Civil aviation pilot's blog. An hour before the flight. How pilots and aircraft are prepared

Here somehow Alexander started a “Funny Topic”: http://arabskiy-pilot.livejournal.com/18415.html
I don’t really like stories on the topic of “how we almost didn’t do it,” but since the Commander of Arabas said “it’s necessary,” then it means it’s necessary. Yalla... (Let's go in Arabic). I started writing a response to his post, but it turned out to be a bit long, and I need to feed my LiveJournal, so I’m posting here.
Next there will be “a lot of bukaf” and scary...

Second half of the 90s, summer. Aeroclub. Glider L-13 "Blahnik". Beautiful and interesting flights. By that time, I was already a 3rd year athlete, I already knew and knew something, and of course I couldn’t do without “feathers from the butt.”
That summer, gasoline became very bad, and in order to avoid unnecessary takeoffs of towing aircraft, the authorities decided to “raise” two athletes in one glider - fly and train together. For the same reason of the lack of gasoline, the authorities closed our flights along the routes (to avoid unplanned landings on sites and flights of towing aircraft for gliders), as a result, we flew in the language of KULP-PASO-86 (flight training course for glider aviation sports organizations ) Ex. 36 "Hovering near the airfield." The duration of the exercise is 2 hours, and taking into account the fact that the exercise is paired, then for all 4 hours, and in fact the whole flight day, the glider is ours. That day I settled in the rear cabin, my friend (and colleague in study, work and everything else) Leshka in the front.
The weather that day was “bomb-like” - almost windless, blue sky, a uniform heap with a lower edge two kilometers away. This is the case when, on a glider, without any engine, using rising air currents, we gained altitude without straining. And even on the contrary - we rather had an excess of it, because if we were not flying along a route, but in one area slowly and calmly, then we were already bored...
The most “interesting” way for us to spend our altitude and at the same time warm up and have fun was aerobatics. True, by that time most of our gliders were almost older than ourselves, and therefore it was a bit daunting to strain the equipment with aerobatics, but “hunt is worse than bondage.” Of all the “difficult” figures, only the corkscrew was mandatory, which at the beginning of the season we necessarily repeated with the instructors, and then, of course, many times on our own. We persuaded the same instructors (easily, to be honest) and then we ourselves performed loops, corkscrew flips and even a bell - everything that spun in the “vertical” plane Blahnik performed well. But naturally, due to the glider wing span, lateral rotations were much worse for him, and we practically did not see the same “barrels” that are usual for airplane aerobatics.
And after twisting everything else, one of us remembers about the “barrel” - shouldn’t we twist it? - Let's!!! Before the barrel, we consult (if our youth knew...) how we should spin it. It seems that someone once saw her with an instructor, someone heard something from someone. We decide that to “spin” we will need a speed of 160 km/h and everything will work out.
- Go!
Leshka spins, he’s more used to it from the front cockpit. Pull the handle away - nose down, speed up. To yourself - the horizon. “Boom...” - the handle goes all the way to the side - we list. At first everything goes well... but as the roll increases, the nose of the glider begins to drop. Apparently Leshka is trying to hold it up by “giving” the opposite pedal or something else went wrong in our aerodynamics, but by the time we find ourselves in inverted flight, the rotation stops completely. The picture that stuck with me forever: we are in an inverted position, with the nose of the glider pointed strongly towards the ground, and our speed is rapidly increasing. And the green field and the forest next to it, which are below us, but at that moment it seems to us that they are above us, and are quickly falling into our cabins. Leshka in front shouted something very uncensored and obscene, for me it worked better than any critical mode alarm. It became clear that we would no longer be able to “tighten” the barrel, so we had to take a different route. To be honest, probably the most correct thing would have been to give the stick away from me, go out into the horizon in inverted flight, reduce speed, and then think about how to flip back, but at that moment I just pulled the stick towards me. The glider willingly continued to lower its nose and now it looked like it was coming out of a loop. The only thing is that our speed was already prohibitive - initially Blahnik’s RLE recorded a maximum speed of 262 km/h, then in the Union, in order to preserve materiel, it was limited to 180 km/h. We had already accelerated beyond 260... The air flow, which usually flows around the glider with a small and smooth noise, simply roared, and behind us something loudly crunched and crackled. Fortunately, I was smart enough not to push myself too hard, and fortunately the Czech comrades built the Blahnik firmly. Having noted a height of 600 meters at the lowest point, we jumped back up, gradually reducing speed. Taking into account the fact that we started twisting from 1500 meters, and Blahnik loses no more than 150 meters per turn of the corkscrew, the loss of altitude turned out to be simply enormous - 900 meters in ten seconds (well, we were smart enough to start “twisting” this thing with a reserve, because that officially the lower limit of aerobatics was considered to be 600 meters altitude...). Afterwards we both started swearing - it’s not that we scolded anyone, but our emotions got the better of us. But now we were flying very smoothly, listening to the slightest creaks of the glider structure behind us. Then, having calmed down a little and looked around, we reported the end of the task and the entrance to the circle. Someone teased us on the radio: “Are you fast, are you seasick? "But we somehow had no time for jokes. Because a little more and...
Well, of course, we then examined the glider for a long time, shaking and tugging at different parts.
And not immediately, but after a couple of weeks we told our Instructor about the incident. The most powerful moment of the debriefing is “what would I say to your mothers?” stuck in my soul for a long time...

