Automation Cautionary Tale

[Tee Emm]

Seems to me those of us heretics who enjoy the pleasure of keeping our manual flying skills in top order are in a minority and it will ever be so.
Diverging views on automation dependency has been with the airline industry since the first glass cockpit 737 came into service in the 1980's.

In a recent issue of Aviation Week & Space technology, correspondent Richard Hipper writes to the Editor and says: Quote:

"The deterioration of hand-flying skills dates to the airline industry's "pushing" automation on pilots as early as 1990 (AW&ST Feb 1-14 p.51). In 1991, I retired after 30 years of military and airline flying. I used to hand-fly airliners to altitude before engaging the autopilot for cruise, then hand-fly to landing, opting for the autopilot when required by company policy.

One IMC night in 1990 - during a flight into the New York area - I was getting a line check from a company FAA designee. I hand-flew most of the flight, including entering a holding pattern and ending with an ILS approach to minimums.

Even though I held altitude within 20 feet and airspeed within five knots, the check pilots critique was :"You have to use the autopilot more." When I asked if there was anything wrong with my flying, he said "no", but I should use the autopilot more. Sadly, up-and-coming pilots might never get that great feeling of being "one" with their aircraft." Unquote

His letter took me back to the time in 1989 when I underwent my first British instrument rating which was conducted by a senior CAA Examiner. Having already flown over 5000 hours in command on the Boeing 737-200, I found the test straight forward and the Examiner seemed happy with the result. The 737 simulator had a Collins FD108 FD which was quite new in those days but old fashioned by comparison with some of today's flight directors.


In fact, most of the pilots in my previous airline preferred to fly without the use of the FD 108 because it was not that accurate and you had to continually fiddle with its settings, especially in the pitch mode. For that reason I opted not to use the FD108 for my instrument rating renewal with the CAA.

At the debriefing, the CAA Examiner asked why I did not use the FD for the test. I told him I felt could fly more accurately without it as my instrument scan was faster than just concentrating on one flight instrument. He didn't agree, saying although my flying smooth and well within tolerances, I should use the FD in future as a matter of policy. We parted ways amicably with my brand new British ATPL firmly clutched in my hand. He had his opinion and I had mine.

Recently, I saw a copy of the simulator assessment sequences used for a major Japanese airline. One paragraph caught my attention. It said candidates must use the flight director until touch down on an ILS. Also, that the autopilot can be used in the test. Once again, the term automation addiction came to mind.

I would have thought that a company wishing to assess a prospective candidates pure flying ability, both on instruments and visual flight, would require the candidate to demonstrate he could fly within required tolerances without the aid of an autopilot and flight director.

[Speedwinner]

Sorry,

I will be honest. In my company we have really good pilots and they fly a lot of handflying here. So tell me why is it necessary to fly by hand to the toc and holding? Makes for me no sense. I agree that we should practice hand flying but to which degree? Would you fly a raw data ils to minimums with minimum weather just that you can say: wow I'm the best jockey on the bird? Wouldn't let sit my family into this bird. Just be professional and use the assistance for what it is made for. 6 days and 18 sectors and you fly the last leg raw data into a snow storm in Russia? Jesus....

So finally don't be selfish and act like a pro and I get my satisfaction from other things in life.

Sorry that must be said

[FlightDetent]

Devils advocate too:
- over here RVR 550 m is only allowed with FDs (CAT I approach lights - EASA);
- workload management is a fair and vital assesment point, more so for the captains;
- check rides in SIM are not scheduled for the reason of brushing up or showing off one's manual handling skills.

[ElitePilot]

Sure there's a time and a place for hand flying. But i agree with Tee in that we as pilots should be able to hand fly to that level of proficientcy and never be in a situation that our scans have deteriorated to a point we feel uncomfortable hand flying.
Unfortunately not all can anymore with company policies dictating the level of automation that must be flown because "it's safer" or "reduces the amount of unstable approaches".

