I was involved in a landing roll-out program at Flight Dynamics. We had a heads up guidance system (HGS)that could direct a pilot to a safe landing in zero-zero Category 3 conditions, i.e. zero feet cloud ceiling, zero visibility. But once on the ground many of the instrument landing systems became useless, and we needed a way to guide the pilot to a safe stop on the runway.
As part of the qualification for this system, we had to do one thousand instrument landings in the 737-400 full motion simulator at Boeing field. The purpose of this was to collect data to show that we would either direct the pilot to a safe landing in the touchdown target, or we would wave him off and direct a go-around. The allowable tolerance for failure was 1x10^-9, or statistically never.
I was one of the ones collecting the data and recording it for future sifting. We would use whatever pilots we had available,. usually check pilots from the local FAA office. At one point the Chief Technical Pilot at Delta Air Lines, Carter Chapman - who was a big enthusiast of the HGS - stopped by and made himself available to do some landings for us. That was incredible. He was like a machine, setting up and executing a landing every ninety seconds to a full stop, and boy, was he aggressive with his stops! That simulator just stood on its nose when he hit the brakes! We had to scramble to keep up with the data rate coming in, he was so fast and efficient. He's also a former Naval Aviator, so precision was the name of his game, and he was trying to hit the target as close as possible. We allowed something like +/-150 feet lengthwise and 45 feet to either side from the target. On his best landing, he missed it by 7 inches.
The problem was that the FAA check pilots weren't nearly as proficient. Their job is to sit right seat during a pilot qualification, and many of them have very few actual hours on the aircraft as command pilots. We had one guy who was just wrecking our averages. In 7 out of 8 landings we waved him off as unsafe or out of tolerance for a safe landing, and the one time he got it on the runway, he didn't keep it there during the roll-out. I just don't think he understood how to read the symbology we were giving him on the display. Our program manager, who was flying right seat, was pulling his hair out. He suggested a break for everyone to calm down and get collected. Then he took the guy up for the remainder of his time block and demonstrated our new unusual attitude symbology - anything to keep this guy from trying another landing.
As the door closed behind that pilot and everyone breathed a sigh of relief, the manager turns to me and said, "Get in there and fly that last profile! I want to know if it's as bad as he was making it look."
Please note: in spite of literally thousands of hours of sim time, I am not a rated pilot.
I started on 8 mile final approach. It was kind of an ugly set-up, zero-zero visibility, night time, rain, with a 25 knot left quartering crosswind and some turbulence. I trimmed the rudders to accommodate the crosswind and brought it in to a bumpy but serviceable landing and roll out. Yeah, I'd done this before, and I knew how to interpret the HGS symbology and use it to safely fly the plane.
That night over a beer at a reception for the Delta pilots association, my program manager tells the head of the FAA pilots office, "I've got unrated systems engineers that can land that plane better than your goddam pilots can!"
As part of the qualification for this system, we had to do one thousand instrument landings in the 737-400 full motion simulator at Boeing field. The purpose of this was to collect data to show that we would either direct the pilot to a safe landing in the touchdown target, or we would wave him off and direct a go-around. The allowable tolerance for failure was 1x10^-9, or statistically never.
I was one of the ones collecting the data and recording it for future sifting. We would use whatever pilots we had available,. usually check pilots from the local FAA office. At one point the Chief Technical Pilot at Delta Air Lines, Carter Chapman - who was a big enthusiast of the HGS - stopped by and made himself available to do some landings for us. That was incredible. He was like a machine, setting up and executing a landing every ninety seconds to a full stop, and boy, was he aggressive with his stops! That simulator just stood on its nose when he hit the brakes! We had to scramble to keep up with the data rate coming in, he was so fast and efficient. He's also a former Naval Aviator, so precision was the name of his game, and he was trying to hit the target as close as possible. We allowed something like +/-150 feet lengthwise and 45 feet to either side from the target. On his best landing, he missed it by 7 inches.
The problem was that the FAA check pilots weren't nearly as proficient. Their job is to sit right seat during a pilot qualification, and many of them have very few actual hours on the aircraft as command pilots. We had one guy who was just wrecking our averages. In 7 out of 8 landings we waved him off as unsafe or out of tolerance for a safe landing, and the one time he got it on the runway, he didn't keep it there during the roll-out. I just don't think he understood how to read the symbology we were giving him on the display. Our program manager, who was flying right seat, was pulling his hair out. He suggested a break for everyone to calm down and get collected. Then he took the guy up for the remainder of his time block and demonstrated our new unusual attitude symbology - anything to keep this guy from trying another landing.
As the door closed behind that pilot and everyone breathed a sigh of relief, the manager turns to me and said, "Get in there and fly that last profile! I want to know if it's as bad as he was making it look."
Please note: in spite of literally thousands of hours of sim time, I am not a rated pilot.
I started on 8 mile final approach. It was kind of an ugly set-up, zero-zero visibility, night time, rain, with a 25 knot left quartering crosswind and some turbulence. I trimmed the rudders to accommodate the crosswind and brought it in to a bumpy but serviceable landing and roll out. Yeah, I'd done this before, and I knew how to interpret the HGS symbology and use it to safely fly the plane.
That night over a beer at a reception for the Delta pilots association, my program manager tells the head of the FAA pilots office, "I've got unrated systems engineers that can land that plane better than your goddam pilots can!"
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