The next time I obviously had to walk “on the edge” was a couple of years later. At that moment I was still flying in the flying club, but already as a co-pilot on the An-28. We used this airplane in a variety of guises - we dropped paratroopers from it, and flew around Ukraine for all sorts of flying club needs, and carried VIPs (everything was fair and legal - the airline was registered in the flying club and we flew under its call sign and civilian rules). It was also actively used in various demonstration flights, and the elements of aerobatics performed on it (barrel roll, spin flip) were very impressive.
And here is another “big show,” something like May 9, with the maximum amount of flying club equipment and an influx of spectators on the ground. Two An-28s in one of the main roles, while the flight program provides for flying as a pair with one engine turned off, and after they are launched, passing on a collision course with performing rolls after diverging, and then a joint flight with the Yak-52 group.
I'm in the cabin with the Chief - Head of the Club. He is a good Pilot, Champion of the Union in gliding, and of course he has flown a lot in aerobatics, including the An-28. But, as happens with Chiefs, administrative matters take too much time and even in the air, issues of “managing the entrusted household” are not always resolved. It let us down greatly this time.
The program was arranged quite tightly. So that the spectators would not get bored, the pauses between our approaches were filled by one of the aerobatic pilots on the Yak-55 and the Yak-52 group. We “passed” with the engines turned off, went “to the zone” behind the spectators to start them. While I am doing the launch manipulations, the Chief is turning turns and observing the situation. In the “arena” the Yak-55 worked out its complex and moved to the side, but occupied the wrong zone - too close to the display site. My Commander interferes with the connection:
- Move away, you're disturbing!!!
The 55th falls off, the group of 52nds finishes their work, now it’s our turn to enter oncoming courses and barrels after diverging. By this time, my engine is already running, I report to the Commander. He adjusts the engine settings, but I see that he is still looking more at the Yaki than at our own flight.
“The 102nd is ready,” the second An-28 responds.
-101 is ready, let's go!
The commander sharply shifts the plane to the opposite bank and begins the approach. But apparently, because the 55th was standing close, the 52nd also shifted their place, we have to part ways with them, the Commander is again distracted by instructions. And we find ourselves closer to the stands than the second plane. The headlights were already turned on, the commanders exchanged confirmations “I’m watching,” but we are clearly jumping ahead, because the second An-28 is just finishing the turn. My Commander is doing something like a snake, but there is no escape - the engines are on takeoff, nose down - passage and acceleration to the barrel. We diverge a little away from the center, now we need to “twist”. The beginning of the roll, on a transport An-28, is very similar to a glider - acceleration of speed and “pitch up”, and both take certain time. Since we are already away from the center of the display, the Commander is in a hurry. I note to myself that at the moment the rotation began, we still lacked a couple of tens of kilometers per hour in speed and the pitch, instead of the usual “over 40*,” turned out to be “a little over 30*.” The rotation starts as usual, but as the roll increases, the nose of the plane begins to dig in. In an inverted position, in which the plane usually finds itself in approximately horizontal flight, we are already passing with the nose strongly down. And during the second part of the rotation, it sinks lower and lower. By the roll of 90* we are already diving with a pitch beyond... To be honest, who the hell knows what the pitch was, we are falling wing down for the hell of it!!!
In the forest behind the airfield back in Soviet time they began to build a sanatorium. We managed to erect a multi-story box of the main building and a couple of lower buildings nearby, but then the money ran out and these gray “ghosts” stuck out unfinished from the pine forest for many years. So, at that moment our trajectory confidently stuck into one of these boxes.
In normal times, the responsibilities of the co-pilot during displays included various auxiliary actions at the command of the Commander (flaps, headlights, control of systems, etc.) and gently holding on to the controls “just in case” (co-pilots trained to “twist” the same the most important thing is that the Commanders are in the process of training, preparations, flights in the zone, higher from the ground). But today I had the opportunity to actively pilot:
- Conclusion!!! - the Chief barked at the SPU in a sharply hoarse voice. Now the two of us were unscrewing the steering wheels and pulling towards ourselves, actually resting against the full speed limiters. Time stretched out, although the world outside was blurred into a green ribbon by the speed and proximity of the earth. The plane reluctantly came out of the roll, reversed its trajectory, flew over the tops of the pine trees, fortunately past the upper floors of the sanatorium, and pulled into a climb.
A short after-thought: “Damn, just a little more!!!” The Commander's voice interrupted:
- That's it, let go!
Apparently I was still holding the helm tightly, preventing him from piloting.
We flew through the rest of the program sluggishly, not quite hitting the 120-meter piece of asphalt where we usually landed for show to demonstrate a short landing, but that day all this already seemed like such trifles.
They taxied in and turned off, usually the Chief quickly left the cockpit, hurrying to do the next thing, but that day he was delayed. He sat for a while, looking into space, pulling the wet gloves off his hands, then turned to me:
- Sorry, they could have killed themselves...
And a joke from RP at the debriefing, by the way, of the USSR Champion in aerobatics, Viktor Mikhailovich Solovyov:
- Mikhalych, next time you should be more careful, otherwise I’ve already closed my eyes...

