Flight International and Future A350 pilots `learn by doing`

[Centaurus]

The most hackneyed phrase in aviation is "Aviate, navigate, and communicate". I must have seen or heard that phrase in one form or another, a thousand times since I first flew a Tiger Moth over 60 years ago. And now here it is again, this time in FI, quoted by Captain Davies head of flight crew training policy at Airbus. He is referring to the astounding news that Airbus is to apply what he says are the three "golden rules" : Fly, navigate and communicate". Using the "appropriate level of automation at all times." Absolutely, of course Your Honour....

Flight International's David Learmount writes: Future A350 pilots to `learn by doing` - quoting Christian Nordern, Airbus's head of flight crew developement who says future Airbus pilots will learn by doing, which not only leads to quick learning, but is also more fun.

Apparently, as a result of pilots manual handling skills declining significantly across the world's fleet, Airbus plan to use hands-on learning process for pilots to familiarise themselves with the aircraft and the manual handling characteristics, once they begin the course using a range of training devices including a full flight simulator.

Now hang on a minute - isn't Airbus trying to re-invent the wheel? Surely, when pilots undergo a conversion to a new type in the simulator, it is good instructional technique to first let the pilot place one hand on the throttles, thrust levers, whatever, his other hand on the control wheel or joy stick (Airbus) and his feet on the rudder pedals, and say here you are old son, get used to flying this kite by hand then a few sessions later you will be shown the marvels of automation.

And if it isn't done that way by the manufacturer's simulator instructors and passed down the line to third party providers and airline operators, then it is no wonder pilots occasionally spear inverted into the ground from an unusual attitude caused by their lack of basic flying ability.

I am surprised that Airbus would make such a profound (?) series of statements about how to teach pilots to fly their product, when flight simulator instructors have always (or should have) taught basic manual handling of jet transport from the first simulator lesson.

While I have always held the greatest respect for David Learmount's articles, methinks, David would have done better to report on some of the tragic aircraft accidents around (no shortage of them) rather than on this occasion, waste valuable space in FI, on meaningless quotes from Airbus flight standards executives.

[Jonty]

If only it were like that.

Unfortunately most conversion courses are Day 1: Typing, Day 10: Typing. (Stole that line) There is very little hand flying in the Airbus conversion course.

The other thing I would pick out is "using the appropriate level of automation at all times" You would be amazed how many pilots of modern planes fail to do just that. Myself included.

[justanotherflyer]

Manufacturers are in love with their machines, and, consciously or otherwise, do their best to engineer out what they see as messy human interference with the beauty of their systems. Pilots have been cowed into the corner of being spectators of these processes.

In the next chapter, the awkward question of passengers will be eliminated too. They will stay at home enjoying virtual immersive experiences of their intended destinations. The machines will soar serenely in the air, with no-one on board.

The manufacturers' nirvana will finally have been achieved.

[LiveryMan]

As a layman, I find it quite worrying that Airbus flight training has to go back to manual flying techniques, etc.

I've always (jokingly) considered Airbus pilots to be glorified computer administrators but I never thought it to be true.

I have a computer driving license, plenty time with flight sims and 10 years experience troubleshooting PC/Software issues. Can I be a Airbus pilot?

[Clandestino]

Originally Posted by Jonty

There is very little hand flying in the Airbus conversion course.

Depends on the provider, first five sim sessions (4 hours each) of my 320 TR were done raw data, manual, direct law.

Manufacturers are in love with their machines, and, consciously or otherwise, do their best to engineer out what they see as messy human interference with the beauty of their systems. Pilots have been cowed into the corner of being spectators of these processes.

And there I was, believing that ever since antitrust laws separated United from Boeing fellows responsible for crew training were operators and not manufacturers.

Granted, manufacturers set minimal training program but it is up to operator and authorities to decide whether bare minimum is good enough for them. That they overwhelmingly decide it to be so is something that not just the manufacturers should be blamed for.

What's the fuss about decrease of manual skills anyway? How statistically safe was 2012 compared to last decade's average?

[keith williams]

I have a computer driving license, plenty time with flight sims and 10 years experience troubleshooting PC/Software issues. Can I be a Airbus pilot?

