CONTROL PARAMETERS

Our Acars controls the most important parameters, i.e. those that have the greatest impact on the safety of the aircraft and the way the pilot acts to them.

The score of acars is made in a regressive way, starting its count from 100%, if the acars detects irregularities made by the pilot, the amount of the penalty is deducted at 100%, and so on.

•   Beacon lights must be ON while engines are running | -2 points 
•   Doors must be CLOSED | -10 points * UNDER TESTING
•   Emergency Lights must be ON | -2 points
•   Bank Angle exceeded limit of 35º | -3 points
•   Gforce exceed limit of 3G | -5 points
•   Pitch exceeded limit of 20º | -5 points 
•   Taxi speed exceed limit of 35 kts | -2 points
•   Flaps must be SET for takeoff | -5 points 
•   Refilled not permited | PIREP rejectd 
•   Hard Landing limit exceeded 550 fps | PIREP rejectd
•   Landing lights must be OFF during pushback or taxi | -2 points
•   Landing lights must be OFF above FL100 | -2 points
•   Landing lights must be ON below FL 100 | -2 points
•   Navigation lights must be ON | -2 points
•   Packs ( at least one Pack must be ON above FL 120 ) -2 points
•   Seatbelt sign must be ON during takeoff & approach FL 110 | -2 points
•   Simrate change exceed limit 1x | PIREP rejectd
•   Slew mode activated | PIREP rejectd
•   Speed under FL100 exceeded | -2 points
•   Gear must be down with flaps 15 minimum for final approach | -10 points
•   Stall warning | -15 points
•   Strobes must be ON while on RWY and during flight | -2 points
•   Strobes must be OFF out of RWY | -2 points
•   Taxi lights must be ON during taxi | -2 points
•   Thrust reversers enabled in flight | -20 points
•   Thrust reverser speed over 60 kts | -15 points
•   Soft Landing between 0-120 fps | -2 points  * REPLACED BY A NEW ONE TO EVALUATE
•   Slightly Hard Landing between 400-500 fps | -5 points * REPLACED BY A NEW ONE TO EVALUATE
•   Firm Landing between 200-400 fps | +5 points  * UNDER TESTING. This rule compensates for any penalties, however it will never exceed 100% of the final score.
•   Autopilot engaged to earlier -500 pés after takeoff | -2 points * UNDER TESTING
•   Insufficient fuel reserve -2000 kgs | -2 points * UNDER TESTING

These checkpoints operate as follows:

1. Each control point is activated 3 times.
2. Control points are penalised according to their importance.
         2 points for less serious offences
         3 points for those of moderate severity
       10 points for those of medium severity
      15  - 20 points for those of high severity 
    100 points for high severity
   
   

   The first check will only be carried out 10 seconds after detection.

   The second check will be performed 30 seconds after the end of the first check, and so on until the thirth and final check. 

   If all procedures are performed correctly, there will obviously be no penalty. However, if there is a penalty, here is an example of how it works:

   The pilot did not turn on the landing lights below FL100. In this case, the penalty will be 2 points 10 seconds after detection, and if after 30 seconds the lights are not turned on, another 2 penalty points will be applied, up to a maximum of 3 detections.

   REMINDER

         All those checks are carried out by the acars BUT based of the information collected from the aircraft.

        Not all aircrafts use the same coding as an example A320 from Flight Factor or Toliss are completely different.

        Therefore sometimes is the pilot that has to find out how circunvent such behaviours.

       No PIREP not approved as a direct result of these new control points will be approved administratively. These are complex tests and as such only by testing in a           real environment is it possible to know if they are and how they are working. A final note, however not least, some control points were with errors and therefore         not considered by acars, so they were not penalising because they were not working.