And if you look back, there were a couple of situations of a slightly different kind, when not my life was in danger, but the lives of other people who depended on me. In my opinion, this is even scarier!
The first incident that still makes the hairs on the back of my neck stand up was when I was still a student, flying gliders, and at the same time working as a technician on the Vilga B-35 aircraft (a cheerful yellow plane for “lifting” gliders and all sorts of other small needs).

For the traditional “show off” on May 9, my Airplane “worked” to the fullest: it carried the flag during opening and closing, carried the glider in the process, and at the end it flew a dozen “ride-along” flights. In the evening there was a strong thunderstorm with wind and rain. On May 10, the entire flying club had a day off, but not me, because it turned out that my plane was “working” for filming.
I dragged myself to the wet and empty airfield, swearing and swearing...
It’s not early in the morning, but there’s absolutely no one at the Aero Club airfield except the watchman’s lady. Wet grass, which instantly gets your feet wet, given the fact that after the thunderstorm it got sharply cold, and I didn’t take this into account and was dressed only in a uniform, this is unpleasantly invigorating. The only good news of the day is that Anatoly Aleksandrovich Ruzhansky, very respected and adored by us young people, should fly as a pilot, and yesterday, setting me a task, he hinted that it would probably be a bad idea for me to fly too. But before he arrives, I’m preparing the plane.
On a piston aircraft, pre-flight preparation is a long and messy undertaking (shout out to the technicians who do this all their lives and in any weather!). I remove the clamps, the lower engine hoods, unscrew the oil plugs of the lower cylinders, drain the oil, turn the screw, tighten and lock the oil plugs back, and check the oil level. Finally everything is ready to launch and try out.
I climb into the cool, but at least windless cabin, traditionally look around, shout: “From the propeller!!!” When you press the start button, the engine slowly shudders, sneezes, turn on the magneto, pump fuel with a syringe - cold start... Fortunately, compared to “my” second plane, this one is much newer and starts easier in the cold. The engine seizes, the engine sneezes, and begins to rumble. It warms up, and so do I, just from the front bulkhead drying my wet feet. And for now, the point is, I decide to check the rudders (to be honest, now I’m not even sure whether such a check is included in the pre-flight preparation by the technician, it’s more of a pilot’s part, but still). And this is where THIS happens.
I move the control knob toward or away from me - order. To the left is order. To the right - the handle reaches the completely deflected position and... gets jammed there tightly. All my attempts to get her out of this strange situation end in nothing. It moves towards itself or away from itself, but not by roll!!!
Yesterday's active flights flashed through my head, my signatures in the Airplane's Logbook - "in good order, ready to fly" and the possible consequences of the control jamming in the extreme position... The shock was so serious that I continued testing the engine, with the thought "this cannot be , some kind of nonsense, I didn’t remove the clamp or something got in during yesterday’s thunderstorm.
Having completed the testing schedule, I got out of the cabin. The ailerons “stood” like scissors, there was nothing foreign around them...
I don’t want to bog you down with technical details, so what follows is brief, as it was approximately written in the “act of investigation of the prerequisites for the accident”: starting with... the B-35 series of aircraft, the manufacturer (PZL, Poland), made changes to the skin design. Instead of the “overlapping” riveting of sheets that was originally used, the “butt-to-butt” pattern was used. In the end parts of the wing, which are subjected to large alternating loads and relative movements during flight cycles, this design lost its tightness as it wore out, which in turn led to the ingress of a significant amount of moisture onto the attachment point of the aileron rod rocker to rib number..., its corrosion and subsequent destruction.