[RAT 5]

This hot topic is being beaten to death on many occasions via various threads. It is becoming circular; and in the end our opinion will count for nought. The powers that be, including XAA's DFO's, CP's & HOT's will decide, and I doubt the XAA's will dare to get involved too directly.
However, there does seem a consensus that manual flying skills and especially scanning skills have deteriorated to be close to danger levels. I agree with those who say hand flying during a climb at constant power following an FD is not going to maintain skills. There are too few changes. Below FL100 to landing is quite different, and traffic density and terrain/weather difficulty must be taken into consideration before 'practicing'.
What are the opinions on these:
1. manual flying allowed (not necessarily encouraged) but no FD is forbidden.
2. visual approaches allowed (not encouraged) but no finals inside OM and LNAV/VNAV data must be inserted for OM waypoint.
3. visual approaches policy is preferred to be flown with automatics.
4. If flown manually with LNAV/VNAV guidance A/T is encouraged to prevent low speed excursions.

Do these impositions encourage the maintenance of basic flying skills? or has this attitude........

Unfortunately not all can do so anymore with company policies dictating the level of automation that must be flown because "it's safer" or "reduces the amount of unstable approaches".

now become the norm? We have read that FAA, NTSB and even Airbus is beginning to advocate more manual flying to combat auto-dependancy. If airlines don't follow this philosophy what chance is there? FBW will be the norm for all pax jets within 15 years. There is that amount of time to sort this out.

[bugged on the right]

I have heard the arguments, read the articles and seen the results of the dicussions here but there will be only one entity which will decide. The insurance companies.

[tdracer]

Diverging views on automation dependency has been with the airline industry since the first glass cockpit 737 came into service in the 1980's.:ugh::ugh::ugh:

(try 767)

[Fursty Ferret]

One IMC night in 1990 - during a flight into the New York area - I was getting a line check from a company FAA designee. I hand-flew most of the flight, including entering a holding pattern and ending with an ILS approach to minimums.

The thing is, you're being assessed on workload management and CRM in these situations, not your prowess as a flying god.

By hand-flying from cruise, into a hold in busy airspace, and then an ILS to minima, what you actually did was massively increase the workload on your colleague who has to actively monitor every moment of your flying in addition to their other tasks. Have they flown with you before? Did you tell them you'd be hand-flying the whole thing during the brief?

So nice day, quiet airfield, relaxed flight deck - I'll hand fly from top of descent or vice-versa. When the external factors start to mount up, then the autopilot and flight directors are there as tools to be used.

[Centaurus]

Amen. By now that horse has been killed, subsequently severely belabored, butchered, turned into steak, devoured and excreted.



Judging by the vehemence and sarcasm shown by the opponents of keeping up manual flying skills, it is sad the discussion has turned out to be less than productive when it need not have been.:{

[stilton]

Agree, what's sad and quite alarming at the same time is the Automation fans disparagement of those who choose to keep up their manual flying skills.


Probably because theirs are lacking.

[Uplinker]

Yes that's all very well, but I think Fursty has it right.

In terms of threat and error management, hand flying an aircraft for long periods in busy airspace increases the potential for making errors, and is therefore questionable in terms of safety. PM will have a doubled workload and PF will have reduced spare capacity for monitoring aircraft systems and situational awareness.

Above FL200, cabin crew will be coming into the cockpit, and the potential for these 'distractions' to lead to flying errors - especially in RVSM airspace - is also increased.

Now that we do not have navigators or engineers on the flight deck, the two remaining pilots need to do more than just fly, and this is probably one reason for the increase in the use of automatics - to free us up a little. This of course has the unfortunate side effect of reducing our practice in hand flying and we need to do something to mitigate against this.

Being required to perform and record manually flown approaches with no F/D and no A/THR on good weather days, (in a similar way that we used to do for our practice autolands) would be an easy way to start this process.

[RAT 5]

Being required to perform and record manually flown approaches with no F/D and no A/THR on good weather days, (in a similar way that we used to do for our practice autolands) would be an easy way to start this process.

Except there are some major airlines that strictly forbid such an act of heresy: sadly.

