MORE ON STEPPING ZONES

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Captain Peter Cutsey, South Korea. This is my briefing room. Today's presentation is on the stepping zones. What are stepping zones? There's something that I've come up with to better allow pilots to better appreciate the importance of what to do when close to the ground if encountering let's say an engine malfunction right after V1. It's important to understand that the closer to the ground you are the more critical and the less should be said so I've broken down the zones into four. A RED zone, an AMBER zone, a GREEN zone, and a BLUE zone. Those colors reflect the importance. The further you are away from the end of the runway, the safer you are. When you're busy doing things such as aviating, navigating, and communicating. We're at Gimhae (RKPK) International Airport, Busan, South Korea. This is a LIDO overview of the airport itself. The PowerPoint that we're going to use during this presentation is called stepping zones. Let's have a look at what I've done. We'll have an overview. Red zone, amber zone, green zone, blue zone. Let's go and have a quick look at the red zone. zone flying the airplane close to the ground. We've got a little prompt here. And basically, if you have a problem after V1, let's say an engine malfunction, and remember that there are several engine malfunctions. When we talk about engine fire severe damage, separation, we're talking three. When we speak about limit, surge, or stall. We're speaking about three more. Then we have engine overheat. Then we have a flamo. So right there we are talking about eight different engine malfunctions. And it is of critical importance that the pilot monitoring who really is the most important person on the flight deck in my estimation, not the person flying in what that person doesn't say or says close to the ground. So, the pilot flying is going to fly the airplane and keep the airplane straight. An engine failure or an engine problem, enough rudder to center the control column and track the extended center line unless told differently with respect to engine out procedures that are uh dictated by your company or your airline. So these are little tips that are in several of my library. So let's go back to the main menu and let's go ahead and have a look at that first zone. The red zone I call it because you're close to the ground. It is from field elevation to a minimum of 400 ft above field elevation. If you notice, I said a minimum. First thing, fly the airplane. This is pilot. Flying pilot monitoring. Cancel any bell or lights as applicable and monitor the pilot flying. Pilot flying. Use rudder inputs the way I described to you earlier in this briefing. Rotate at 1 and 12 to 2 1/2°/s towards 12 to 13 degrees of pitch. Not my words, the manufacturer's words. And it's important that it's done that way. Then follow the command bars. Track the extended center line of the runway unless directed to turn. Well, how are you directed to turn? Not from air traffic control, but from your company standard operating procedures. If there is a specific out procedure. For instance, we are on the center line or the threshold of runway 36 left at Gimhae International, South Korea. You can see the terrain up in front of us. It's quite high terrain. Well, airlines that fly out of this airport actually dis uh have created ated through their engineering department and in unison with ATC an engine out procedure that in this particular case calls for an immediate turn went once over the departure end of the runway. I won't describe the entire procedure to you but here is the end of the runway and if you notice the actual route that we are programmed to fly follows that but in any case you would follow the engine out procedure as specified by your company SOPs. In other words, the turn could come before 400 ft depending on how heavy you are and how hot it is outside. If you're out at a high altitude airport and you're heavy and and uh hot temperatures, you're going to be uh turning well before 400 ft above field elevation. So, back to the PowerPoint presentation, we'll slip over to the next zone, which is the amber zone. Now, the amber zone, uh, the way I call it is from 400 ft minimum above field elevation to 800 ft minimum. Instructors teach teaching you how to fly during your training should not use a hard number, especially when it comes to engine problems or or malfunctions of any sort close to the ground. We're going to be speaking specifically about engine malfunctions today. That's why I'm using the term minimum. So, uh let's see what the first thing is. Well, we have two different scenarios for the Amber zone. We have a simple scenario which is at 400 ft. Pilot flying would call for heading south. Pilot monitoring would select heading south. Pilot monitoring would push recall to bring back any of the problems that have occurred in the red zone such as a fireb. Overheat lights, fire lights, all those would be brought back into action. Pilot flying and pilot monitoring would identify the malfunction and do the recall items as required. That is the simple amber zone scenario. Now there's one a little more complicated. Pilot flying, pilot monitoring. pilot flying would say call for heading cell. Pilot monitoring would select heading select. Now if the engine out procedure such as the one we just spoke about in South Korea at Gime International required a special engine out procedure. Pilot Monitoring set bank limit as directed. Perhaps there's a limit on the bank angle could be 25°. um such as Salsburg, Austria off of runway 15, and we'll have a look at at that in another video. Or it could be 15°, whatever is dictated would be set as directed, and then the pilot monitoring would open the speed window because you have to maintain the speed at the time uh this uh happened. And it has to be between V2 to V2 + 20 for an engine malfunction and then pilot plan would turn as directed as specified as per engine out procedure. Then the pilot monitor would push