P.S. another “scarecrow”, this time from the driver’s series. Again the same flying club, late autumn, dead evening. We arrived on the An-28 from another VIP flight. We arrived after dark, so we landed at the Kiev Zhulyany airport, and then the Chief gave us a lift to the flying club where the car was parked.
The airfield is empty, the guard recognized the Chief’s car, went out onto the porch of the guardhouse, and waved. I waved back and stomped off to my car and into the parking lot.
In the morning we took off like autumn - it was dry and snowless. By evening the weather turned bad, it began to snow, and when I arrived at the parking lot, the “Nine” was a large snowdrift. I tried to rake the windows at least a little and found out that the snow started with rain and the glass was completely frozen over.
“Okay, I’ll start it up, warm it up, and then the windows will come off.”
The car is parked with its stern facing the asphalt exit path, rolled during the day; a couple of meters need to be driven through the virgin snow, under which the ground is wet. I started the engine and turned on the heated windows. The rear window of the Nine is heated by electricity, it’s cool (almost like an airplane POS), but in the cold it takes time, and it’s cold, dark and you just want to go home.
“I’ll start driving like this, and then it’ll freeze...”
I’m trying to see what’s behind me, but since there was also rain and wind, the mirrors are also barely visible. “What could it be there, darkness and cold!”
I move the car forward a little so that I can accelerate backwards along a clear track under the wheels, put it in reverse gear, sharply release the clutch, throttle and...
The car, quite expectedly, takes off and breaks through the snow. I twist the steering wheel to fit into the rut on the road. With my peripheral vision I notice something large and dark rushing very close to the door and mirror. Turning around and stopping in the headlights, I discover the silhouette of a grandmother-watchman.
While I was fiddling around and warming up in the car, she came up from the guardhouse and stood right behind me, not expecting such a sudden start from me.
- Grandma, what are you doing?!
- Yes, I see you haven’t been going for a long time, I thought, let me go out and have a look.
I suddenly feel so hot that I have to take off my flight jacket...

The conclusion is comic: Don’t sing or dance, don’t stand or jump where there is guidance or where the “roll” is spinning!!! (Roll - barrel in English).
The conclusion is serious: when Comrade Commander Arabas brought up this topic, I objected that this was not the best thing to remember. But his thought was that this experience should be shared, so that the next ones wouldn’t come across it later. I would really like to believe that this will help someone. Good luck to all of us!!!

Yuri Yashin
Without a doubt, Yuri is the most smiling of all public pilots. Now he works at S7 Airlines as a second pilot. Airbus aircraft A-320. Thanks to Yuri’s passion for photography, we have the opportunity to see on the blog picturesque pictures from the cockpit, as well as photos of aircraft at destination airports. And thanks to his talent as a storyteller, we regularly learn about everyday life in flight.

Marina Lystseva
Marina says: “You don’t have to work for an airline to be as close to the planes as possible.” The fact is that Marina is an aviation photographer whose telephoto lenses can reach everywhere. Her passion for aviation began 15 years ago while working as editorial director at the magazine “Bulletin of Aviation and Cosmonautics”. And it still continues, now to the delight of blog readers. And yes, a small note: in the author’s interpretation, the nickname is correctly read “photographerRuff” ;)

Andrey Ivanov
Andrei admits that as a child, like all children, he dreamed of becoming a pilot or astronaut. His eyesight prevented him from training to become a pilot. civil aviation, but did not deprive me of my dream of flying. Today Andrey combines several hypostases associated with the sky. He is an aviation engineer, private pilot, director of the Il-14 restoration project and director of AOPA-Russia.

How rigorous is the medical examination for the crew? What is a flight mission? How is an aircraft checked? The other day I was lucky enough to visit a place where ordinary visitors to Domodedovo Airport usually cannot get into and look at the process of preparing pilots and other crew members of S7 Airlines for the upcoming air travel.

