MD-83
Flight Crew Air Transport Pilot (ATP)
Distraction; Situational Awareness; Time Pressure; Confusion
Aircraft Equipment Problem Critical; Deviation / Discrepancy - Procedural Published Material / Policy
Flight Crew Rejected Takeoff; General Maintenance Action
Aircraft; Procedure; Weather
I was the pilot flying. We were cleared for takeoff. Weather was CAT 1 with 1 3/4 mile visibility in moderate rain. We were in an older model jet with no autospoilers/brakes. The Captain briefed to remind him in the event of a rejected takeoff to remind him to deploy spoilers. On takeoff roll; after the engines spooled to 1.4 EPR I called for the autothrottle. The right engine was lagging prior to 1.4 EPR but came up. As we began takeoff roll; it felt like were not accelerating properly. The Captain had failed to make a 'thrust set' or 80 knot call by the time I felt he should. I looked down and saw were almost 85 knots and looked up and the right EPR gauge was split and well below the chevron target. I said to the Captain 'we need to do something' at that time; he took the controls and it felt as if he was rejecting the takeoff. I looked first at airspeed and saw we were just coming through 95 knots. The Captain deployed the reversers and began braking but due to his arm position I could not see if the speed brakes had deployed. I notified Tower of our rejected takeoff due to low visibility conditions. We exited the runway after I called out that we were below 60 knots. As we exited the runway we observed that the speedbrake had in fact not been deployed by either pilot. A critical miss on an 8;500 FT runway with heavy rain and wind. The fact that we never accelerated beyond 95 knots and the Captains use of brakes and reversers played into our more than favorable outcome. The differences of flying the older planes very rarely cannot be over stressed. The differences of the autospoiler/brakes systems on our company's MD-80 models makes us complacent; greater care needs to be placed on the rejected takeoff litany and actions on every flight. A clear call of the rejected takeoff might have helped remind me of the requirement during a rejected takeoff to confirm spoilers are deployed.
Advanced power to 1.4 EPR; engaged autothrottle as per procedure. Left engine accelerated to target 1.93 EPR normally; right stuck at 1.6. I advanced the right throttle manually to 1.93; but it rolled back to 1.6 with no additional throttle movement. Takeoff rejected at 90 KTS. My usual technique is to bring the power to idle; deploy the reversers; and then grab the spoiler handle to manually extend them (this was an older airplane.) But in this case as soon as I got the reversers deployed and spooled up to the target EPR it was time to start stowing them again as the copilot was already making his 80 KTS and 60 KTS callouts. I did not; therefore; take my right hand off the throttles to deploy the spoilers. I know it's procedural; but the RTO happened very fast; and there simply wasn't time to both extend the spoilers and get the thrust reversers stowed by 60 knots. Since I had full control of the airplane I chose to come out of reverse and turn my attention to clearing the runway. I wrote up the engine problem and the rejected takeoff in the same logbook entry. I should have made a separate entry for the RTO.
A MD-83's right engine failed to maintain takeoff EPR; so the Captain rejected the takeoff but failed to extend the spoilers on an older model aircraft without autospoiler/autobrakes.