Hand flying the heavies

My first post here in flightsim.com. Been here in this hobby for about 4 years now and still amazed at how much there is to learn...i guess every time i fire up FSX there's something new to learn and one step more towards attaining the realism we all flightsim enthusiasts so badly want.

Anyways enough of the random musings here. For the past few months i have been trying to hand fly the PMDG Boeing 737-800 NGX and the PMDG Boeing 747 400F with all the automation i.e. FD, AP and AT turned off. So far i have been able to fly basic circuits around KSEA using the SEA VOR for guidance and no major incidents apart from quite a few hard landings especially with the jumbo. I know it is not realistic but anyone else who loves to fly these big bad boys with autopilot and autothrottle turned off can please comment below and share their experiences flying them entirely using 'stick and rudder' techniques.I think the automation is highly realistic and great to have but the real kick is in hand flying as many real world pilots do whenever possible.

Yeah me too, I like flying the heavies "bush pilot style" by the seat of my pants and eyeballs, I don't need no steenkin instruments and beacons and stuff..:)

It's FUN flying purely manually like that, where on earth is the fun in letting the autopilot do it?

Armstrong had fun manually landing the Eagle on the moon, and Sully manually ditched his airliner in the Hudson, so if manual control is good enough for them.....;)

Not to mention the elite BA and AF Captains who also hand flew the Concorde in its heyday at Mach 2.0 at 70000 feet...or so i heard...hand flying is so much fun especially on the tubeliners...such a challenge to grease the thing down in the correct energy configuration on the piano bars!! Immensely satisfying even when I achieve a landing remotely like that but practice makes perfect....i wonder how some other tubeliner jockeys get their fun from engaging AT, LNAV, VNAV (or their 'bus equivalent) at 400 feet and then doing autolands...where's the fun in letting the computers fly for you?

P.S. did some research on Captain Sullenberger's heroic rescue of his A320...turns out that the FBW control laws in Airbus aircraft also played a significant role in the successful ditching. I guess the authorities also published a special 'Hudson Miracle' visual approach chart to commemorate the event...had it being a non FBW like a B737 it would have been much more challenging...anyway all this doesnt make his feat any less heroic...that incident was a legendary example of how keeping cool while making crucial decisions combined with CRM skills par excellence can save lives when it matters the most...

In these stills from Airport 1975 a midair collision has knocked out the pilot and co-pilot, and stewardess Karen Black has to take the controls, opening the throttles and pulling back the yoke to clear the mountains..

 

Kennedy- "She's flying it herself!"

Heston- "Climb baby, climb!"

 

http://i53.photobucket.com/albums/g64/PoorOldSpike/airport-75B_zpswmrygl75.jpg~original

Even stewardess Karen Black could fly a 747 manually in 'Airport 1975' after a midair collision knocked out the pilot and co-pilot, who can forget that great scene where she opens the throttles and pulls back the yoke to clear a mountain.

"She's flying it!" says an amazed onlooker in the chase chopper..:)

 

So who was the stewardess that helped out the autopilot in the other airport movie? I thought that showed a lot of class on her part!

Handflying in the sim is great fun, but you can use the FD (and should) when flying a departure procedure or arrival STAR. Lessening the workload is the point.

 

btw... Concorde was only certified to 60,000 feet with passengers on board. Also, while some pilots would handly the transonic climb, they would not be handflying during the "MAX CRUISE" phase of flight. Concorde did not cruise at a single Flight Level, but would be continually climbing and even sometimes descending during the "cruise" depending on aircraft weight and temperature. This was designed to be flown by the autopilot. Only when it reached its service ceiling (60,000 feet) would it actually level off.

I you had a brain like a computer, you could 'visualize' every INCH of your flight from point A to point B. Climb rate, cruise speeds, descend rate, turns, aproach, and even fps on touchdown. But you don't have a brain like a computer. So you use the flying 'tools'.

 

It does take practice to fly ANY airplane by hand. So you start with the Cessna and then after enough QUALITY practice you graduate to the heavies. Getting in and crashing every other time you go up is NOT Quality practice.

 

What I was going to say is: What? I thought EVERYBODY hand flew the airplanes. All of them, one at a time, until you became 'proficient' (ie: did not crash on landing) and THEN play with ATC, etc using instruments. But I guess not.