1. Meet the pilot from left to right" S7 Airlines" Tatarov Maxim Vyacheslavovich, captain of the aircraft Omelyanenko Vladimir Nikolaevich and press secretary of the airline Anna Bazhina.

2. Airport staff, just like passengers, undergo pre-flight inspection, only in a separate room specially designated for this. We take off our cap and forward through the frames. Everything is as strict as for mere mortals.

3. If you are physically ill, and even more so mentally ill, you will not get on the flight. Here, a whole medical board of several doctors awaits the pilots.

4. Who's next? Measuring pressure and temperature is only part of the medical check-up before the rest of the pre-flight preparation can be done.

5. After this, the crew goes to a large room called the “briefing room”. Here check-in for the flight takes place, each pilot checks in at the electronic terminal, entering his ID and password.

6. The flight mission and on-board documents are printed (technical description of the aircraft of the previous team and technicians), all this is carefully studied and discussed.

7. The flight mission also includes familiarization with the airports of departure, arrival and possible alternate airfields along the route.

8. This “bible” contains all the information about airfields and more.

9. To an outsider, all this seems incredibly complicated and confusing.

10. Just look at this map. Your head will spin.

11. Also in the briefing room there is a meeting with the senior flight attendant (often these are introductions, since crews are constantly changing). The senior flight attendant reports on the readiness for departure and the number of cabin crew on the flight.

12. When this whole story is over, put on special vests and go to aircraft. Oh yes, how is the weather there? Previously, reports (wind direction and strength, precipitation and risk of thunderstorms) were received in a separate room. Now all information is provided to the crews in the briefing room.

13. Here is our handsome Airbus A-319, almost ready to depart on flight 19 Moscow - St. Petersburg.

14. Let's take a closer look at him. Here is one of the engines.

15. Front chassis.

16. Place of attachment to the fuselage.

17. And this is what the insides of the rear chassis look like.

18. There was a hellish flow of air from this small window - it almost blew away!

19.

20. When else will you take a selfie like this!

21. Meanwhile, it would be nice to feed our liner.

22. Loading luggage.

23. Well, it's time to go inside. For bloggers, as well as for staff, the entrance to the boarding bridge is from the side along a special ladder.

24. Telegantry control.

25. Well, well, everything is already in place.

26. The most interesting thing is, of course, the cockpit and cockpit.

27.

28.

29. Do you know how easy it is to distinguish an Airbus cabin from a Boeing cabin, for example?

30. Initially, the co-pilot inspects the board, and the PIC prepares the cockpit. Then they change places. Systems are prepared and checked, documents are filled out, the route and features of the departure and arrival airfields are checked once again.

31. Flight attendant S7.

32. Meanwhile, a tugboat had already taxied below. This means that the airliner is almost ready for takeoff.

33. Let's catch.

34. By the way, picking him up is not such a simple task as it seems at first glance.

35. Well, that’s it, you can move in the direction of takeoff.

36. Goodbye, dear friend. Although you are strict in appearance, you are kind inside. I hope we'll meet again.

37. Acceleration. Or correctly, it seems - a take-off run.

38.

39. Breakaway. Though English language in a sense, it is considered poorer, but in this case it sounds more interesting - Take off the ground.

40. Bye, green!

Like this. Many thanks to the guys from S7 and the airport management for an interesting event!

In the early 90s, I had the good fortune to work in Nigeria, flying for a local airline on Tu-134s leased from our airline. Now, after almost 20 years, this may seem like a link to compatriots already accustomed to civilization, but then it was a breakthrough into another life and invaluable flying experience, not to mention an order of magnitude higher salary compared to the impoverished Motherland at that time. And to make the picture of “happiness” complete, I’ll say that I spent Honeymoon... No, I’m not a fan of exotic things - I just finally got married for the second time during a break between African business trips, and there was simply no option to leave my wife for six months. This is such an exclusive honeymoon. Some are going to the Seychelles, some are going to Paris, but we, why not, are going to Nigeria...
By the way, the plane in the photo is really one of those that flew there. We transported almost all of them to Syktyvkar from Interflug after the reunification of Germany. Even the coloring remained basically the same. Only the company name, flag and registration have changed.