[rudestuff]

It's perfectly understandable that airline policy would want the computer to fly the plane - it can do a much better job of it - smoother, more efficiently and it lowers the pilots' workload. All fair points, so why do we even need pilots? Because we like to think that when the computers go wrong, the pilots will take over and save the day. Except they can't, because either they've forgotten how to, or worse still they've never actually (hand) flown a jet because their airline won't let them. Does anyone else think that is crazy? Surely there's a happy medium here. If we need 3 takeoffs and 3 landings every 90 days, surely that can be extended to include 3 hand flown climbs and descents and 3 hours of cruise? (PICs discretion, obviously. If things start to get busy then AP on and scrub that one.)

[RAT 5]

The circle keeps turning; but here we go.

We the pilots like to think we can handle the problem when HAL goes AWOL, but some can and some can't depending on who you work for, their training & culture, and your own attitude as well. The pax sure as heck expect us to be able to handle it; they also expect us not to screw up in our interaction with HAL. Either way they expect us to be in charge & capable.
The airlines want a safe & efficient operation that takes care of the pax and makes a healthy profit without scaring anyone. So the techies design ever more all singing all dancing a/c that have so many back-ups and 10 times more reliability than ever thought necessary. They then sell these to the nervous & greedy airline managers who then decide that the best way is to use all the toys and keep the pilots dump and be simply airborne train drivers. If reliability holds up its part of the deal then case proven. The pax are none the wiser and they travelled A-B in total bliss; that is until the pilot is called upon to perform and does not fulfil their side of the bargain. And whose fault was that? Was it really pilot error or something more obtuse and dare I say it, "not to be spoken about even in whispers." Could it have been a corporate culture failing? OMG, how could that be? They passed their 6 monthly tick in the box checks from yester-year. They were legal. Can't be our fault; must have been the sharp end jet jockeys.
It's very rare the AAIB/NTSB points a finger directly at corporate company culture as a root cause of an accident. They often say the crew had not had a specific training that might have helped them avoid this particular accident. You can't think of every eventuality, but if the training is broad, in depth, comprehensive and the crews are well practiced in the science of a/c handling, systems knowledge & management and the black art of airmanship then they will stand a solid chance of coping with many surprises. (The beneficial results of that have been demonstrated in some cases, but that trait has not been heralded as an industry-wide requirement.)
Sadly that training philosophy is no longer the case and many operate to minimum standards and quotas. The techies are left to come up with the best & cheapest solutions. That's what sells a/c.

[FlightDetent]

Maybe the effectiveness could be raised. To start, let's begin by not calling names such as "Automation fans", "opponents of keeping up manual flying skills", "Probably lacking manual skills" at people who state unwelcome facts. That's ad hominem, in my best French. stilton, care to join?

[Linktrained]

As a pilot I was checked periodically on my abilities to cope if ever something went wrong (engine(s) failed or flaps not work properly etc.) A/Ps are very much more reliable than they used to be on a York, for example.

But the same principles ought to apply, surely? Different speeds and weather minima may be applicable for landing, but this is, I assume, an exceptional circumstance...

(Stalling was done on the B170, DC7c and Britannia but at a safe height, lightly loaded or empty.. briefed by Training Captain who sat in RHS and done gradually. Others may notice differences. All three types had "straight rigid wings" and were well below F/L 15.0 )
LT

[RAT 5]

It is quite sensible that this discussion should not separate along the lines of the autonomies and the hands & legs brigade. Surely the industry should striving to create rounded pilots. Those who can handle both techniques with relaxed aplomb.
Some operators prefer the trained monkeys and have rigid narrow SOP's to ensure that: others encourage crews to be more a pilot than a robot. However, do they have a full understanding of how to use the automatics and when to use them to their best benefit?
What is needed is the middle ground; a pilot who has the ability to do both and the common sense to choose when to do which. That has to come from the training department day 1.
Future pilots may well have a different route to mine. I was brought up in GA and then in a piloting airline who trained and trusted its crews to make the choice I suggested. It was then a little frustrating to join an airline who lent towards the trained monkey method, but did allow those who could to do so. It was always a pleasure to demonstrate and help those who wanted to learn: equally disappointing to be with those who didn't. The real irritation came when the nomadic road took me to a straight-jacketed trained monkey outfit.
There is definitely not an industry wide standard and it will not be achieved unless the authorities stipulate it. What I find astonishing, and curious, is I suspect that many of the TM's fly with high productivity multi-sector per day short-haul operators. You'd expect the opposite, but...........