CB

I do agree it takes a LOT of dedicated practice flying by hand...you have to be thinking way ahead of the aircraft at all times...even I had my moments of embarassment like landing off the runway (especially on the right of centreline) and landing so hard that the landing gear gave up lol. I refrained from coming online till i could decently handfly at least the default Cessna. So I practiced and practiced using Rod Machado's flying tutorials until i was able to fly holding patterns and precision and non precision instrument approaches decently, only after that did regular flight on the default Mooney and then on the default Baron and therafter the King Air, the default DC3 and finally the default 737. But i found the handling of the default 737 way too powerful, twitchy and unrealistic. Though i am not a real world pilot but i have travelled as a passenger in 737s and A320s enough to have a vague idea of their inertia and stability in a given flight regime. It was then that i discovered the PMDG bird. It's such a dream to handfly...rock solid and stable. I wonder how realistic its hand flying characteristics are compared to the real bird. But i find using the flight director difficult. I always tend to PIO when i fly manually using the FD. The bars move down when i pitch up and they move up when i pitch down. So I don't use it except with autopilot (which i also use rarely). Flying old school style manually with raw data using thrust for airspeed and pitch and stab trim to maintain altitude or descent rate is something i am relatively comfortable with. If somebody can tell me how to follow the FD bars with precision I will be grateful. Still practicing hoping to handle the big iron as smoothly as the autopilot someday...

Also most Youtube videos show flying the heavies with all the automation engaged. I agree that flying those birds is a highly procedural matter and they are designed to be flown with optimum use of automation but a part of me wishes that someone also publish at least a few good videos showing how to handfly those birds with grace and precision without any automation...after all I believe the first principle behind designing any aircraft be it a small GA puddle hopper or a military jet or a transcontinental widebody jumbo or a helo is that it must be able to be flown by hand by a properly trained human being!

..after all I believe the first principle behind designing any aircraft be it a small GA puddle hopper or a military jet or a transcontinental widebody jumbo or a helo is that it must be able to be flown by hand by a properly trained human being!

 

You are mistaken. There are several high-performance military aircraft that can't be hand flown - even by a properly trained human being.

There are military aircraft in use today that cannot be hand flown. The human brain/muscle co-ordination is incapable of matching the insanely fast reaction speeds of computer control using FBW and servos.

 

The Sullenberger case is a unique one as it was an engines out controlled crash landing. In ordinary service the Airbus family are basically computer controlled to ensure they remain within the filght envelope.

But i find using the flight director difficult. The bars move down when i pitch up and they move up when i pitch down.

 

If you have correctly configured the FMC/MCP for the stage of flight you are in, that is exactly what the FD bars should do ! The are telling you that you should not be pitching up or down.

You will get great satisfaction if you buy the Dreamfleet 727 which is available from Flight1

I understand that there is something called augmented stability seen in many modern aircraft especially military fast jets and transports where the design of the aircraft precludes controllability by pure hand flying skills per se. Even aircraft like the MD11 had to compensate for the reduced elevator authority due to the shrunk horizontal stabilizer using computer assistance i.e. LSAS...but even in these aircraft there are basic controls like yokes, joystick and rudder pedals and power levers that are designed to be operated by a trained human being just like conventional controls. Of course these only provide an interface to the FBW which principally keeps the aircraft under controlled flight...though i won't call flying such aircraft to be purely handflown...if these were unable to be controlled manually we wouldn't need pilots for operating them...

But surely no artificial gadget wizardry can replace the likes of the longitudinal stability system of the Concorde that was manually controlled by the Flight Engineer by shifting around fuel in the different fuselage tanks...to me that must have been really an interesting job...

In 'The Concorde:Airport 79', pilot George Kennedy treats us to a great display of flying when he goes manual and pulls the Concorde up into a half loop and fires a flare out the window to decoy a heat-seeking missile; no autopilot could do that..:)

 

http://i53.photobucket.com/albums/g64/PoorOldSpike/airport-conc_zpseqcyrghk.jpg~original

There is a huge difference between StabAug and Autopilot. Yes modern military fighters are inherently unstable, that's why they have stabaug and a committee of computers to fly the plane. Essentially, the pilot tells the committee what he wants to do, and the committee gets together, each computer decides what IT is going to do to the control surfaces to do as close to what the pilot wants as possible, then they all vote on it. Majority wins, and the plane moves. That's the FBW/StabAug system. The Autopilot, or Pilot Relief system, pretty much just holds the bird in certain conditions: Altitude, attitude, airspeed, etc to let the pilot focus on something else temporarily, then it's back to talking to the committee again.