One of the stories from there:

The planes flew to Nigeria usually along the route Syktyvkar-Sheremetyevo-Prague-Casablanca-Bamaco-Cano. We spent the night in Casablanca with pleasure, and the next morning there was a 4-hour, maximum-range dash across the desert. And so one of the crews, consisting of a flight chief, a young co-pilot flying abroad for the first time, a navigator who rarely flies abroad and, thank God, a veteran of these flights - a drill mechanic, set off on an adventure. We flew through Europe like clockwork. Upon arrival in Casablanca, the navigator told the flight mechanic how much kerosene needed to be filled for the flight to Bamako. And this figure turned out to be one and a half times less than a regular gas station. The flight mechanic was surprised, but did not delve into the intricacies of the calculation and filled the tanks full, just in case, as usual. Here it is necessary to explain: on the Tu-134, the fuel system and its display were probably invented to make life as difficult as possible for the crew. Pilots delved into its subtleties usually when taking tests and immediately conveniently forgot until the next time. Only the mechanics knew the real refueling. Before the flight, they set the amount of fuel poured on a “clock” - a flow meter with a dial similar to a clock, which rewinded the readings as fuel was consumed. His indication was no brainer. Another device, the fuel gauge itself, showed the actual fuel in the tanks, but its readings were accessible only to the most gifted pilots.

So, our flight mechanic set the fuel calculated by the navigator on the “clock”, and they took off into the unknown. Further from the words of the co-pilot: When we were already in the middle of the desert, the navigator suddenly lit a cigarette (before that he had not been noticed smoking on board)... not enough... It turns out that during the calculation he forgot that he was dealing with nautical miles, not kilometers (all of his previous international experience was in flights to Bulgaria and, accordingly, calculations in kilometers). A mile is longer than a kilometer, roughly speaking, twice as long. Accordingly, so is the fuel. When recalculating, it turned out that it would have to end, at best, during the landing approach. Silent scene. Curtain... Everyone, along with a cold sweat, has approximately one thought: “Yo. your mother!!!" And before my eyes there is a picture of the wreckage of the Tu-134 among the dunes. The co-pilot has an additional thought: “Why are you killing? It’s my first time abroad, and I haven’t had time to live yet...” Out of hopelessness, the commander pulled the fuel meter selector, which he still didn’t understand anything about, and asked for a cigarette (he had never smoked before)... Thoughts also flew through his head about the inevitable, albeit posthumous, shame, washing bones during debriefings, telegrams via measures to prevent such incidents are being implemented in all navigational countries. And journalists won’t even write that the crew diverted the plane away from residential buildings due to the complete absence of them at the supposed crash site.

The flight mechanic gave them another ten minutes to enjoy the sensations of the inevitable end and with the words “Your fuel has run out, now we’re flying on mine,” he set the “clock” to the actual amount in the tanks...

In general, drill mechanics and flight engineers are sometimes peculiar people. Pilots often underestimate them. Well, sometimes they respond with subtle reciprocity. Another example from my current airline:

The plane landed at the wrong airfield... Rarely, but it happens. I don’t remember the reason (they usually confuse nearby airfields with similar runway configurations), but that’s not the point. During the investigation, piquant circumstances emerged: the commander, a real ass hole, was very rude to the flight engineer during the flight and, in the end, ordered him to shut up and speak only if he asked him. Among the Arabs, this, alas, is in the order of things. Okay, whatever you say, but he naturally harbored a grudge. The opportunity to take revenge came a couple of hours later. After landing, the commander, when to his horror, realized that he had landed in the wrong place, pulled himself together and told the flight engineer to contact the company's control center and report this unpleasant incident. The trouble lies, for a moment, in being written off from flying work for several years as a punishment. “And I already reported,” said the flight engineer, “when we were still flying on the landing line...”

Quite often, on aviation and non-aviation forums and websites, the question is raised about how much a modern civil aircraft needs a pilot. Like, with the modern level of automation, what are they doing there if the autopilot does everything for them?

Not a single conversation is complete without mentioning unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), and the apogee is the flight of Buran.

“You are tormented by this question, do you want to talk about it”?

Well, let's talk.

--==(o)==--

The best autopilot I have ever seen is shown in the American comedy Airplane.

However, in that film, he accidentally went out of order, and if not for the heroic loser, the happy ending would not have worked out. Although, there was also a flight attendant... Well, in any case, there was a person.

As a matter of fact, many pilots do not get into arguments with people who are far from aviation because they know how the most modern technology sometimes behaves. I won’t argue, I’ll just tell you, and then at least you’ll fight) Just kidding.

Our autopilots are a mixture of metal, plastic, glass, light bulbs, buttons, knobs and wires. And switches. Nothing human at all.