[Linktrained]

The Cross Channel Car Ferry might be considered a Multi Sector operation with up to a dozen sectors flown per day, by one crew.

Lydd to Le Touquet was flown at 1000ft. with the return at 1500ft. The minimum AP level was also 1500ft. This allowed less than 5 minutes use of AP per 20 minute flight, inbound, ONLY !

Some did not bother for so short a time !

LT

[msbbarratt]

Regardless of what one thinks, there have been some fatal crashes in recent years where aircraft that are mostly or completely airworthy have been flown into the sea or ground by pilots who have forgotten how to fly and land.

Put that in your actuarial pipe and smoke it.

There's a good chance that this type of crash will come to dominate the statistics. Insurance pay outs and fines will always be far larger for such avoidable crashes than ones which are caused by overwhelming weather, unavoidable equipment failure, acts of god, etc.

[Uplinker]

Yes. The industry "experiment" of minimal training and practise (sic) of pilots to reduce overheads in modern autojets has surely been shown to be literally fatal?

And time for the XAAs or ICAO to say "enough cost cutting already, it's getting dangerous"?

[RAT 5]

And time for the XAAs or ICAO to say "enough cost cutting already, it's getting dangerous"?

Perhaps, but it will take many committees, many lobbying voices from both sides and many years to conclude.
The change in attitude could happen tomorrow driven by individual airline managements. The 'pilot' members of those managements will need to flight their corner against the 'budget & profit brigade'. Given their historical performance of capitulating to share options and bonuses and thus relinquishing the reins of aviating culture within the airline I doubt it will happen. There are many who say they have not had a fatal problem (yet) with their auto-dependancy culture, so why change. Indeed there are some who have put manual flying even more in the dark cellar.

[Centaurus]

In terms of threat and error management, hand flying an aircraft for long periods in busy airspace increases the potential for making errors

In these discussions re automation and manual flying skills, I don't recall anyone ever advocating "hand flying an aircraft for long periods in busy airspace."

Credit must be given for a common sense approach to hand flying practice on line. Unfortunately it becomes a vicious circle where, regardless of company rules, there are captains so apprehensive of switching off the automatic pilot or flight director even if conditions are fine, that they refuse to allow their co-pilot permission to keep their hand in.

[msbbarratt]

Unfortunately it becomes a vicious circle where, regardless of company rules, there are captains so apprehensive of switching off the automatic pilot or flight director even if conditions are fine, that they refuse to allow their co-pilot permission to keep their hand in.

Indeed, and any regulator worth their salt should look at that kind of cockpit and get very worried for the long term future. And more importantly, what would the passengers think?

At the moment automation is used to a tremendous extent. Unfortunately, most of that automation relies on things external to the aircraft; GPS satellites, ILS transmitters, etc. None of those things supply a guaranteed service. When they go wrong, there's no guaranteed redundancy. And when they go wrong everybody is affected, not just a single aircraft.

That's why we have pilots in the front seats, but it's of little value unless they are proficient at flying and landing an aircraft with nothing but the resources of their own aircraft to help them. After all, it's for this very reason the aircraft themselves are carefully designed to have appropriate levels of redundancy.

A pilot flying a modern airliner (which presumably still has INS these days?) and with reasonable planning and meteorological data ought to be able to fly and land their aircraft somewhere without needing reception of any radio signal in any of the aircraft's systems. That's the basic essence of the aviation world's infrastructure and aircraft safety specification. Of course, that does not mean pilots have to do it that way every time, but they should have that ability.

[RAT 5]

Msb. That is the best focused point of view that the enlightened have iterated on here many times. The frustration is that it is being ignored. Those captains who are nervous at F/O's 'having a go' are of that frame of mind because they can not do it themselves. They can neither demonstrate the art nor monitor someone else. The new breed of captains, being promoted with half the experience of previous generations, have never learnt the art themselves. They then become sim instructors and don't know how to do it, nor can they demonstrate it on line. The skill spiral is ever downwards and incestuously self propagating. It is an appalling state of affairs.

