Checks when calling 'stable' on final approach
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rich_g85 - I'm about to be a bit of a heretic. The Church of Stabilised Appoaches has many followers and like some other religions, you are not allowed to say you are not a believer or people will start shouting at you. This religion also has a few bibles and you find quite a few variations on a theme. You will also find that this religion is practiced in many ways. I'm probably in +TSRA's sect.
The basic guts of the thing is that a good landing comes from a good approach; which in turn will have been derived from a good intercept. But I digress. So returning, the powers that be have determined that stabilised approaches result in fewer poor landings. So when passing X height, speed, power, configuration, track, thrust etc. should be within certain tolerances and the before landing checklists performed.
And here is where the differences in religion come to play. Some wide bodied (ie. heavy) aircraft won't change speed or direction quickly. Some companies are so scared of an (another) incident they will place draconian, black and white limits on their crews. They then back this up with disciplinary measures if they find afterwards (using Flight Data Monitoring) that you have strayed from the path of richeousness. So these pilots might even go-around because a checklist has not be done by point X. You might also find matey boy in the next next to you drops you in it if you don't. Then we need to put in the scared, anxious and under-confident pilots. I know (too) many. They are constantly looking for things that are wrong or about to go wrong. You often find they are totally inflexible. And they have their alter-egos, the Cowboys. Then we have the short haul, multi-sector, flying every day guys vs the one or twice a month, 'what does this button do again?' types.
My personal sect belives that we should be more less stabilised by 500' on nice days and 1,000' on horrible ones. And on some disgusting days, 1,500' or maybe even 2,000'.
Sorry to witter on, but stabilised to one might not be stabilised to another.
PM
The basic guts of the thing is that a good landing comes from a good approach; which in turn will have been derived from a good intercept. But I digress. So returning, the powers that be have determined that stabilised approaches result in fewer poor landings. So when passing X height, speed, power, configuration, track, thrust etc. should be within certain tolerances and the before landing checklists performed.
And here is where the differences in religion come to play. Some wide bodied (ie. heavy) aircraft won't change speed or direction quickly. Some companies are so scared of an (another) incident they will place draconian, black and white limits on their crews. They then back this up with disciplinary measures if they find afterwards (using Flight Data Monitoring) that you have strayed from the path of richeousness. So these pilots might even go-around because a checklist has not be done by point X. You might also find matey boy in the next next to you drops you in it if you don't. Then we need to put in the scared, anxious and under-confident pilots. I know (too) many. They are constantly looking for things that are wrong or about to go wrong. You often find they are totally inflexible. And they have their alter-egos, the Cowboys. Then we have the short haul, multi-sector, flying every day guys vs the one or twice a month, 'what does this button do again?' types.
My personal sect belives that we should be more less stabilised by 500' on nice days and 1,000' on horrible ones. And on some disgusting days, 1,500' or maybe even 2,000'.
Sorry to witter on, but stabilised to one might not be stabilised to another.
PM
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Rotate is not an instruction.
Which is exactly the point; at the appropriate place, the PM calls either "stable" or "go around" and the PF flies the aircraft accordingly.
I'm with Piltdown Man, though, that many people making the rules in companies have no idea of the principles behind them, and try to apply the same criteria to small, manoeverable aircraft as widebody heavies. Often under pressure from Authority Inspectors who are equally clueless.
+TSRA, I'm afraid that the "when I were a lad everyone had to have two moon landings and a space shuttle rating" approach has been shown many times to be irrelevant. And speaking personally I know 10,000 hour captains that struggle through with the help of the SOPs as well as 500 hour guys who are absolutely brilliant. Hours are not a factor.
What is a factor is the sheer scale of aviation compared to 30 years ago; the accident rate then would be totally unacceptable now, so we have to close every little loophole even if it offends the higher skilled who have to conforn to the same requirements as the merely average. Of course one of the issues which is fundamental to this whole discussion is that everyone thinks they are higher skilled and therefore they would always be able to salvage the landing from a cr@p approach.
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Hours are not a factor.
My point is that there is no textbook substitute for experience. The average 5,000 hour pilot will have a clearer head than the average 200 hour pilot.
I'm not saying that I don't find value in the theory of stabilized approach. I do. Reading Piltdown Man's post, I am firmly in his "sect." But its the march towards having a call for everything to cover the possibility of below average skill that I have an issue with.
I look at this like the requirement that everyone wears a safety vest and 21 cones are placed around an aircraft on the ground. Just the other day I was walking across the apron, wearing all the safety equipment the airport authority requires of me and yet I was almost run over by a tug coming from behind me.
My question, therefore, is what good are these safety requirements and extra standard calls if they seem to block good judgement and rationale thought?
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But its the march towards having a call for everything to cover the possibility of below average skill that I have an issue with.
Having extremely long checklists while taxiing is not safe, same for approach and landing. Before we had no checklist between after start and parking and we operated safely. And yes, the OEM procedures were introduced to save money, not because they are better.
Anyway, we do not have a stabilized call, only an incapacitation check at 1000ft AGL, which is kinda ironic as we have to talk all through the approach anyway and just read that darn landing checklist. The gate is still fixed at 1000ft, no matter how the weather is. And it is probably one of the most violated things on the line, since common sense often makes continuing the better option when it is clear that we will be within criteria at 800ft.
As for the vest and hearing protection on the apron, well, an old captain once told me when i started out flying jets: the vest is so that the tug drivers can better aim at you, and the hearing protection is there so you don't hear them coming. And i believe it is kinda true. Funny enough, not wearing the vest is usually the recipe to get noticed very fast by those ramp sheriffs, which begs the question, what is more visible nowadays, wearing or not wearing the vest?
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Thread drift
HiViz vests work very well. Since I've been wearing one I've not been attacked by a crocodile, spontaneously combusted nor bitten by a snake. But I've lost count of the times I've nearly been run over. But I'll always wear my 'compo' protector; no jacket, no compo. Run me over and my filthy, rapacious, fee seeking compo hounds will be on your tail - just because I was wearing a stupid HiViz vest; allowing me to be totally stupid but legally correct. What a sh!tty world we live in!
PM
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