The pilot controls the autopilot (there is already a sacramental meaning hidden in this phrase) through remote controls. The photo below shows the simulator cockpit of the B737CL, which is not the most modern aircraft, but in reality, in this regard, there are no global differences between it, created in the 80s of the last century, and the B787, which first took to the skies several years ago.

The main control panel for automation in general and the autopilot in particular (MCP) can be seen almost in the middle of the photo. Each button on it is responsible for turning on one of the autopilot modes, and the four buttons on the right (A/P ENGAGE A - B) are, in fact, responsible for turning on the autopilot. By the way, with the configuration of the autopilot controls that is recorded in the photograph, the autopilot will not turn on. Let the experts answer why.

The numbers in the windows indicate the data that is necessary for one or another mode of operation of the autopilot. For example, in the ALTITUDE window you can see 3500 - this means that if after takeoff we turn on the autopilot and set some climb mode, the plane will take an altitude of 3500 feet and will fly stupidly at it until the pilot sets a new altitude value and... . will not enable any dialing mode again.

The autopilot itself will not change the altitude and will not go into climb.

Moreover. The pilot may choose an altitude of, say, 10,000 feet, but turn on the wrong autopilot mode, and the plane will obediently fly down until it hits the ground.

Similarly, if there is a mountain ahead along the course set by the pilot in the HEADING window, then the plane will fly up the mountain and will definitely crash into it if the pilot does not take any action.

Yes, it is also worth noting that the autopilot of a modern aircraft works in tandem with an autothrottle - this is another set of pieces of hardware and wires that is responsible for automatically changing the engine mode, that is, thrust. In the photo above on the MSR on the left you can see a small switch labeled A/T ARM/OFF; it is responsible for turning on the automatic traction control in ready-to-use mode. However, sometimes they have to work Not paired (for example, if the autothrottle is faulty), which imposes significant restrictions on the autopilot, because Many autopilot modes require a change in thrust. For example, the autopilot needs to descend, but the thrust set to takeoff mode will stupidly prevent this from happening.

In the photo below you can see the control panel of the FMS - flight management system. Through this panel you can enter some useful data, with the help of which the automation will know what route the plane is flying today, what thrust and speed values ​​will be optimal today.

After takeoff, the pilot can turn on (or it turns on automatically) the autopilot mode, in which the plane will fly according to commands received from this system. However, as I said above, if it hits the altitude of 3500, set in the MSR window, then it will not fly higher until the pilot changes this value.

--==(o)==--

The most important limitation of modern software systems (and the autopilot is nothing more than a piece of hardware full of algorithms) is the inability to make non-standard decisions that depend on the specific situation.

The airplane control algorithms themselves are not at all complex, which is why autopilots on airplanes began to appear back in 1912, and in the 30s they began to become widespread.

I am more than sure that even then conversations began that the profession of “pilot” would soon become obsolete, just like the profession of “coachman”. Many years later, Anatoly Markusha, in one of his books, recounted a conversation he overheard of a girl who expressed complaints to her boyfriend that he needed to look for another profession, saying that soon pilots would no longer be needed.

Another 40 years have passed since then, and this topic - decision-making in non-standard situations by the creators of the latest aircraft - has not been defeated.

Yes, many aviation professions have sunk into oblivion - the flight engineer who was in charge of the “housekeeping”, the navigator who provided navigation, the radio operator who conducted communications... They were replaced by smart systems, this is indisputable. True, at the same time, the training requirements for this have increased... and in some situations, the load on the two (!) pilots remaining in the cockpit has increased. Now they not only have to cope with a bunch of systems (including the most automated ones), but also have a lot of knowledge in their heads, which they usually did not use in flight before (and faded away over time), because in the cockpit sat narrow specialists in these areas.

Yes, some UAVs fly autonomously (and some are controlled by operators from the ground), and Buran successfully made one (!) flight in automatic mode without a pilot on board. But these are precisely the algorithms whose programming has been possible for a very, very long time.

Any interested programmer, for the sake of sport, can come up with an addition to Microsoft Flight Simulator and land his Burans even in Zavyalovka, and then go to the aviation forum and mock the profession of “airplane driver”.

But I, the “airplane driver,” having an understanding of the situations that arise in the sky, which require constant decision-making, will not dare to board an airplane whose brain is not a person, but the Autopilot v.10.01 program, in which programming errors are corrected identified in the previous ten disasters.

For example, today, despite the practical possibility of creating such a regime, planes do not take off automatically. And this despite the fact that automatic landing and automatic run after it have been mastered for a very long time. Why?

