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The Changing Roles of Technology and People in Aviation
Published in José Sánchez-Alarcos, Aviation and Human Factors, 2019
Additionally, many professional pilots in long-haul fleets perform three or four landings a month, not including those performed in simulators for training purposes. So, as the aforementioned cases and others have shown, many pilots don’t feel comfortable flying the plane manually, as this extract from the official report shows. A NOTAM had been published indicating that the ILS glideslope for runway 28 L was out of service due to a construction project, and the flight crew was aware of the outage. While the electronic vertical guidance provided by a glideslope is required for approaches in certain low visibility conditions and can be a useful aid in all weather conditions, a glideslope is not required for a visual approach. The flight crew had numerous other cues to assist in planning and flying an appropriate vertical flightpath to the runway. Flight crews routinely plan descents based on speed and distance from airports or navigational fixes and published crossing altitudes on approach charts. Aids such as the ND’s green altitude range arc and VNAV features were available to guide the pilots in the initial portion of the descent. As the airplane neared the runway, the PAPI lights and the visual aspect of the runway surface provided additional cues. The NTSB concludes that although the ILS glideslope was out of service, the lack of a glideslope should not have precluded the pilots’ successful completion of a visual approach.
Navigation
Published in Suzanne K. Kearns, Fundamentals of International Aviation, 2018
Unlike a non-precision approach, a precision approach is a descent to landing where the pilot has both lateral (side-to-side) and vertical (up-and-down) guidance. Ground-based navigation aids provide the following guidance to pilots: A glideslopegives precise information about the ideal descent angle to the runway.A localizer gives lateral guidance aligned directly with the runway centreline. This system allows the pilot to follow a precise angle of descent towards the airport on a heading aligned with the runway, while looking out the cockpit window to spot the runway. When the aircraft reaches a predetermined decision height (DH), the pilot must be able to see the runway in order to continue the landing. If the runway cannot be seen, the pilot initiates a missed approach.
Aeronautical services at the airport
Published in Gert Meijer, Fundamentals of Aviation Operations, 2020
The ANSP is also responsible for providing navigational devices around the airport and for providing instrument devices enabling pilots to land at the airport. Commonly used at airports is ILS (Instrumental Landing System), a radio navigational system consisting of a localizer transmitter for lateral navigation to the runway, and a glideslope transmitter for vertical guidance to the runway touch-down point, that enables the pilot to approach the threshold of the runway. ILS comes in various categories depending on the visual limitations.
Stirring the Pot: Comparing Stick Input Patterns and Flight-Path Control Strategies in Airline Pilots
Published in The International Journal of Aerospace Psychology, 2018
Andreas Haslbeck, Hans-Juergen Hoermann, Patrick Gontar
This study introduced a method to describe and identify different FCSs during a manual ILS approach. This method is based on the mutual proportions of constant error (average deviation from ideal flight-path) and variable error (average variability around the ideal flight-path). By applying the method, we matched the observed strategies to two distinct strategies, confirming H1: (a) the optimizer strategy (Pilot A, Figure 1) with smaller constant error and larger variable error, and (b) the steady path strategy (Pilot B, Figure 1) with larger constant error and smaller variable error. The glideslope is more difficult to control in a straight, stabilized approach, because of (a) a lower angle of ±0.4° in the funnel-shaped ILS approach compared to ±0.8° for the localizer, (b) the fact that two primary control instruments (sidestick, thrust levers) and configuration (flaps, gear) influence glideslope deviations (see Johnson & Pritchett, 2002), and (c) the glideslope refers to a continuously changing altitude, whereas the localizer corresponds to a constant heading (Haslbeck & Bengler, 2016). Consequently, we expected to find the steady path strategy applied for the localizer, and the optimizer strategy applied more often on the glideslope. The optimizer strategy was indeed found more often, especially in the stabilized approach segment (1,000–270 ft AGL), which is difficult and demanding because of stricter tolerances for deviations. The optimizer strategy was predominantly applied by short-haul pilots. This might be partly due to the greater agility of the A320 compared to that of the A340. However, a few exceptions were observed.