout an approach in varying magnitudes of wind so that it reaches the threshold of the runway with the correct energy (speed), with minimal power fluctuations and with less chance of the aircraft energy dropping below that which is required at landing. 

• ECAM - Electronic Centralised Aircraft Monitoring. This is basically the aircraft using information to detect faults and to display the affected systems, as well as diagnose the issue and give a list of remedial action to be conducted by the flight crew, reducing the time taken to find paper checklists, missing items on a paper checklist etc. It's a very clever and useful feature that, while care must be taken (it can be easy to get distracted with trying to fix a fault instead of flying, navigating or communicating), seems to make dealing with faults that much more obvious and enables the crew to monitor the entire aircrafts systems through the displays. 

There are many other features that are very clever, and even more that are very complex, but I shall not be going through much more on here! Suffice to say, as a passenger on this aircraft I would feel confident that it has a high level of design logic and redundancy that ensures it is one of the safest aircraft flying today. 

An example load sheet that is prepared before each flight, those in groundschool should recognise these!!

After the ground school was over (yes, we all passed!), we had a few days with a brilliant pilot from Monarch (thanks for that,  Captain Ward), who talked us through various bits that were more airline specific such as LVPs (Low Visibility Procedures), performance, loading and the computerised flight plan (Pilots log). It was great to run through some of the things we would all encounter on our day to day flying, as well as meet one of the guys likely to be involved in our line training once we join the airline. We had a short test on these subjects, which again we all passed successfully.

The final day included a look at the great bit of kit Monarch are retrofitting to their fleet, the Electronic Flight Bag (EFB). Each pilot will have, mounted on the side of the cockpit, a touchscreen display with various 'apps' that can be used to perform various tasks that are currently done by hand, on many bits of paper! These include load sheets, performance calculations, flight logging, chart viewing (with georeferenced taxi charts so no more getting lost at complex airports!) and also document viewing. It's great to see the airline is embracing new technology that will simultaneously reduce pilot workload, but also increase efficiency/save money due to the more accurate performance calculations, better engine monitoring etc. It was explained to us that, since this system is integrated to the engine monitoring systems and sends that data back to the engine manufacturer real time, if and engine is 'saved' from failure, the saving on avoiding that issue would go a long way to paying for the systems. An obvious choice to have them, then!

Apologies for those who have actually been waiting for another update. As you can imagine, we have all been fairly busy. We are finally back in the simulator now, with the rest of our sessions in full motion so we can really feel those landings (some more than others!)

Upset Recovery - Basic Phase Complete

Stuart beginning the recovering from quite a severe undesired aircraft state in direct law - sometimes it's quicker and safer to continue to go upside down and out the other side than to reverse the roll in this situation!

An ever increasing aspect of flight training, especially since accidents such as Air France Flight 447, has been upset recovery.

Our MPL course includes two simulator sessions dedicated to recovery from unusual attitudes at both low and high altitudes during the Basic Phase. They were also the only two simulator sessions that had the simulator in full motion, as opposed to being 'fixed base' events. 

Mark initiating a nose high recovery in alternate law

The general technique in recovering from an unusual attitude has been carefully selected to be easy to remember in what will quite obviously be a high-stress environment, and will generally be suitable to use in various different kinds of upset. The first two things we were taught to do upon recognising an upset (often this is when opening our eyes after the instructor has flown the aircraft out of normal flight) is to identify what kind of unusual attitude we were in, nose high or nose low and to positively disengage the autopilot (it may be the autopilot that has got you into the situation).

The instructor putting the aircraft into an undesired aircraft state - definitely nose low this time! - ready for me to recover

Then the following actions are applied, in degrees appropriate for the aircraft energy state. By this I mean a sum of the aircraft speed, attitude, thrust setting and the rate of change of those parameters. The order of action is to Unload the wings, Roll near to wings level, Pitch to the horizon and finally assess Power requirements. This technique, in general, provides the correct structure to manoeuvre a 60+ metric ton aircraft out of an undesired aircraft state. 

It all sounds relatively simple to do this step by step. However, when you open your eyes to see the aircraft 50 degrees nose up and a 45 degree bank angle (often we were asked to close our eyes to give a 'startle factor' that would occur in this situation for real) you really feel pressure to apply the corrections promptly. Having assessed a nose high attitude and disengaged the autopilot you begin to apply the changes, pushing forward slightly to 'unload' the wings (reduce g to reduce the opportunity for the aircraft to enter a stall, as well as to reduce the stresses placed on the wing) a quick glance at the PFD shows the airspeed rapidly dropping, with the speed trend arrow, which shows the predicted speed in 10 seconds time, at the bottom of the screen! It is easy to over control in this instance, but prompt (not quick!) control inputs are required to recover safely. 