Yes but you will still have to:

1. Pay an FTO £100000
2. Pass 14 theory exams.
3. Spend 2 years in a hold pool.
4. Pay an airline to permit you to fly the first 500 hours.

[PJ2]

Clandestino;

What's the fuss about decrease of manual skills anyway? How statistically safe was 2012 compared to last decade's average?

Happily, very safe indeed. But we both know that to be meaningful, these must be long-term trends and that isn't the case yet. I think Centaurus is exactly right.

Perhaps the MCPL and automation are indeed the solutions, with a bow towards manual flight during recurrent training sessions. Even as the experience and set of skills are called upon less and less, knowing how to fly an airplane is a fundamental and required skill that can't be replaced.

[John Farley]

Allow me to repeat what I have said before but it produced no response:

I think the time is right for a proper discussion about automatics and the airliner Flight Deck crew of the future.

In the mid 60s I was a safety pilot on a Comet 3B doing cross wind autoland trials with a component of over 30kt. To watch that system flare, smoothly remove the drift angle and squeak the wheels onto the numbers over and over again, convinced me that automatics could achieve standards of ‘flying’ that I could not match.

I say ‘flying’ because I believe words like pilot/piloting/flying mean different things to different people. To avoid ambiguity I suggest we separate out tasks associated with ‘steering' the aircraft from ‘operating' the aircraft.

By steering, I mean controlling any flight parameter. By operating, I mean every other aspect of a flight from pre-flight preparation to filling in the Tech Log afterwards. I believe automatic systems are better at steering tasks while humans are better at operating tasks.

In reply to “What are you going to do when the autopilot fails?” my answer is that future automatic steering systems will not fail in a critical way. Unlike today’s autopilots which disconnect themselves in the event of a problem, future automatics will be designed to fail safe and carry on performing their functions. Just like today’s wing structures. Autoland thanks to special certification standards has not caused a landing accident since it was first used with passengers in the 70s. Sadly there have been quite a few steering errors by aircrew over the same period.

You are a future Captain climbing out of La Guardia when both engines fail. As the operator you decide the crisis needs a landing on the Hudson. You undo the guards protecting the Glide Landing button and press it. With your knowledge of the aircraft’s gliding performance you estimate the touchdown zone on the local area map, draw the final approach track you want with your stylus, press the Glide Landing button again and thank your lucky stars that you did not have to use skill so save your aeroplane. Just knowledge.

As a future passenger I will always want my flight operated by a senior Captain and First Officer who have the knowledge to get us to our destination safely but without the need for them to use skill.

To be the Captain or First Officer of a future airliner is an ambition that any youngster should be proud to have. We will always need airliner Captains and First Officers to operate our automatically steered airliners.

[carlrsymington]

Excuse this post but if you I just had to

I think the pilots of AF447 were just plain unlucky. I understand Bernoulli's principle and the basics of flying but I think they are a statiscal outlier.
By all means continue the debate but I am willing to do the maths. If A330\A340 \ A380 were burning like 787's I would be worried but. 40 years ago people died. Nobody has died . Period.
I know flying is very, very safe (I have been in (not flown) glider, biplane,helicopter, hot air ballon & 100+ commercial flights). I work with stats most days.
The training system "looks" ok to me but how many Tiger Moth\ Spitfire \ Phantom\ C152 pilots flew their machine into the ground? One in a thousand will make it through.

keep up the good work!

[PJ2]

carlrsymington;

I think the pilots of AF447 were just plain unlucky.

I disagree that "luck" has anything to do with the AF447 accident or for that matter most accidents.

I don't know anyone who has flown transports and also done work in flight safety who believes in "luck". The notion of "belief" describes that which isn't understood (yet) and so has a component of faith (that one will be "lucky or unlucky"). The concept doesn't apply in technical work and isn't an explanation for causal events and outcomes.

What looks like "unlucky" to many, actually has clear antecedents which can be defined, examined and original causes addressed. Like other processes/methods of improvement, that's how the aviation safety process works.

The counter-example is to examine the thirty-plus crews to which an unreliable speed event occurred. Thirty crews were not "lucky", they responded in a manner which maintained control of their aircraft, handled the abnormality and wrote it up in the log book. Some filed an incident report so others could learn from the event.

