chornedsnorkackI am not sure that the FARs are particularly vague in this regard. The relevant detail is in Appendix D (for Part 25 Transport Category Aircraft)
Well, I looked it up…
The following are considered by the Agency in determining the minimum flight crew under Sec. 25.1523:
a. Basic workload functions. The following basic workload functions are considered:
(1) Flight path control.
(2) Collision avoidance.
(3) Navigation.
(4) Communications.
(5) Operation and monitoring of aircraft engines and systems.
(6) Command decisions.
b. Workload factors. The following workload factors are considered significant when analyzing and demonstrating workload for minimum flight crew determination:
(1) The accessibility, ease, and simplicity of operation of all necessary flight, power, and equipment controls, including emergency fuel shutoff valves, electrical controls, electronic controls, pressurization system controls, and engine controls.
(2) The accessibility and conspicuity of all necessary instruments and failure warning devices such as fire warning, electrical system malfunction, and other failure or caution indicators. The extent to which such instruments or devices direct the proper corrective action is also considered.
(3) The number, urgency, and complexity of operating procedures with particular consideration given to the specific fuel management schedule imposed by center of gravity, structural or other considerations of an airworthiness nature, and to the ability of each engine to operate at all times from a single tank or source which is automatically replenished if fuel is also stored in other tanks.
(4) The degree and duration of concentrated mental and physical effort involved in normal operation and in diagnosing and coping with malfunctions and emergencies.
(5) The extent of required monitoring of the fuel, hydraulic, pressurization, electrical, electronic, deicing, and other systems while en route.
(6) The actions requiring a crewmember to be unavailable at his assigned duty station, including: observation of systems, emergency operation of any control, and emergencies in any compartment.
(7) The degree of automation provided in the aircraft systems to afford (after failures or malfunctions) automatic crossover or isolation of difficulties to minimize the need for flight crew action to guard against loss of hydraulic or electric power to flight controls or to other essential systems.
(8) The communications and navigation workload.
(9) The possibility of increased workload associated with any emergency that may lead to other emergencies.
(10) Incapacitation of a flight crewmember whenever the applicable operating rule requires a minimum flight crew of at least two pilots.
So. Does it mean that the light twinjets which can be flown solo (some Cessna versions) impose a considerably lower total flightcrew workload than the light twinjets which cannot be flown solo (other Cessna versions)?
chornedsnorkackAircraft will not be certificated if their cockpit ergonomics are such that the incapacitation of a single crew member will render the flight inoperable. The general certification requirements for light-end aircraft, as applied by the FAA can be found online under FAR 23.1523, if it is a subject that interests you.
Indeed. Though the FAR-s, and JAR-s, tend to be expressed in general terms in a large number of their provisions.
The difference between those aircraft which cannot obtain single-crew certification is more a question of what a single pilot can comfortably achieve, rather than with the absolute inability to reach a particular switch or control.
In reality, the question of fundamental control ergonomics is diminishing as cockpits make greater use of EICAS, and EFIS technology to make systems accessible from any crew position. This is gradually making much more complex aircraft accessible to single-crew operations. It is now increasingly a regulatory and safety matter rather than a piloting question whether such a single-crew operation is appropriate.
Ah, I see.
So, is a light twin bizjet with less than 9 seats et cetera actually significantly less complex and more safe to fly than a heavy twin? Or is it purely a regulatory difference?
The FARs seem to require maximum of 9 passenger seat on any single engine plane, and also maximum of 9 for single pilot. As you said, EASA may refuse single pilot certification to planes that have FAA certification. On the other hand, there are other CAA-s… I have heard that some big Cessna single engine planes are restricted in USA to 9 seats as per FAR-s, but in fact are big enough to have 13-14 seats installed, and fly that way outside USA, like Latin America. Well, there is a plane manufacturer in Latin America who is planning to build single pilot bizjets and already is building bigger bizjets and airliners… wonder if the use of EICAS and EFIS encourages building versions of larger business jets to be flyable solo where certification can be acquired…
chornedsnorkackI fly just such a twin-engined bizjet.
Whether or not an aircraft can be flown Single-Crew is a function of three factors. Generalising slightly, these are:
1) Whether or not the manufacturer built it that way. Simple things, such as access to circuit-breakers, flap controls, fuel-feeds and similar can preclude single-crew ops.
Wouldn´t those things in cockpit be especially hazardous in emergency with one pilot incapacitated?
chornedsnorkackExceeding lightspeed
Basically, if you get out of the lightcone, you are already breaking so many laws of nature that it is hard to say which ones you still obey.
It is theoretically possible to travel near the speed of light. Therefore, it is known exactly how it is done. You will spend a huge amount of energy to accelerate, and that energy will do its destruction if you collide with something – even gas.
However, what the consequences are of travelling outside the lightcone is unknown. It can be impossible forever. It can stay useless and expensive curiosity. Or it could allow you to reach Alpha Centauri (and back!) in months. Or days. Or minutes. You might have a cheap way of covering hundreds of millions of lightyears…
chornedsnorkackThere are thousands of buildings with more than 5 levels in the world with require every “passenger” to walk down in case of emergency, which may be an issue if you have to travel 40 levels down and are not an athlete.
Was there ever an evacuation test for the World Trade Center? How good do evacuation procedures work for trains, public buildings, busses, underground train stations.