It has come about via various factors.
1. The a/c are more sophisticated. Better autopilots; more modes; better displays; LNAV/VNAV has reduced mental calculation & monitoring.
2. Better ATC with more radar and more active control due to traffic density.
3. More ILS approaches, and if not available then LNAV/VNAV or RNAV profiles. Pilot judgement much diluted.
4. OFDM parameters & limits being expanded and tightened all the time. Pilots are scared of any infringement.
5. Active discouragement by management.
6. Lack of in-depth basic training of the basics of manual flying; and then lack of line practice. All that is done is the mandatory base training.
7. Captains being created with 1/2 the experience of yester-year and lacking the skills to pass on to the apprentices.

It has astonished, and saddened, me to experience the demise in basic piloting skills over 30 years. What I took for granted as the norm has become something of a rare & threatened species. Much of that root cause can be found outside the flight deck. I'm sure most cadets didn't join up to be button pushers, but they have had it been beaten into them and had their Biggles dreams curtailed.

It's a great deal to change: doing a 180 in a supertanker comes to mind. Someone has to decide to turn the wheel and then wait a very long time for the effect to be seen.

[msbbarratt]

Msb. That is the best focused point of view that the enlightened have iterated on here many times.

Thank you very much.

I have spent a lifetime developing a range of specialised radio systems, and that has taught me that radio is too vulnerable to be completely relied upon.

It horrifies me when I see systems where people have assumed it is dependable. It isn't. Even if you duplicate equipment there is only one spectrum, and the behaviour of that is out of the system designer's control.

I see an increasing reliance on automation in aviation as increasing dependency on the associated radio systems and everything that lies behind them. Yet I hear nothing about making them more reliable. How can the regulators permit that!?!?

And look what can happen when they're not working (SFO?).

Of course I can't put any numbers to reliability, etc. This kind of trend changes risk characteristics. Instead of having airliners crash now and then, we now have a situation where they seemingly crash less often. However a few small failures or interference guarantees that lots will be at severe risk of crashing all on the same day.

[Linktrained]

We used to do a "Silver Wing" service between Manston and Le Touquet, which may have been a little tight for our Hermes, so only Captains could land there. ( There was no technical information, unless it was kept in the London Office.)

The return flight was flown by the F/O, operating as far as it was possible as a One Man Band, plus the essential rearward facing F/E.

Many frequency changes and ATC calls and passenger sight seeing comments, Approach and Landing Checks, ending with a with a Practice Emergency GCA to touch down made a busy fifteen and a half minutes flight time. (All monitored by the Captain, RHS.)

Some years later I had to do much the same thing for real, into a busy Terminal, following a "F/O failure". ( He got better !)

Simulators were not available, then.

(At Manston we could watch the Decca Navigator plot which side of the wide R/W we were on, on the charts, which we inked to gain confidence. Round Basle the pen would tend to wander a bit but stayed inside the Airway.)

LT

[Linktrained]

Further to #28

The Silver Wing service took coach loads of passengers from London (Victoria) to Manston and further coaches to Paris etc. For some it may have been an alternative to a "joy ride" as a first flight. And in a proper 4-engined airliner, too !

Thr Hermes A/P, if used, would have had the rudder channel switched off, otherwise one got a "fish-tail" effect - side to side. Of course the GCA was fully manual from 1500ft.

The later flight mentioned, into a busy terminal, made use of that A/P height and speed locks with the F/E adjusting power to alternately obtain the other factor, without words of command. This was to reduce the amount of "verbal clutter" which might have obscured some ATC Commands. It seemed to work quite well.

LT

[Le Chevalier Noir]

Having flown for the Lidl-coloured loco, and moved on to a flag carrier I don't believe that the modern flight deck is solely responsible. Equally, and maybe even more guilty is the company culture and strict SOP. We have seen many accidents the last few years occurred due to poor flying skills. Yet the airlines discourage and prohibits its pilots to fly manually/visually/raw data.

My previous "employer" lead by that ghastly chief pilot, was not so bad at a time. Not being one of those famous aces you hear so much about, I still managed to manually fly full IFR procedures without the use of those fancy-coloured Flight Suggestors and fly a decent visual approach not hurting anyone. Sometimes not even my own pride.

