Virtual Crew Chief for BMS
-
@Korbi I spoke to BogeyDope, he provided the following information:
“In real life, there are EOR (End of runway) checks that are done before the jet is sent to parking. This includes a walk around, and pinning the landing gear, and weapons troops pinning up everything on their end. From there, the jet is sent on to parking. We marshal the jet into the parking spot, we chock em up, then connect comms, and the first thing that is said is by the Crew Chief, “Welcome back sir/ma’am, clear to pin the EPU?” and then the Pilot gives the green light to pin it up. We pin it, and then we let them know it’s pinned and we shut down. That’s about it.”
So this could be a very interesting addition to the VCC, but we need to think about how to trigger it. Perhaps the parking brake? But then the parking brake should only be used at parking, not for the EOR checks.
Another option would be to pretend the currently unused UHF channel 1 is for the crew chief. But I understand this is not realistic, because communication is normally through an intercom.
What do you all think? Any other ideas what we could check for to determine if the jet is at parking? A certain step in the shutdown procedure maybe.
-
@Ricky
As described by Bogey Dope, it sounds like the Ground crew installs chocks as soon as the aircraft is parked and it is safe to do so. However, in BMS, chocks are not installed until the pilot directs the ground crew to install chocks (t1).How about if we use that command (Ground install chocks) as the trigger? I haven’t looked in the F4SharedMem header file to see if chocks installed/not installed is monitored, but that may not matter if we just have a VCC command for “Ground, install chocks” (plus some other recognized ways to say that) to trigger the welcome back response, delay for 30 sec to install the chocks (t1) then have VCC request to pin the EPU? That might work better than parking brakes, since I know that I apply parking brakes any time I am stopped, to include EOR checks.
What do you think? I am open to suggestions from everyone else as well.
Regards,
TC2 -
@Tomcattwo
This idea sounds good to me TC2 -
@Tomcattwo This would probably make the most sense, especially kicking off the sequence with a voice command for installing chocks. I don’t see any other way of triggering it, except maybe the parking brake. But that’s not reliable either, because people might use it at EOR.
I’ll get to work.
-
@Ricky
Sounds good. Message me if you need help or testing. Will Bogey Dope supply some voice .wav snippets for us?
Regards,
TC2 -
@Tomcattwo That’s the plan. And thanks for offering to help again, I’ll send you a test version as soon as it’s ready.
-
Hey guys, one more idea before starting the work. The checklist supplied with BMS says we should put the canopy handle up as the first step prior to engine shutdown. I’ve always assumed this is the spider. Doing that triggers the canopy warning eyebrow light, which we can read from the shared memory. How about using that to trigger the crew chief?
The advantage would be that we can follow the procedure Bogey Dope describes more closely. It will seem like the crew chief comes up with the chocks and the “welcome back” phrase without us having to say anything first.
What do you all think?
-
@Ricky said in Virtual Crew Chief for BMS:
Hey guys, one more idea before starting the work. The checklist supplied with BMS says we should put the canopy handle up as the first step prior to engine shutdown. I’ve always assumed this is the spider. Doing that triggers the canopy warning eyebrow light, which we can read from the shared memory. How about using that to trigger the crew chief?
I personally don’t pop the lid until JUST before I shut down the engine (that’s how my checklist is written). The very first thing I do after braking the aircraft into the marshaled parking spot is to engage the parking brake, make sure I have nothing radiating that could zap the ground crew, and then immediately get the chocks installed.
The advantage would be that we can follow the procedure Bogey Dope describes more closely. It will seem like the crew chief comes up with the chocks and the “welcome back” phrase without us having to say anything first.
What do you all think?
But the chocks still won’t get installed until the t1 command is generated. Although you could do that with VCC per your canopy proposal, I still would find it weird to have to pop the lid first thing after getting into the parking space.
Here’s a video of an F-16 returning to Osan South Korea.
.Notice that they ground crew does install chocks right away (after a hand signal from the pilot on the way in) but he doesn’t open the canopy until well after the gear are pinned, and EPU gets pinned.
I’m still in favor of directing ground to install chocks. I’d just feel more in control of the evolution of when we start into VCC upon return.
My 2 cents, but I will live with whatever you decide.
R/,
TC2 -
@Tomcattwo Cool video!
I don’t think raising the canopy handle (spider) is the same as opening the canopy. That happens later on in the checklist:
But maybe we should just put both in VCC, so everyone can use it the way they want. If you raise the spider, it starts the crew chief, but you could also trigger it manually by asking for chocks.
-
@Ricky
Works for me. However, once the sequence has started, needs a flag set to NOT start the sequence again if/when the opposite trigger is fired.
R/,
TC2 -
I think you both have good points. I would tend to follow the procedure that Ricky listed…start the VCC sequence with the unlock spider command. Then having the option to use VCC saying " install chocks" to start the sequence, would make sense too.
Thanks for this effort Ricky and TC2
-
Sorry for the very delayed reply @Ricky … was very busy. Thank you for your work and research!
I also thought about using a post landing checklist item first, so I think the “CANOPY” light which is triggered by opening the SPIDER is a good idea.
Maybe it makes sense to combine it with something else, to ensure, the VCC only does his job, when he really is supposed to. What about also listening to the “TAXI BACK” request to start a timer in which timeframe the SPIDER needs to be opened to trigger the VCC, the timer should off course be long enough to allow the pilot taxi back from the RNWY to the parking spot. To be absolutely sure VCC only gets triggered when it makes sense, also check for the WOW lightbit in sharedmem and engine is in idle rpm or the aircraft speed is at zero.What do you think?
-
@Korbi Excellent idea to combine checks. I’ll add checks for WOW, rpm and/or aircraft speed, as you say. I’d rather not use a timer, because it’s less predictable if it’s actually checking what we want.
Bogey Dope is working on the additional recordings, by the way. I hope to have them soon.
-
@Ricky Nice!
What comes to mind now for me is how to determine, wether the pilot is accidentally opening the SPIDER during the rampstart, where we not want the post recovery sequence of VCC triggered or he is opening it on purpose for shutdown. Maybe taking the total fuel into consideration would be a good idea? Normally the fuel is over 6500 lbs for rampstart and under 6500 lbs for shutdown. -
@Korbi said in Virtual Crew Chief for BMS:
@Ricky Nice!
What comes to mind now for me is how to determine, wether the pilot is accidentally opening the SPIDER during the rampstart, where we not want the post recovery sequence of VCC triggered or he is opening it on purpose for shutdown. Maybe taking the total fuel into consideration would be a good idea? Normally the fuel is over 6500 lbs for rampstart and under 6500 lbs for shutdown.To determine one could use the flight state from ShatedMem. If its a Ramp start the in Flight flag would never have been true. If its shutdown the same flag was at at true
-
True @oakdesign
I think it’s also a good idea to add a voice command to trigger the shutdown phase of VCC in the case, you never take flight and have to taxi back before take off, then the fuel would also be over 6500 lbs and the inflight bit was never active. -
This includes the new shutdown procedure. Thanks for everybody’s input on this!
-
@Ricky Awesome! Looking forward to test it soon
-
@Ricky
Thank You for this update. Tested and all seems to be working.
Thanks to TC2 also. -
@Ricky That’s very interesting i’ll give it a go, thanks