Since the Airbus is a fly-by-wire aircraft, our sessions involved conducting the profiles in all three of the Airbus flight control laws, Normal, Alternate and Direct. Normal law includes various protections that greatly increase the chances of recovering promptly, and in theory prevent the aircraft from entering a more serious upset. Alternate law is a degraded flight control law which, while offering a few protections in some areas it does not in others. Finally, direct law degrades the aircraft to act as any other aircraft would, with a pitch-power couple, manual trim requirement etc. The two degraded laws make it slightly harder to smoothly and promptly recover from upsets in comparison to the alternate law, however if an Airbus is in a situation where an undesired aircraft state occurs then it may well be likely that it will be in a degraded flight control law, too. 

Short final to land at Gatwick, with an icy runway ahead!

The end of the session saw us practice some sudden upsets at low altitude on final approach, simulating an encounter with wake turbulence, the strong vortices from a preceding aircraft. Once these were complete, we had a spare 5 minutes to get a chance to land the aircraft with the motion on. For my last landing I had a pretty strong crosswind and direct law, meaning the aircraft handled differently to what I had flown previously. A great learning experience and I'm glad to say I landed safely on the centreline of the runway!! 

My final landing - flying manually in Direct Law with a very strong crosswind, the runway is in the side window!

Overall the two upset recovery sessions were a great experience, and it was good to be thoroughly taught the techniques required to handle an aircraft of this size in situations that are very rare and less than ideal! This is the sort of training which puts the MPL at the forefront of flight training and is where the rest of the industry will be, and needs to be, going to create better prepared pilots.

Since these flights, we have had a few LOFT (Line Orientated Flight Training) flights to build our decision making throughout an entire flight, as well as some consolidation flights before our final flight in the basic phase, the Competency Assurance Flight. I am happy to say that all 6 of us flew through our CA flights (pun intended) and we have now completed the basic phase of training. This includes being given a stripe to reward us on our achievements!

Our first set of stripes, the next set comes when we join the airline!

Flying the Airbus

The cockpit of the Airbus - Inside the new simulator

As I write this post we're over half way through the basic phase, which comprises of 31 simulator sessions of 4 hours each, comprising of 1 hour 20 minutes in each seat acting as PNF (Pilot Not Flying), PF (Pilot Flying) and OBS (Observer). This has been great a way to really gain experience and look for the threats and errors that happen. This is especially obvious when sitting in the observers seat behind the two pilots, you can seemingly see every error that happens, which isn't always the case when you are at maximum capacity flying the aircraft!

So far we have effectively been consolidating our instrument flying in a heavy jet environment. All of our flights so far have been completely manually flown, using raw data (none of the fancy flight director, navigation and auto flight systems that the Airbus has). It's given us great confidence that we are all now flying the aircraft through sometimes complex routes all by ourselves and managing not to break anything!

Flying in IMC (in the clouds) descending on a non-precision approach with no automation or flight guidance

More recently we have been introduced to single engine flying. We had in introduction in the 737-700 simulator to see how a basic/'conventional' aircraft handles when an engine fails. Then we started to fail an engine during various phases, starting with the cruise then working our way to more crucial phases of flight including during and shortly after take-off.

Because of the power of the engines during take-off, when an engine fails the 'swing' can be quite dramatic so you have to have your wits about you, and be careful not to over control when trying to keep the aircraft flying straight. Fortunately the Airbus, with its fly-by-wire control architecture, makes the controls during engine failure situations relatively easy. Even if you do nothing the aircraft will not go out of control (though it may not be a comfortable ride!) unlike the Boeing which seemingly will bite if the correct actions are taken.  

Approaching Gatwick airport with the number 2 (right) engine switched off

We have also recently been venturing into the realms of multi-crew flying, utilising the skills of both pilot crew to conduct the flight safely. it's been a nice gradual transition to the multi-crew side of things, merging the SOPs with decision making etc to make the flight run smoother and mean less things are misses/mistaken. 

Things are slowly but surely coming together!

Stuart and Mark running through the departure briefing  both updating their mental models so they know how the first part of the flight will run.

Back in the UK!

