Interesting Feature on Airbus Planes

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419Eater is my life Joined: 25 Feb 2009 Posts: 299

I don't know if anybody has seen this before but its a bit of fun...

YouTube - Etihad A340-500 landing to JFK runway 4R

For anybody who doesn't know, "retard" is a reminder to the pilot to turn off the throttle. They just happened to pick a word with another meaning Laughing

.Only happens on Airbus planes - Boeing trust their pilots enough to remember landing procedures. And if anybody's interested, when the computer reads out "100-above", it means that they're 100 feet above the decision (or minimum) height. When it reads out "minimums", it means they are at the decision height. This is when the pilot has to decide whether or not to abort the landing. If they can't see the runway when the computer says this, then they HAVE to abort the landing (incase they aren't actually lined up properly). The decision height varies, I think, depending on your aircraft. And the bleeping at 8 seconds is the warning alarm that sounds when they turn off the autopilot. Yes, I'm a bit of an airplane buff Razz

I'm not sure why the video is sped up...

Baiting Guru Joined: 19 Apr 2007 Posts: 3123

Well thanks for telling me how to do my job Laughing

Quote:

I'm not sure why the video is sped up...

Sped up? I always fly my approaches at 200 Knots, just to give the passengers a fun ride (Regardless of the 160 Knot to 4 DME instruction) Wink

Quote:

Only happens on Airbus planes - Boeing trust their pilots enough to remember landing procedures

Not strictly true - we still get the GPWS (Ground Proximity Warning System)
from 2500ft to 10ft, just not the 'retard' bit.

419Eater is my life Joined: 25 Feb 2009 Posts: 299

Craig, I know that the GPWS does do readouts on Boeing planes. I did mean that it just doesn't sound the "retard" bit.

And, just to be pinickity where you say:

Quote:

from 2500ft to 10ft, just not the 'retard' bit.

That is not strictly true - Boeing aircraft do readouts from 2500 to 5ft.

Wink

//EDIT: Oops, they don't. Razz

. That'll teach me to try to outsmart and actual pilot.

Baiting Guru Joined: 19 Apr 2007 Posts: 3123

lareneg wrote:

//EDIT: Oops, they don't. Razz

. That'll teach me to try to outsmart and actual pilot.

It certainly will Laughing

I was about to pull up a list of citations to back me up Razz

Posted: Fri Apr 03, 2009 8:46 pm

Quote:

I was about to pull up a list of citations to back me up

I thought we were talking about Airbuses, not Cessna Citations.

Posted: Fri Apr 03, 2009 8:50 pm

with all the computers and automated systems on planes these days it is no surprise that the planes are telling the pilots what to do..... Shocked

Baiting Guru Joined: 19 Apr 2007 Posts: 3123

I'll have you know I work bloody hard for my money!

@ Yastreb - Laughing

419Eater is my life Joined: 25 Feb 2009 Posts: 299

The planes can actually even land themselves (providing the airport supports full ILS).

From what I heard, the reason why that isn't done by standard is that the autopilot is TOO accurate and plops every plane on the exact same spot every time, which would cause ALOT of damage to the runway at that one spot. Is this snippet a myth or is it true?

Baiting Guru Joined: 19 Apr 2007 Posts: 3123

That's part of the reason, however another, bigger part is personal choice Laughing

If the RVR (Runway Visual Range) is 600M or less, generally company SOP states we should use autoland. However, we would be bored to death if we
did that everyday, so we mix up the approaches for practice, and variation. We would forgot fine details on approaches we rarely do, so we try 'em all when we can.

Posted: Sat Apr 04, 2009 8:57 am

Flying and landing is easy. I did it with one of those remote control jobbies... Can't be too different.

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