Diagnosing your COTS issues

[P*Funk]

So I've encountered a situation where I have no idea what exactly I did wrong but I got to the landing and on the taxi in my pilot says "We apologise for the issue we had in flight" or something to that effect. Betty tells me "that was TOO much" and the post flight report remarked that the plane was all over the place or something.

I guess maybe it was turbulence? I had moderate turbulence for most of the cruise. Is it just a case that I need to divert my flight path to avoid weather or is it that I didn't have the seatbelt signs on enough? I had no serious VSI movements, no pogoing and a firm unremarkable landing certainly shouldn't have been the cause. At altitude I'm pretty sure I kept to 5-10 degrees of bank and only did 30 during approach when seatbelts were on, though I may have exceeded 10 bank a few times at cruise, can't remember.

In any event I wanna discuss what the signs are pointing to here, and possibly discuss other factors at play to look out for when decoding why COTS says your flight was a bad one. Nobody said anything during the flight and I never heard protests from the cabin.

[alan CXA651]

Hi.
The copilot apologisies for things like seatbelt signs not going on in turbulance , or if fuel in any tank reaches 10% which would also trigger an emergancy , and FE would tell you to land asap due low fuel , also bad flying from you would trigger the apologies , which include climbing decending to steeply , which causes cabin pressure problems , keep climb/decent to a max 500fpm , a crying baby is a sign you have exceeded these comphart limits.
when on sperry autopilot , during turns , do the turns in small amounts to limit bank to 5/10 deg also during turns the aircraft tends to climb , to stop this or limit it to 100fpm climb , disconnect the sperry autopilot elevator lever on the aisle stand , reconnect the elevator once turn completed .
Also if you do a good landing the pax clap and very good landings the copilot will compliment you as well , gently ease her down on the runway .
And if you have ASN weather engine giveing you weather , then tune into 122.00 atis at your airport 122.05 enroute atis , pay attention to any sig/air mets , this tells you if thunderstorms/windshear or turbulance , you might expect , and 122.02 destination airport atis .
regards alan.

[P*Funk]

500 fpm seems quite a low maximum rate of descent/climb given pressurization equipment is in use. I would have thought this would be the limit if you weren't pressurizing. It could have been fuel. I was down to around 600 gallons, only 150 or less in each tank. There was also a sigmet I was skirting around but nothing happened to the plane that seems like excessive turbulence. Is it enough just to have any turbulence or is there an indicated amount on the navigator page that would basically demand you turn on seatbelts?

Like I said though no sounds were made by the passengers in flight and nobody told me about an emergency. Might have been the turbulence.

[alan CXA651]

Hi.
Dont base this aircraft around modern pressurization , remember pressurization was in its infancy on the connie , hence 500fpm required for pax comphart .
Moderate to severe turbulance requires seatbelts on , light chop you can get away with.
Also dont put to much power on the engines during climb , i find even on full load , she climbs with 30/23 man/rpm at 500fpm once gear/flaps are up , too much power on takeoff reduces engine life.
regards alan.

[CAPFlyer]

500 FPM only applies during the end of the descent once the cabin has reached equilibrium with the outside and depressurized. With the Virtual FE, this usually happens around the start of the approach phase (3000-4000 feet MSL). Once you start hearing a baby cry if you descend too quickly, you'll know you've gotten to that point. Before that, you can descend as quickly as you like as long as the FE can keep the cabin rate to a comfortable level (500FPM or less) without exceeding the pressure differential limits.

[gordonb]

I can always here babies crying..does this mean I am descending too steeply?