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US Herk

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Posts posted by US Herk

  1. The only challenge I see for the current AIS instructors (I went as a very old guy last spring) is they spout this stuff largely out of ignorance - they're 4th generation monkeys.

    Not a knock on them at all - it is what it is.

    They do "teach" departures more in depth than they used to. It's probably better. Still hamstrings us needlessly in my mind.

  2. Unfortunately, the USAF has used the Jackson Hole mishap to impose some fairly restrictive departure procedures.

    After the crash, they took approach plates to Dyess and asked all the pilots if they knew what the trouble-T was. Most did not and of those that did know, many of them still didn't know there was additional information in the front of the book regarding departure procedures.

    Advanced Instrument School uses this vignette to illustrate how haphazard the C-130 community was back in those days. But I eagerly pointed out that normal ops back then was to get out a chart for the terminal area and figure out how to get into/out of the local area. A study of the area surrounding Jackson Hole would've presented several options for departing safely - even if you couldn't meet the published climb gradients (which the mighty C-130 often has difficulty meeting).

    I knew the AC on that plane. There were a LOT of contributing factors, but the bottom line is they screwed up.

    Jackson Hole and the Ron Brown crash were "watershed" events for USAF instrument flying resulting in some fairly draconian knee-jerk reactions that plague us to this day.

  3. The only thing that I can think to add is that there is no runaround circuit on many Herks now. The system was removed with the change to a different type of pump. The Lockheed Service News goes into detail about these other two brands of pumps, and even with one of them, there are two different designs.

    I'd recommend some reading for those of you who deal with replacing pumps. Certain one require the runaround circuit be removed if the pump is installed, and with others - it does not matter.

    My understanding is the plumbing is still there, just capped off - reason being - in the field, you may get the old style pump and require it....

  4. Lockeed had nothing to do with this, other than making a couple of things harder for Boeing.

    My reference to Lockheed was for the J-model. They didn't take a big enough leap forward to eliminate crewmembers.

    People just really can't comprehend how difficult the software development is,
    Might be easier if they didn't start from the 737 airline software for a tactical mission...

    I know the end AMP was quite good from everyone I know who was personally involved (which wasn't many). Even the TF system came around and by most accounts was good. But it took a lot longer to deliver and cost way more than promised. Worth it? I don't know - not my decision. I won't be around long enough to see it in all likelihood.

  5. They could certify SCNS (and the AFSOC) nav systems to fly in Europe if they wanted to. AFFSA doesn't want to. The capability is there - we do it every day.

    The radios? That's easy - 8.33KHz spacing is nothing new. SCNS software update and a new radio (depending on the radio you have currently, may just need the software).

    None of the RVSM stuff really and truly applies to Herks - we don't fly that high.

    RNP is the big thing - the tolerances aren't that tough right now - easily attainable with your standard Litton/Honeywell RLG - the question is certification...

    Believe me, I get it. DT&E is SUPPOSED to find problems - that's what it's there for. Even OT&E EXPECTS to find problems.

    Truthfully, I've never believed in adapting an airways software package to do tactical airlift. Too much trick-f**King the system.

    When you eliminate crewmembers, you've got to take a quantum leap forward in technology - neither the J, nor AMP really did that. I've seen cockpits (in simulator testing I did 10 years ago) that would've run rings around either from a tactical perspective. If you want to talk about short-sightedness, talk about it to the engineers at Boeing and Lockheed as well as USAF.

  6. I thought of that as well but the lower limit for the idle is 94.5% and acceleration bleed air valves open at 94% descending. ..

    In flight, it should never be below 98% - even accounting for 2% inaccuracy, that only gets you to 96% - no factor for accel bleed valves.

    I just want to clear up this whole confusion on RPM limitations. Coming out of our maintenance manual, ground idle is 94% to 102%. Because of the low pitch stop and fuel scheduling at flight idle, it is 92.5% to 100.5%. Normal rpm in flight will be 98% to 102%. Of course, the upper and lower rpm limitations allow for an RPM gauge to have 2% RPM error in either direction, which is strange considering an RPM gauge is legally bad with 1% error.

    I don't care about any of that - the only one that matters is inflight - 98-102. The rest of the time, I'm on the ground and can get it looked at if there's a question! :D:D

    To distill down many words, at high altitude cruise, your blade angle is high. As you descend into thicker air, the blade angle will decrease to maintain RPM. If you set flight idle at altitude and began your descent, you will eventually get NTS as you descend. There is an institutional fear of NTS sending a prop to feather based on older NTS plungers that would do this, and there have been a very small handful since the teflon coating. Consequently, we tend to try to avoid NTS and that's probably where your SQ SOP comes from...

  7. Until the late '90s, it wasn't uncommon for RAF SF guys to jump with the SAS guys...then someone found out and the defacation hit the rotary air oscillator....big time. Firings, courts martial, etc. Don't know that it happens anymore...

    Supposedly, it got so crazy at times, that at one time, a CP landed the plane...

    ...solo

  8. You're right - you cannot avoid risk completely, but we try...too much.

    As I said, some things are more risky than others - for various reasons.

    Something not often appreciated is what goes into risk - hazard & exposure. A great example is the very common statistic that 75% of auto accidents occur within 25 miles of the home. This isn't because the roads close to home are more dangerous, rather, we're on them more - exposure vs hazard. Otherwise, we'd just move... ;)

    Some things we do pose a greater hazard than others - we can reduce exposure, but that's often a short-sighted way to mitigate the overall risk. For example, low-level flight is riskier than high-level flight - the hazard is you're closer to the ground with less time to deal with problems once they develop. You could mitigate the risk by reducing the exposure (ie - don't fly low-level) and there are some people who advocate that, but the reality is, you can also mitigate the risk by reducing the liklihood of problems occuring by having more effective maintenance, or you could mitigate the risk by training more and being more proficient in the low-level environment. But the truth remains, that if you never fly low-level, you'll never have a low-level accident...following this ridiculous line of thinking (sounds ridiculous to us, but not to "leaders"), if you reduce the low-level, you reduce the exposure and hence the risk. I argue, you're making it worse because you're reducing proficiency.

    However, in today's military, it seems leaders are more politician than leader and their priority is to avoid problems on their watch.

    My unit's ORM matrix won't be of much use as it's specific to our plane and mission...

  9. Oh, make no mistake, I understand what's going on here, but the reality is this is nothing more than "window dressing" no matter how you slice it.

    What you're trying to do is quantify and objectify common sense.

    I'm very familiar with the construct you've got pictured - I use it to argue my points when it serves my purposes. ;) The reality is, it's still just a numbers game.

    We tend to want to avoid risk, so we work hard to identify it rather than training for it. For example, some things we do are inherently more dangerous than others and the absoluute best mitigation is simply to do it more frequently so as to maintain proficiency in it - not avoid it. Most "leaders" are unable to grasp this concept.

  10. We do. However, I cannot, in good faith, reccomend its use. It is a CYA tool for commanders, not a true ORM tool for crews. You add up the numbers (which are meaningless) and you never change what you're doing because the numbers are rigged so you'd have to be saving the world to get to a "high" category requiring high level approval.

    The problem isn't the concept, it's the implementation of it. You cannot impose a static, binary, objective process onto a dynamic & subjective situation.

    For example, low ceilings may affect low level flight, but don't mean a hill of beans to me if I'm up at high-level in the cruise. It's not contextual. It changes.

    AFSOC has moved away from numbers and gone to more subjective evaluations - better, but still not perfect.

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