Mikhail Gromov also said "The takeoff is dangerous, the flight is beautiful, the landing is difficult". True. Takeoff is easier than landing, however, if something happens during takeoff, sometimes fractions of seconds count. During this time, the pilot needs to make a decision - to stop taking off or continue. Moreover, depending on factors, for the same reason, on one day it is better to stop taking off, and on another day it is better to continue. While the pilot is thinking, the heavy aircraft, which has a huge supply of fuel, is rapidly accelerating, and the runway is rapidly decreasing. Failures can be very diverse (alas, equipment still fails) and the failure does not always come down to a banal engine malfunction. And engine failures can also be different.

That is, a programmer who wants to remove a person from the aircraft control loop and the decision-making loop will need to write a bunch of algorithms for actions in various types of emergency situations. And after each unaccounted for case, release new version firmware.

Currently, “unaccounted for cases” are resolved by having a person in the cockpit who will swear (or remain silent, depending on the endurance), but cope with the situation and return the plane to the ground.

And in most cases, idle ordinary people simply do not know about such cases, because not everything is reported in the press.

Not a single instruction provides for such an oversight - leaving a piece of the emergency escape cable overboard the aircraft. What would Autopilot v.10.01 do in this case, how would it know that its window was about to break? No way. He would have continued to climb 11 km in altitude, and when the window broke there, according to the laid down program he would have undertaken an emergency descent with throwing away the masks... but they would not have been of much help to the passengers.

What did the pilots do? Firstly, we received information about what was happening quite early. Secondly, despite the unknown nature of the phenomenon, we understood how this unusual situation could end and made the only right decision - to descend and return to the departure airfield.

And this is just ONE of the situations that happened in the careers of only TWO pilots (me and the co-pilot). There are thousands of pilots, and hundreds of thousands of situations.

Some “householders” oppose with numbers, saying that people are the weak link; according to statistics, 80% of all disasters occurred due to the human factor.

That's right. The technology has become so reliable that in most cases it is a person who fails. However, I will remind you once again that idle “householders” simply do not think about the fact that many flights in which equipment failed ended successfully only because there was a human factor in the cockpit.

I assure you that if you remove the pilots from the cockpit, the share of the human factor will increase EVEN more, but only in this case will the human factor be understood as a programming error.

Further, on the plane everything may work very well the entire flight, however... it may not work very well on the ground. In order for the plane to fly to the airfield and land there, a whole bunch of other systems have been created that, what?... That's right, sometimes they fail. And in this case, the pilot “wakes up” and does his job.

Trivial decision making when avoiding thunderstorms. For example, my flight to Genoa, I called it “the tinsmith’s flight”

Or flight to Sochi:

And these are only three flights. And there are hundreds of times more of them just for one individual pilot.

Thunderstorms look different on radar, and one avoidance solution will not always be as good for another. And when this thunderstorm is in the area of ​​the airfield... What if this airfield is mountainous? We have to think and make decisions...

If a plane is struck by lightning, or it is caught in a static discharge, people will not die from this hit, but the systems may unpredictably fail. And there were cases that ended well only because the pilots were sitting in the cockpit.

It is worth adding to all of the above that not all airports today can perform an automatic landing. It requires rather warm conditions compared to those in which a pilot can land. Of course, this is a matter of programming the algorithms, but the task is challenging enough to ensure equal reliability.

Of course, if you skimp on reliability, then it will have long been possible to put planes on the line without pilot operators.

The main reason why planes without pilots have not yet entered civilian service is this very RELIABILITY. For military or shipping needs, reliability may not be as high as for transporting people by air.

Of course, the degree of automation will increase. This also determines the reliability of the crew-aircraft system. Of course, the search for better solutions will continue to ensure that aircraft reliably flew without human intervention. True, it will be possible to completely eliminate human participation from flight only when artificial intelligence is invented that is not inferior to the intelligence of a trained person. The problem of making decisions in non-standard situations will not go away. An airplane is not a car, so in an unusual situation you can simply stop stupidly on the side of the road.

One option is for an operator to control the aircraft from the ground. That is, an operator on the ground controls the flight of one or more aircraft, making decisions in non-standard situations. If something happens that he is not able to solve from the ground, he remains alive... And the passengers die. Then the next version of the software appears.

So let’s direct our efforts not to discussing the pilot profession (every such discussion sooner or later turns into the topic “what do pilots get SO much money for?”), but let’s concentrate our efforts on creation in our direct specialty.

Fly Safely!