Even though the captains rarely (especially the British ones) did the same I never met any objections flying manually for take off and landing below 10 000'. Nowadays, they prohibit raw data flying. A visual approach has to be created in the box and flown in full magenta mode. Latest from the management is to even limit the use of other A/P-modes than the most magenta ones, eg not climb in level change or God forbid, vertical speed.

At my current company, we are free to fly the aircraft basically within the limitations of the manufactor. We don't get harassed and threatened by the management. If we make a mistake, we say so and explain why this happened. With this company culture, people utilize the full use of automation when appropriate, but don't hesitate to disengage everything and fly a tight, stable visual approach when needed. I can see people are much more comfortable in their role, makes better decisions and in the end leading to a better job being done.

It's not the automation that is the problem, it's how we use and not use it that is. And a pilot under stress, afraid of making mistakes and in doubt if he/she can do what he/she thinks is the best move at the time can be a dangerous pilot if bad luck strikes.

Just my experience.

[slats11]

Will vary from country to country, and from airline to airline.

But I would be interested in people's thoughts how little time was spent flying manually.

[Centaurus]

As a guess only, two minutes after lift off and two minutes max before touch down.

[Check Airman]

I've been following this thread since it opened, and it was with some frustration that I realised that I was flying with an automation dependent captain the other day.

My sector, climbing in IMC, he insists that I not turn off the FD because of the "bad weather". Shortly thereafter, he tells me to turn on the AP. Silky smooth day, getting vectors, and he considers IMC "bad weather"...

[Discorde]

Perhaps it's a generational thing too. We oldsters would get a reroute from ATC, look at our en route chart and tweak the heading bug appropriately, knowing that refinement would be possible soon afterwards. By contrast, the youngsters would reach for the FMC as the first response.

Fine weather, approaching destination, little traffic. You announce to the FO that you'll knock out the automatics and F/D and fly a manual circuit and approach using the stopwatch. Look of horror from the RHS! 'This old fart doesn't know how to program the FMC!'

Again, fine weather, approaching destination, little traffic. It's the FO's leg so you don't interfere. He's constructed the approach in the FMC - fair enough, you think - it's his choice. Downwind leg - still in auto, but I expect he'll knock it out soon. Base leg - doesn't he want to have a go himself? On final - at 500 feet he announces he's disengaging. What a waste! you think.

[RAT 5]

Used to fly B757 with many youngsters. This was in the day when we made many visual approaches, Greek islands etc. and at home base, a major hub. Often, when asking "which sector would you like?" the reply was, "it's looks sporting back here, so I'll take the return leg." Sporting meant low cloud/vis or a breezy cross wind.
AP firmly engaged until DA +100'. Hm????

[ffastbrake]

I just right seated for a young man today on a DA50EX type ride in the sim.


Fly to 10,000 ft., autopilot off, steep turns, 3 stalls, unusual attitudes, two hand flown approaches, one precision, one non precision, hand flown engine out missed approach, return for a hand flown approach, the two engine out visual hand flown.


The kid did great and had exceptional situation awareness and skills beyond his years. It comes down to how you train, training philosophy dictated by real pilots in management, not phucking bean counters...


"just sayin' "


ffastbrake DFW

[Centaurus]

I've been following this thread since it opened, and it was with some frustration that I realised that I was flying with an automation dependent captain the other day.



I have often wondered that if you have been drilled right from the start of your airline career as a 200 hour cadet pilot, to make full use of the automatics in the Airbus/737 et al, does that necessarily mean you are brain-washed by default into automation addiction or dependence?

I fear there is a good chance that is the case.

[Piltdown Man]

Who is right and who is wrong in this debate? Unfortunately, that will only be determined by those judging our industry by the number of smoking holes that can be attributed to lack of basic flying ability. We are not killing enough to change the way we do things. Airlines enforcing strict SOPs (designed almost exclusively for automatic flight) and who punish FDM deviants will crow on about how safe they are because their safety record is impeccable (so far). And because modern standards are so low nearly every airline, including the really gash operators, can show that what they are doing works. So if its not broke... And whether or not our current approach to automation is right or not will depend on how many we think we are going to kill in the future. Unfortunately, airlines are not required to use crystal balls and as they believe nothing is wrong...