It is not "just plain unlucky" that one does not execute the standard operating procedures as one has been trained to do in responding to an abnormality nor is it unlucky that in an abnormality one does not communicate with the other crew member(s) as to what one is doing with the airplane and instead launches on one's own without the other crew member knowing or understanding what one is doing.

There are also questions regarding training, checking, standards and experience as well as the specific crew relief process followed on the night of the accident.

[bubbers44]

It would be very hard to fly an airbus like AF 447, simply lose AP and AT pull up into an 11 degree pitch attitude, stall with stick shaker going off at high altitude continuously and keep pulling back with stall warning going off and simply call it bad luck. Horrible airmanship might be more appropriate.

[DozyWannabe]

Originally Posted by indigopete

That's the way engineers see it

Hmm - I think there's some oversimplification going on there. What you're actually talking about is how your lecturer in control systems theory taught that part of his module. It's a bit of a stretch to then extend that single occasion to all engineers (including, but not limited to multiple disciplines such as electrical, software, aeronautical and engineering pilots) involved in aircraft development.

Looking at it purely in terms of control systems theory, your lecturer is correct. However what drives the pilot-as-feedback-mechanism is a complex combination of decision-making, experience, motor control etc. I have a strong suspicion that if you'd asked him after the lecture he'd have explained that his description was to be applied to his module only.

...the way we trust traffic lights enough to plough through a green light at speed without caring to check that the other guy's stopped.

Speaking for myself, I had enough minor prangs in my first year of driving (and seen enough of my mates in hospital) that I've never done that.

PJ2 and Clandestino are bang on the money.

[Mac the Knife]

I think John Farley is quite correct in his remarks.

May I venture that the reason is that it is simply too expensive in terms of time and money to train flight crew to "steer", as he puts it, modern large airliners.

Gaining (and maintaining) the requisite manual flying skills to cope with what is becoming an extremely rare eventuality is just no longer practical.

I recall reading somewhere that training a fast-jet jock costs ten times more than training an airline captain - and the FJ pilot will be using his skills every sortie rather than possibly never in a lifetime.

The two professions diverge - the world moves on.

[GlueBall]

There is something far deeper in 447, but no one seems to really want to find it.

The "last chance" warning, a voice generated "STALL/STALL" intermittent for 50+ seconds, was Not Heard? Not Respected? Assumed To Be False?

Even with total sensory overload, crews must be trained to INSTINCTIVELY fly manual attitude and thrust.

[Gretchenfrage]

Clandestino's gems ....

What's the fuss about decrease of manual skills anyway? How statistically safe was 2012 compared to last decade's average?

... is best put back into oblivion by a quote of a REAL professional:

It’s important not to define safety as the absence of accidents. When we’ve been through a very safe period, it’s easy to think it’s because we are doing everything right. But it may be that we are doing some things right, but not everything. We can’t relax. We have to remain vigilant.

Chesley Sullenberger

[blind pew]

Nice one ventus.
Still question why the French sub picked up 447 boxes beacon but ignored it.

[PJ2]

ventus45;

Re, "Consider this."

I not only considered your points, (decades ago), but did line indoctrination on the A320 at the time and taught these points.

I certainly agree with your observation regarding training. Seen it, done it and it works really well.

If my views are "dead wrong" on the 30 crews example, I think you've just missed my point a bit.

SOPs, CRM and simulator training for abnormals is exactly the training that you describe in your note and it's done all the time.

The point being made is that what kept the thirty-odd crews who also experienced this abnormality from becoming flummoxed was SOPs, CRM and ensuring the priorities of "aviate, navigate, communicate", were adhered to.

There is a very specific, tightly-trained response to abnormalities in the Airbus. The same tightness applies to the Boeing but the procedures are naturally tailored the aircraft.

Your public profile doesn't say and so I don't know if you fly these aircraft or not but I can outline these procedures if you like so you can see how it should be and almost all the time is, done.

Briefly, the first priority is to maintain control of the aircraft, then ensure the flight path is stable then begin the crew-coordinated response to the abnormal by first announcing what is indicated on the "ECAM", (the Electronic Central Aircraft Monitor, IIRC). This is the job and responsibility of the pilot flying.