Modern commercial aircraft are pretty much autopilot controlled all the way, with the pilot telling the autopilot what he wants. This altitude, that airspeed, such a course, and the autopilot then tells the FBW committee what it wants, etc etc. From what I've been able to gather, given the current autopilot/FBW/FMC capabilities, modern commercial planes don't even need a "pilot" aboard, except for emergencies. After pushback and start, taxi to the runway, sit back and watch till touchdown. Not much "hand-flying" involved at all.

Sadly, to my way of thinking, it means the modern, commercial pilot skills tend to be somewhat lacking in this area. Too much reliance on automation makes for rusty skills, and almost no training in unusual attitude recovery, weather, and things like that.

But I've been away from the industry a long time. I am probably mistaken.

Pat☺

But surely no artificial gadget wizardry can replace the likes of the longitudinal stability system of the Concorde that was manually controlled by the Flight Engineer by shifting around fuel in the different fuselage tanks...to me that must have been really an interesting job...

 

If some knowledgeable member can please elaborate on how this was done? Concorde' is one of my favorite aircraft and though it's been long out of service i still watch the videos of its flights and imagine how it must have felt to fly on this marvellous aircraft and to watch the curvature of the earth as it zips by at Mach 2 at FL600...very unfortunate that economics did not favour the further development and sustenance of the aircraft... for me Concorde' was more than just another elite cattle crate....for me it was the ultimate culmination of mankind's dreams to fly fast and high...also unfortunate that there's no decent payware addon Concorde' for FS for me to test vly:p

For some real fun (i.e., challenges) hand flying the heavies, try these approaches:

• Sion, Switzerland; VFR or IFR.

• Visual Rwy 01 at KDCA

• Visual Rwy 13L/13R at KJFK

• the old Kai Tak airport, now closed in the real world but still open in the sim.

 

Charts for these and all other approaches are available on line for free from a number of sources; I use http://www.airnav.com a lot.

 

I strongly recommend either pedals or auto-rudder for these as they make numerous and/or steep turns on final.

In 'The Concorde:Airport 79', pilot George Kennedy treats us to a great display of flying when he goes manual and pulls the Concorde up into a half loop and fires a flare out the window to decoy a heat-seeking missile; no autopilot could do that..:)

 

http://i53.photobucket.com/albums/g64/PoorOldSpike/airport-conc_zpseqcyrghk.jpg~original

 

wow that was pretty amazing!! haven't seen that movie but i guess the cattle in the back won't be very pleased with that maneuver LOL...

Anyway a scene like that is an automatic qualification for that movie to be in my "must watch" list!!

For some real fun (i.e., challenges) hand flying the heavies, try these approaches:

• Sion, Switzerland; VFR or IFR.

• Visual Rwy 01 at KDCA

• Visual Rwy 13L/13R at KJFK

• the old Kai Tak airport, now closed in the real world but still open in the sim.

 

Charts for these and all other approaches are available on line for free from a number of sources; I use http://www.airnav.com a lot.

 

I strongly recommend either pedals or auto-rudder for these as they make numerous and/or steep turns on final.

 

Just my type of flying!! The old IGS approach at Kai Tak sure needed the reflexes of a jungle cat and balls of solid steel to execute properly...small wonder that there were quite a few accidents there...i will need still some more practice especially with the jumbo before i consider myself proficient enough shooting these approaches...

wow that was pretty amazing!! haven't seen that movie but i guess the cattle in the back won't be very pleased with that maneuver LOL...

Anyway a scene like that is an automatic qualification for that movie to be in my "must watch" list!!

 

Here's a link to the full film on youtube. The first missile comes in around 45:00, and the flare gun sequence is at 55:00

 

That was a Sidewinder from a Phantom, I seem to recall. Great set of sequences! I am going to have to set that up somehow one of these days. Get a Concorde going upstairs, then intercept and shoot at it with a Phantom! Sounds fun, anyway!

Pat☺

If some knowledgeable member can please elaborate on how this was done?.....

 

.....also unfortunate that there's no decent payware addon Concorde' for FS for me to test vly:p

 

This site http://www.concordesst.com/fuelsys.html gives a good description of the fuel transfer system. Its aim was to move the CoG rearwards during the climb, and then forward again for descent/landing

 

For FS9 there is SSTSIM Concorde, and for FSX FlightsimLabs. Both were produced by the same people and are excellent products. You will soon learn how the fuel transfer system works !