Narrative:

Pilot flying was hand flying with his FMS placarded inoperative and received clearance to climb to and maintain 11;000 ft while flying the JFK1 breezy point climb out of jfk. He makes a max power takeoff due to a 5 KTS tailwind as seen on the windsock at the kk intersection of 31L; the departing runway. Once airborne; he turns to cri using heading select and flies outbound on the 223 radial toward rngrr also using heading select; per the MEL instructions when he is cleared direct to rbv. With his FMS inoperative; he slews the heading bug toward where he thinks rbv is and changes the scale to see it and his screen goes blank with the 'range disagree' message. The failed FMS does not allow him to change scales at will during critical phases of flight such as during the initial climb and early level off causing a very distracting 'black screen' while turning toward rbv and leveling off at 11;000 ft while the pilot monitoring tries to keep scale same and set up the only working FMS to show direct rbv. The lack of capability with the FMS inoperative on the side of the pilot flying is not a good combination. This problem could have been avoided by swapping FMS's; re-racking the inoperative FMS; removing and replacing it; or allowing the other pilot to fly that leg. This would have eliminated the problem; but we did not swap legs since it was the co-pilot's turn to fly. Maintenance could have done more to troubleshoot and or fix the problem FMS.

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Original NASA ASRS Text

Title: A First Officer overshot the level off altitude in a single FMS aircraft as the Captain made FMS inputs for both pilots' displays and both pilots were distracted.

Narrative: Pilot flying was hand flying with his FMS placarded INOP and received clearance to climb to and maintain 11;000 FT while flying the JFK1 Breezy Point climb out of JFK. He makes a max power takeoff due to a 5 KTS tailwind as seen on the windsock at the KK intersection of 31L; the departing runway. Once airborne; he turns to CRI using heading select and flies outbound on the 223 radial toward RNGRR also using heading select; per the MEL instructions when he is cleared direct to RBV. With his FMS INOP; he slews the heading bug toward where he thinks RBV is and changes the scale to see it and his screen goes blank with the 'Range Disagree' message. The failed FMS does not allow him to change scales at will during critical phases of flight such as during the initial climb and early level off causing a very distracting 'black screen' while turning toward RBV and leveling off at 11;000 FT while the pilot monitoring tries to keep scale same and set up the only working FMS to show direct RBV. The lack of capability with the FMS INOP on the side of the pilot flying is not a good combination. This problem could have been avoided by swapping FMS's; re-racking the INOP FMS; removing and replacing it; or allowing the other pilot to fly that leg. This would have eliminated the problem; but we did not swap legs since it was the co-pilot's turn to fly. Maintenance could have done more to troubleshoot and or fix the problem FMS.

Data retrieved from NASA's ASRS site as of April 2012 and automatically converted to unabbreviated mixed upper/lowercase text. This report is for informational purposes with no guarantee of accuracy. See NASA's ASRS site for official report.