Also airports and government agencies have become part of the problem. Like Captain Nervous, they want to control everything. A worthwhile visual approach is almost a thing of the past. It's forbidden! They want to make sure the same houses are hit with the noise of every approaching aircraft on every single flight. Quite what these citizens have done to deserve this I'm not sure. As a result, there is little to be saved (time or money) in flying a visual approach. So most do not.

In general I think we've become our own worst enemies. We have improved to the point where the world believes our skills we can be replaced by automation, procedures and rules. Only when we have gone too far will this miss-truth become apparent.

Personally I fly manually as much as I can. But out of consideration for my colleagues I choose my moments. The aircraft's SOPs are not hand flying friendly and there is too much mouth music. This practice is just for me and I do it to keep current. I might even need it one day.

Finally, I believe it would be criminal if there was any loss of life due to a crew's inability to fly an aircraft. But proving this beyond doubt might be a difficult thing to do. And even if you could, it's not until CEOs can be held criminally liable and possibly end up in prison that things will ever change.

PM

[slast]

I have often wondered that if you have been drilled right from the start of your airline career as a 200 hour cadet pilot, to make full use of the automatics in the Airbus/737 et al, does that necessarily mean you are brain-washed by default into automation addiction or dependence?

I fear there is a good chance that is the case.

Not necessarily! This will probably be greeted with derision by many, but the standard of use of PicMA (monitored approach) procedures actually could help a lot with this issue. I write as a one-time "200 hour cadet" who was in the RHS of what was then the most automated aircraft available and where auto use was the basic SOP.

Bear in mind that (1) this was pre CRM-training days, but also (2) we flew ALL sectors as Pilot-in-charge Monitored Approaches. Many of the Captains I flew with back then took the view that just about the ONLY important thing they could rely on us doing properly was fly instrument approaches to DH and go around, which they knew because we had an Instrument Rating that proved it.

So they were happy to get us to hand fly in better weather, either with Flight Directors or raw data, and encouraged us to go as far down as possible on instruments, because they knew that they'd be taking control back anyway to do the landing, and would simply do so earlier if we screwed it up. I think we actually got pretty sharp at it, as well as the auto stuff, because obviously we were pretty keen! And once they were happy to give us takeoffs and landings, the Captains would similarly practice hand-flying if they wanted to, on the F/O legs where we were "in charge" and doing the takeoff and landing.

A big issue in my mind is that almost everyone sees it as "all or nothing". Hand-flying can easily demand more (or a different type of) concentration than using automatics and it does generally raise workload. So managements inevitably will see it as a significant reduction in safety margins during traditional PF/PM operations, where the person with the high workload is also responsible for the overall safety of the flight (tactical decision-making etc).

But if you split the tasks so the tactical decisions are NOT going to be made by the pilot flying, there is much less impact on safety margins, especially if you're doing it in conditions when there aren't any significant threats. That way, if managements provide suitable guidance and limitations, they can let Captains use some discretion and judgement on the day, which will improve long term safety (over years) without lowering short-term (individual flight) safety.

[RAT 5]

So they were happy to get us to hand fly in better weather, either with Flight Directors or raw data, and encouraged us to go as far down as possible on instruments,

Interesting comment from old pre-BA days. The debate is a little wider; it touches on guys not being able to do MK.1 visual approaches. Manual flying, under radar or LNAV/VNAV, FD or raw data should not be difficult. You follow you do not decide. Mk.1 visual you decide as well. That's a big part of the skill that is vanishing.

[msbbarratt]

Bill Brown, famed Flight Engineer on a BA Concorde came up with a very prophetic thought about how civil aviation would change.

Watch the following, at around about 1:27

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YH_SkYzvblg#t=109.560578

[slast]

Wouldn't disagree with you, RAT5 - my comment was simply aimed at starting the process where it might get most traction, which is simply try clicking the autopilot off !

[Mikehotel152]

900 hours a year, 4 sector days, busy airspace, pilots straight from cessnas into highly automated jets. This is European flying in 2016.

It's no surprise to me that the industry standard is to use the automatics to free up capacity and mask an increasing level of low experience.

