I was at Mather AFB from 91-93 training WSOs and navigators. When did you go through?
How does using engine RPM’s work in the jet world as a possible indicator of what’s going on? I mean if you look down and see a power setting of 90% on the throttles and RPM’s indicate roughly the same thing…would that not help? Did I understand that these guys didn’t just initiate a climb BUT also pulled the throttles back to idle!!! I was not aware of the throttle part, yikes.
The RPM indicators should work the same and you’re totally correct in that throttle position at cruise doesn’t change much. In the B737-800, the throttles are almost straight up. I think they got sucked down that primrose path of believing the airplane was overspeeding. It’s possible they thought the airplane had entered a dive so they pulled the throttles back and zoomed the nose to bleed off airspeed. Instead of looking at all the other instruments, they just started reacting to what seemed to be the most severe problem.
Started in Oct 1987, graduated class 88-11.
Spot