The brand new Airbus A320 simulator

Now we're back in the UK, we have begun the final third of our course. This section is flown entirely in the Airbus A320 simulator, and is further split into three sections. 

The first of these stages is called the Basic phase. This phase began with an introduction to handling a narrow-body jet airliner and has since progressed into polishing off our fundamentals of instrument flying, and the higher speeds at which they are flown (and therefore how fast things happen!). So far we have all managed well, with SIDs and STARs being flown (Standard Instrument Departures, a way to depart from an airfield, as well as STandard Arrival Routes, a way to transition from the cruise phase to the approach phase to an airport). The main focus, however, has been the instrument approaches, both precision approaches and so-called non-precision approaches. 

Looking into the A320 sim from the gallery, a sneak preview of the cockpit!

The Airbus is a very powerful machine to fly and climbs like nothing we have ever experienced before, and has a lot of inertia meaning small corrections need to be made and no change in flight path can happen very quickly, so anticipation in the key! It is, however, very accurate, with the ability to fly to within a pixel width pitch on the primary flight display, though this takes a lot of concentration ;)

We are also venturing into the world of Standard Operating Procedures, SOPs, which lay out a very detailed framework of what each of the two pilots on board does and says, and when they should do so. 

The old Airbus A320 sim, with the high quality Boeing 737-800 simulator in the background

A 'Cardboard Bomber' Airbus cockpit, for us to practice memory items, and remember where all the buttons are!

Up next for us is to learn how to handle engine failures and to perform the flying we have done previously with one engine inoperative. Seems like fun!

Start of IFR phase

This post is coming very late, having been back home from New Zealand for about a month now....

IFR - Instrument Flight Rules

Since airliners always fly under IFR, enabling them to be in controlled airspace and fly though clouds and rain etc, It was inevitable that this type of flying would be conducted out in NZ. This was to be my last phase of the basic flight training before returning to the UK.

First of all, we had 7 sessions in the simulator learning different types of holding procedures (where aircraft fly in a pre-defined racetrack pattern, perhaps due to a busy traffic environment or to descend in a 'stack' of many aircraft. This was done using different types of navigation aid, with our sole reference being the instruments in the cockpit (no looking out of the windows!!), which was to be the case throughout the IFR phase.

We also had a few lessons to learn the types of instrument approach procedures that we may encounter in the airlines, including the very standard (for the UK at least) ILS, or Instrument Landing System.

Then finally came the IFR flights, still in the Cessna 172 using the fantastic Garmin G1000 system, which makes the IFR flights a lot simpler than with the old school analogue dials.

All of our flights were to be GPS routes, flying to other airfields using the GPS system on board to navigate and perform instrument approaches, before conducting a 'missed approach' and returning to Hamilton. For IFR flights, a flight plan must be submitted to let the air traffic services know details about your flight, ontop of the usual preparations. 

Most of the following photos were taken during my last IFR flight, backseating the first leg to New Plymouth with Phil flying, then (after a nice coffee and a bite to eat, of course) flying back to Hamilton for a couple of instrument approaches. Enjoy!

Heading south from Hamilton, approaching a pretty thick layer of cloud which we stayed in for about 30mins

Phil doing a great job both flying the plane, and looking great modelling the 'Hood' used to obstruct our view for IFR training

The best views come when flying above the clouds

Leaving New Plymouth Airport, just starting to climb above the clouds.

The route back to Hamilton programmed into the MFD of the G1000 system. We decided to fly to Taumaranui before turning north.

The customary box of aeroplane shaped sweets from the great cafe at New Plymouth, cheers Mike!

Some impressive cloud formations towards Hamilton, while cruising at 9000ft

Nice vertical development on this one, eh Jamie!

The view of the cloud I had just flown through. Very fluffy!

The view of our accommodation on the first approach

While repositioning for our second approach, the sea on the west coast was visible 

Conducting a circling approach, flying a low level circuit back to the runway. Gives a great view of the very slim runway 18R when compared to the larger main runway.

This is the weather I was flying in during the holding procedure and initial approach to the runway. The noise of the rain of the aircraft was pretty loud. 

So that's pretty much it for New Zealand!

My time there has been amazing, making great friends and flying over the most beautiful places. I also must thank our MPL instructors, who were all very skilled, enthusiastic and friendly guys. Thanks Tim, Mike, Mitch, Grey, Kane, Vijeta, Henry and Nick.

I'll miss it, but I'm certainly ready to get back home and start learning to fly the Airbus and get to Monarch!

Thank you New Zealand!