Years ago a wise old Captain told me that he had no problem with hand flying provided that it was done following a briefing and advance notice to the PM who will end up doing more work, but suggested that I consider whether the first first or last sectors of the week were the right time to show off my silky flying skills.

I felt that was reasonable advice and I stick to it. What amazes me is the number of my FO's who only disengage at +100. :ooh:

[Uplinker]

Re F/Os disconnecting at 100', you've answered your own question: 'pilots from Cessnas straight into highly automated jets'.

We used to spend a couple of years flying turboprops - learning how to fly in commercial operations and airspace before going onto big automatic jets.

Nothing wrong with automatics, but you need to know how to use them and you need the fundamentals in the background.

[RAT 5]

M152: All well and good. indeed good pilot judgement is when to and when not; manual flight. What saddens me is the operators who discourage, forbid, make it too complicated etc. They are complicit in the dilution of basic skills. I understand the perceived financial & safety issues, but I wonder if that will turn round and bite them one day.

[Uplinker]

If it is windy, I will disconnect much earlier rather than later so I can "get in the groove" and feel the actual conditions, so that by the time I land, my brain is reasonably up to speed with its manual flying responses.

[RAT 5]

Uplink: that point was made in an accident report of B757 that departed the runway during a severe X-wind landing. The A/P was disconnected at 500' all.

[Uplinker]

Ah. Yes, modern autopilots and FBW* are so good that one sometimes gets a nasty surprise on disconnecting to land!

So I prefer to disconnect early on those challenging days to experience how much the wind is throwing us about and to give my manual responses time to calibrate to the conditions before we land :ok:



(* Airbus, I don't know about Boeings - I am sure they are just as good)

[Goldenrivett]

Ah. Yes, modern autopilots and FBW* are so good that one sometimes gets a nasty surprise on disconnecting to land!

(* Airbus, I don't know about Boeings - I am sure they are just as good)
The disadvantage of Airbus FBW is that in Normal Law there is no feed back through the side stick to tell you how much aileron / elevator is being applied.
See accident report of the Hamburg incident http://www.bfu-web.de/EN/Publications/Investigation%20Report/2008/Report_08_5X003_A320_Hamburg-Crosswindlanding.pdf?__blob=publicationFile Summary Siet 12.
"When the respective ELAC unit has detected that the aircraft has touched down, within 0.5 seconds the system changes from Lateral Flight Law to Lateral Ground Law. The effect of this is:
• to cancel the aircraft feedbacks used in flight for the computation of ailerons / spoilers deflection, this one being only made using sidestick orders information,
• to limit the ailerons and roll spoilers 2, 3 and 4 deflection by about a half at high speed (Vc > 80 kt)”

When you disengage the AP and are manually flying in Normal Law, you still have no idea what the control surfaces are actually doing to satisfy your inputs. In gusty conditions, a small roll rate request on the side stick may need full aileron displacement - and you won't know.

How many qualified A320 pilots know that you only can get half aileron deflection with full side stick on landing?

See: Near-Crash in Hamburg: Investigators Criticize Airbus for Inadequate Pilot Manuals - SPIEGEL ONLINE (http://www.spiegel.de/international/germany/near-crash-in-hamburg-investigators-criticize-airbus-for-inadequate-pilot-manuals-a-681796.html)

[Centaurus]

Years ago a wise old Captain told me that he had no problem with hand flying provided that it was done following a briefing

Unbelievable :sad: You need to brief because you are going to hand-fly?? Of course good CRM demands you as the captain should ask the permission of your first officer before you go click click.:ugh:

[Uplinker]

Hi Goldenrivett,

Yes agreed there is no feedback through the stick, but you learn to measure that in other ways, such as how the aircraft reacts to your inputs.

If you are holding full sidestick to pick up a wing on short finals and nothing is happening, then I think you can assume that both your max roll demand and the FBW's is being applied and it is probably time to go-around and get away from the ground!

As for the Hamburg thing, I don't know enough about the inputs applied and the Airbus gains and FBW laws etc. to make a sensible comment, although Airbus do suggest the crab/de-crab technique - did Airbus change anything after that? I can't remember.

So far, I have not had a problem with crosswind landings, and I have had some hairy moments ! I find the partial spoiler deployment feature to be very useful in that situation.