View Full Version : ECA & the joys of automation
Geoffersincornwall
26th Mar 2013, 18:40
The European Cockpit Association feature in this week's Flight International. They have highlighted the apparent assertion amongst airlines that buying expensive automation in the cockpit allows them to reduce pilot training.
It's a funny old thing but I find myself needing more time to master the automation not less. Do others in our industry recognise a creeping malaise here too?
G. :ugh:
And How
Bigger instruction book required for the automation than War & Peace + Decline of the Roman Empire put to getter, & the first thing you want is not there. :{
HeliComparator
26th Mar 2013, 18:57
Woof woof! (Ie barking mad!). You still need to be able to fly manually for when the S hits the F, but you also need to understand the behaviour of the automation and its degraded modes, and you need new MCC /CRM skills to ensure its not set and forgotten incorrectly! So much more training, but the outcome should be a much safer flight. But you knew that already!
Geoffersincornwall
26th Mar 2013, 19:12
Has your training budget been increased to cope with this problem? Are you training to a point where both manual skills and system knowledge is such that crews are 'fluent' with the automatics?
G.
MightyGem
26th Mar 2013, 20:32
They have highlighted the apparent assertion amongst airlines that buying expensive automation in the cockpit allows them to reduce pilot training.
Hmm...wasn't that a factor in the Air France crash? A lack of basic flying skills.
HeliComparator
26th Mar 2013, 23:19
I don't know about budgets, but we have certainly extended our Differences course in the sim, by 4 hrs per pilot (8 hrs per crew) IIRC. We have only recently started doing full type ratings on 225 so already had a handle on how long it takes. When its your own Sim in house, adding some extra time doesn't hit the budget much anyway and mercifully the training manager doesn't seem to be under much commercial pressure.
Is it enough time? No, it never is, is it. But certainly courses are much longer than they used to be on 332L etc.
But yes, I think crews are pretty fluent with the automatics. Partial/degraded automation remains more of a problem but fortunately its an aspect of the real aircraft that seems highly reliable (due to lots of redundancy).