Reporting On Flight: Commercial Pilot And Flight Reports

Aviation Week pilot Richard Sweeney described in the second part of his two-part Boeing 707 pilot report how he flew the aircraft to its limit at Mach 0.91. After reaching Mach 0.85, he relied on yoke forces alone “to sample control forces from the expected reversal point to maximum speed.” At all points in this speed spectrum, "manual control was effective and forces built up considerably without trim being used.” He also shut down and restarted each of the four engines, one at a time, and noted that the procedure produced a definite yaw, but less than would be experienced in a propeller aircraft.

Then-Senior Editor Herbert J. Coleman praised the visibility from the BAC-111-400 in his Nov. 1, 1965, pilot report on the derivative, noting that pilots were responsible for designing the cockpit. Wingtips could be seen from the pilots’ seats and they could see 20 deg. below eye level versus the 10-15 deg.-standard of other jet transports. He wrote favorably about the 111-400’s handling both on the ground and in stall recovery. He noted the derivative offered a 21% payload increase over its BAC-111-200 predecessor, which had suffered two crashes and a hard landing before the -400 entered service.

Robert R. Ropelewski’s detailed 1982 pilot report on the Airbus A310 was dominated by discussion of cockpit and system automation features. The introduction of highly automated glass cockpits in Airbus and Boeing air transports in the early 1980s reduced pilot workload substantially but also prompted concerns about what was going on inside the so-called black boxes. “[T]he A310 was very comfortable to operate either manually or automatically under almost any circumstance, and the interplay between the electronic centralized aircraft monitor and the crew provided some reassurance that the pilot is still part of the operating process,” he wrote.

Managing Editor David M. North found that Airbus had successfully integrated advanced technology on the A320. “Airbus Industrie has achieved its goal of integrating the A320’s advanced technology, including fly-by-wire flight control system, side-stick controller and digital avionics,” North wrote in his Nov. 30, 1987 pilot report. “The aircraft’s cockpit design and stable handling characteristics provide an easy transition for pilots accustomed to more conventional aircraft.”

Northeast Bureau Chief David Hughes, who flew KC-135s and C-5As in the U.S. Air Force Reserve, provided a detailed flight evaluation of ETOPS operations five years after the FAA started allowing twin-engine commercial aircraft that met strict criteria fly 120 min. from the nearest suitable airport. Hughes flew in the jump seat on two transatlantic ETOPS flights, flying to Europe on an Air Canada Boeing 767-200ER and then returning on a TWA flight on the same aircraft type. He explained the extra reliability that operators had to achieve before winning ETOPS approval. His report was published in the April 13, 1992, issue.

The Embraer 170 was the Brazilian aircraft maker's first entry in its family of 70-120-passenger regional jets. Editor-in-Chief David M. North noted in his May 19, 2003, pilot report that “the 170/190 are for the regional and airline market and not expansions or contractions of existing aircraft.” North put the 170 through its paces. “Steep turns also were flown at 18,000 ft., and again I found the 170 to be responsive to pitch and roll inputs without being overly sensitive. Some of the turns were flown at 250 kt., with up to 2g applied during the turn.”

Editor-in-Chief David M. North pronounced the A380 a “pilot’s aircraft” after being among the first journalists to fly it. Despite its 1.2-million-lb. maximum takeoff weight and two-deck flight, North found the aircraft easy to handle both on the ground and in the air, noting a belly-mounted camera helped keep the A380 on centerline and praising its advanced cockpit and high commonality with other Airbus aircraft. “This flight reaffirmed that I do prefer the side-stick controller over the yoke for operational flying,” he wrote in an Oct. 2, 2006, pilot report.