Crew Alertness Monitor

[Toga]

Just out of curiosity, is this implemented?

T

[Hardy Heinlin]

No.

[beat578]

Now I am Curious and googled a bit: I learned there is an EICAS Message that will pop up after a vertain period of inactivity from the pilot. (At least in the 777).  So it's like the "dead man pedal" on a train? What will happen if you don't respond? It turns from yellow to red, but will it sound an alarm in the cockpit? Or will it alert the crew outside or ground? And how do i respond to that?
I never knew it exists, but sounds like an interesting thing. Would be cool to learn a bit more about it from the pro's out in the air.

Thank you in advance
Cheers and stay safe!
Beat LSZH

[Jeroen D]

Forty years ago when I started my career in the merchant navy we had crew alertness monitors on ships.

You had to reset it every 10-12 minutes. If you did not reset in time an alarm would sound, if you did not respond to the alarm within 60 seconds, the alarm would be raised inside the captains cabin.

Only the captain could enable / disable the crew alertness monitor. It was his/her call whether it was used at all. Not many did. Or used it only after we had been on our feet for a long time. I worked on anchor handling /oceangoing tugs and it was not unusual to go without sleep for 24-36 hours and then you still had to stand a watch. OHS was not that strict in those days.

Tere have been accidents in the (merchant) navy and in aviation by crews falling asleep! So it is not as if such a device would not have any use.

Jeroen

[Hardy Heinlin]

The reason I haven't implemented it is because in the sim it gets on the nerves like recurring TCAS alerts, and because the virtual copilot always pushes some buttons anyway :-) So it's plausible that the alert never sounds.

[Toga]

Yes I agree, it can be a total nuisance!

[andmiz]

I never knew it exists, but sounds like an interesting thing. Would be cool to learn a bit more about it from the pro's out in the air.

We%u2019re not told of the logic it uses aside from %u201CFMC does not detect crew activity in monitored area within a specific time%u201D.  No idea what the specific area is.  No idea what the monitored area is.  Sometimes it pops up after 30 minutes, sometimes after perhaps half that on descent. 

It will show up as an advisory, then a caution, and then a warning.

[Jeroen Hoppenbrouwers]

I thought that basically any knob and button that is considered flight routine is part of the monitored area.

MCP
Radios incl. PTT
MCDU
etc.

As long as one of these things is operated, no alert will follow.

[andmiz]

Not all the switches and knobs are monitored.  Some guys go searching for what works and what doesn’t work.  Off the top of my head, for instance making a heading bug change doesn’t reset the monitor.

On an oceanic crossing it’s quite easy to have not touched anything within the time frame, for the advisory to annunciate.

[John H Watson]

The system is FMC-based, so any signal which goes to/via the CDU/FMC.

No alerts will be generated for the function below 20,000 feet or during climb. No alerts will be generated for the function during descent unless an alert occurs at top of descent and was not cleared through pilot action or flight below 20,000 feet.

The system is programmable, so timing may vary from fleet to fleet. Caution and Warning aurals are included.

HF/VHF keypresses are included. These are sent to the FMCs. I can't think of any other reason why the FMC would use these signals.