recall after the pilot monitoring was happy with his or her duties. The pilot monitoring's duties are to monitor the pilot flying not to talk except air speed, heading, pitch angle. anything critical that the pilot flying is not doing his his or her job. It's up to the pilot monitoring to speak about those things. But below 400 ft, nothing else I believe should be said. You follow your company SOPs. I'm giving you 65 years of experience and most airlines will follow what I'm saying now because if you say something and it's the wrong thing, you will mislead the pilot flying and you could cause an accident. So, say nothing except for the items I just spoke about until you've definitely identified the problem. That's the pilot monitoring's job. The pilot flying is busy flying the airplane. Okay, so So that's why push recall comes a little later in this scenario and then identify the malfunction and do the recall items as required. One little item here I I put in a note if turning a V2 to V2 + 20 do not clean up until wings are level. So if you have a turn you don't clean up in the turn until your wings are level which means till you're finished turning to the departure point you're going to in the engine out uh procedure whatever it happens to be. Let's pop into the green zone. Things are getting better. Pilot monitoring and pilot flying confirm V-NAV path and speed bug moves up if you're VNAV equipped and most people flying 737 NGS and the MAX today have V-NAV installed or if flight level change set flaps up speed and cleanup. If you notice I have the identifiers of pilot flying and pilot monitoring are both involved in this. After flaps up lights out set max continuous thrust. All right, let's pop over to the blue zone. The blue zone I've broken down into two scenarios, returning to the airport, the departure airport, or continuing to an alternate. So, let's look at the first one. This is MSA and above. We're in the blue and uh we're now Well, in a safe sector depending on your company SOPs, uh you can put the sector uh critical sectors on the fixed page uh by looking at the this particular chart for instance uh the Leo chart that we're looking at uh the 270 radiak and the 180 radial and the 090 radial. You can put those on the FIX page knowing that the most critical sector as you notice is this sector here 5200 ft MSA. All right, that's just a tip. Let's go back to the PowerPoint. Return the bank selector to auto auto before selecting lnav. Now you're in the navigating portion of it. Right at the very beginning in the red zone, you're aviating. You are navigating as far as the extended center line is concerned. But you're not going to any particular point except straight ahead. So if you don't return the selector to AUTO and you are given a vector you could only have 15 degrees of bank for the turn if the engine out procedure called for 15° of bank. That's why I've introduced it here. If returning set whole speed h your flaps up speed will be very very close if not the same. as your whole speed. That's a tip. And hold close to the airport if at all possible. Of course, what happens if you lose the second engine? Heaven forbid. If maybe the engine flame out was due to fuel contamination, well, you certainly want to be over the airport at a high enough altitude to be able to land if you lost the second engine. Airman ship and remember you can hold at any point using the FMC do a quick DODAR if recall items are not done do them let's say you forgot to do the recall items well you want to make sure that they are done so you can use an acronym called ‘DODAR’ that actually will bring you through to the fact that have we done the recall items all right it's very easy to forget the recall items, especially if it's uh an engine surge or limit or stall. Enter the hole. Once you're in the hole, call for the first non normal checklist. When you've completed that, do the after takeoff checklist. Then continue on and do all other non normal checklists as required. All right, we're assuming now you're coming back to land. Do the one engine and operative landing checklist as required if it's involved because perhaps your problem was an engine problem down to the deferred items and that will be the last checklist. Once that is done, prepare the aircraft for the approach and landing. then complete the deferred items. Let's look at scenario two. Scenario two. Proceed to an alternate airport. Return the bank selector to AUTO before selecting LNAV. Climb at the engine out speed to the engine out altitude. which will be prompted on the CDU. Get a clearance to do so. Of course, you should really have it done in route two. Do a quick DODAR again. If you forgot recall items, do the recall items. Route two should have been loaded. I've got here should have been loaded with uh the alternate. That's a timesaver. You don't have time to type in a route. Activate and executed. So that would be the pilot flying's duty to call to the pilot monitoring to select route two activate and once the pilot flying confirmed and liked what the pilot monitoring was going to execute the pilot flying would issue the command execute. All right. Then call for the first non-normal checklist once established after the navigating pro. process has been completed and as in scenario one do the after takeoff check then continue and call for uh and then continue. Now remember we're assuming here that the after takeoff procedure has been accomplished. Then complete all other non-normal checklists as required and then do the one engine and operative of landing checklist. This would be somewhere on route to your alternate down to deferred items. That would be the last checklist. Then prepare the aircraft for approach and landing. Of course, set up the approach and uh make sure all the bugs are set the way you would do in a normal operation. Then complete the deferred items. Well, there you go. Red, amber, green, and blue zones. Enjoy your flying. Stay professional. Captain Peter Cutsey This is my briefing room. Thanks for watching.