By and large, most of those do not require for propulsion to have half or a third of their total mass to consist of highly flammable and liquid fuel that breaks out of tanks and bursts into fire at crashing.
chornedsnorkackthe same problem applies for clinical tests of new drugs, with the difference that due to that people really die sometimes (I don’t mean the young people trying but the old people getting prescriptions).
Does the difference really exist? There was a recent Saudi B747 evacuation, in Sri Lanka I think, due to a bomb hoax call. Bomb did not actually exist. No explosion happened. No fire. No smoke or extraordinary darkness. All exits usable – no requirement to close half exits.
Out of the less than 440 passengers to be evacuated, and B747 is supposed to be able to evacuate 660, 62 were injured. And one perished. Not an elderly person, either – apparently healthy and fit woman in late twenties.
I have not heard of anyone yet dying in a test evacuation, but one person has become paralyzed by a test evacuation.
Out of the people to evacuate the A380 on Sunday – 538 seats on main deck, 315 on upper deck – the prospect of being among the first fatality/ies of test evacuation sounds very real.
chornedsnorkackRedwings – On the B742 at Virgin the FE had to be able to set the aircraft up for an autoland in the event of both pilots becoming incapacitated. In the event on 1 pilot becoming incapacitated the FE would read checklists and perhaps move flap/gear levers on the remaining pilots command.
glhcarl, the question was never about deliberately setting off 2 crew in a 3 crew aircraft but how to cope with one pilot becoming incapacitated after departure so the ‘regulations’ are not really relevant here.
Sandy, that brings up an interesting aspect as it was always common in the States for the FE to be a pilot waiting to get a shot in the right hand seat.
Does it mean the US airlines, and regulators, and manufacturers, made the assumption that if one pilot were incapacitated, the FE would be a qualified pilot and might leave the FE station to occupy the free seat? That landing an airliner by one qualified pilot required double flightccrew incapacitation?
With the exception of BEA and their Trident fleet the UK has always (at least for the last 20 years of FE ops) looked at the FE position as a dedicated engineers post as their supreme engineering skills were the thing that would get you home when the aircraft goes TU. They also tended to know the precise location of every strip joint in every city in the world!
So, the UK makes the assumption that FE has engineering expertise which neither pilot is expected to possess… with exception of Trident… does it run through, e. g. the cockpit setup of the VC10?
chornedsnorkackSlip reaction
So… the Taube had no fin to start with.
If the original Taube was rolled to a bank for a flat turn, then without the fin to produce yawing torque, the plane would have tended to have sideslip… right?
chornedsnorkackShowers and bathrooms????? they take up room……if the bean counters get their way they’ll be crammed with as many seats as is humanly possible!!
Which means 853. That is the number to be seated there on 26th instant. 538 on lower deck, 315 on upper deck.
I can see how Boeing 747 can seat 624 people. 539 on lower deck, 85 on upper deck. But no one has so many. Corsair has only 587. And most airliners have much fewer. SQ has 372 to 375. Somehow, the bean counters can justify that.
chornedsnorkackI posted a pic of the tailfeathers above.
The precursor to the Etrich Taube,the Etrich-Wels Zanonia “Praterspatz” which led to the Taube started out as a flying wing but was later modified to sport some tailfeathers.
Hm. Was the original plane a pure flying wing, or did it already have a tail horizontal stabilizer and elevator?
Birds obviously have tailfeathers – but no fin nor rudder.
chornedsnorkackThere is no difference in costs involved in keeping 180mins and 120 mins so why not keep it going?
Really?
Wasn´t there a story about Thai giving up their ETOPS 180 because they could not afford to keep it, but retaining ETOPS 120?
chornedsnorkackHi all i was just thinking about the future and what will happen, will somone in the next few decades think of somthing that out does every plane it could maybe next the A400 and be a triple decker,
A400 is not a triple-decker, I kind of doubt it is big enough.
Instead, A400 is a big turboprop with 4 pairs of coaxial counterrotating propellers. Someone should tell how big it exactly is.
or is two floors enough and people will think of having showers and baths in the bathrooms of the A380?
You almost can have A380 as triple-decker. B747 already almost is a triple-decker.
Becasue we all no how technology has improve – fast and every year theres always somthing new?
I think in the future we won’t have pilots becasue computers will be doing it all, or am just thinking totally out of this world??
Not quite. But it is difficult…
Military has unmanned spy planes for quite some time. But one problem is, they crash quite often. Another is, they do have pilots sitting back in a control room. Basically, they are remotely controlled – not flown by computer.
chornedsnorkackAs far as wing warping goes,it was best left alone,Rudder was preferred.
But wasn´t it said that it had no rudder, nor fin?
chornedsnorkackContaining ambitions I guess 😉
Hey, those guys were far from making anything even remotely resembling aerobatics. Sometimes they fell off their crafts in mid-air cause they had no harness …
Yes, but if the wing-warping was difficult then it would also have made it difficult to exit a turn. Did Taube have any problems getting out of circles?
chornedsnorkackVery flat, wide turns only. It had no vertical stabilizer or rudder. Using the elevator to compensate.
Actually it’s funny you ask about it right now. There is/was one flying in Germany. Built by “Historischer Flugzeugbau Fürstenwalde”, but was sold about a month ago to director Peter Jackson (“Lord of the Rings”), but the name of the buyer was not officially disclosed.
Very interesting. Have any new replicas been built?
I understand why rudder is easy to dispense with – but the vertical stabilizer… What precisely prevents a Taube from overbanking and getting into a spiral dive if the warping of one wing were sustained for too long?
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