The pilot not flying awaits the commands from the PF and executes the ECAM actions, confirming non-reversible items as the list is read and cleared from the screen.

On this screen is displayed in tactical order the abnormal that the flight warning system is sensing. In this case the ECAM messages concerned the ADRs - Air Data Computers.

Secondary failures are announced and are dealt with in order after completion of the first priority ECAM checklists.

Once this is complete the status of the affected aircraft systems is read and cleared.

Sometimes there are memorized checklist items that must be accomplished immediately and without reference to checklists. Engine failures/fires are one example.

The UAS checklist has memorized items, primarily (in my opinion) for immediately after takeoff when there isn't time to get into the checklist and find the correct pitch and power settings. Because takeoff and after takeoff are time-compressed phases of flight, an immediate pitch and power setting must be known.

In cruise flight, the loss of airspeed indication is not an emergency and there should be no reason to become "flummoxed". Nothing has happened to the airplane and it is as stable after such loss as it was prior to any such loss. So in essence, there is no need to change anything with regard to pitch or power.

The event is an abnormal, to which a measured response which maintains control of the flight path is required followed by an announcement of the abnormal and a call for the PF to do the ECAM actions while the PF continues to fly the airplane. There was minimal if any such coordination on the flight deck of AF447.

These things are taught, trained and checked against standards.

AF447's two First Officers in command of the airplane did not respond using SOPs nor did they communicate properly using CRM principles. That is the comparison being made and, because there were thirty-odd successful outcomes and one unsuccessful outcome, comparison as to why is natural and invited especially by those who fly these aircraft so the problem is understood and can be learned from. After all, that's partly how training priorities begin, isn't it?

Some will view this as hindsight bias and I do acknowledge that there is a risk of "thinking for the crew" in all this. None of us were there and none of us can know what the thinking was. But the event wasn't a serious emergency or a major, catastrophic failure that affected the ability of the airplane to continue flight. At the very least we can say it was a perceptual matter which caused certain actions to occur vice others which we here can consider with the value of knowing what happened and why (in terms of the system failures).

At some point, learning and understanding must occur and so we must take what we can in the available evidence from the recorders and the ACARS and come to terms with what occurred using experience and knowledge.

[Artie Fufkin]

I read the article and took away from it nothing about manual handling / automation. As I understood it, Airbus' new learn by doing philosophy was a response to the way most people now approach learning new technology.

I remember my grand parents buying a new fangled video recorder back in the 1980s. They had read the entire instruction manual from cover to cover without turning the VCR on. They were completely confused and asked my help to show them what to do. First thing I did when I arrived was press the "on" button.

In contrast, when my iPad turned up, Apple decided positively to supply next to no instruction manual and designed the product to be turned on and played with, only then going to an online manual later to work out the fine detail.

This is what I took to be the new way Airbus is going to teach the A350. Presumably the conversion course will start in the sim, not in the classroom? Seems all very sensible to me.

[RAT 5]

"stall with stick shaker going off at high altitude continuously and keep pulling back with stall warning going off and simply call it bad luck."

Correct me if wrong, but I thought there was another point. They pulled back and the stall warning stopped. When they lowered the nose and speed increased the warning returned. If so, that would be extremely confusing. However, this could have triggered the knowledge circuits and the brain could have said, "this is not correct." Sit on your hands a moment; restore the a/c to known attitude, thrust and X-check gnd spd. Is it flying? yes/no? It should be. Now there can begin a period of diagnosis. Slowly make a flight control input and see what the instruments tell you. Are they believable? Yes/No? Which ones are correct and which are erroneous? All the time the a/c is still flying. Eventually you will have worked out what works and what doesn't. Then you can devise a plan to survive. Yanking around in the dark without any idea of what is true or false is not a good idea at any problem solving scenario; in many walks of life.

[I]"They are being deliberately de-trained, so that the likelyhood of them actually saving the day, when **** happens, is declining. "[/I

A highly inflammatory conspiracy theory, but sadly it has some element of truth. I think it is a consequence of the self-funded training system. How to keep the training to a minimum to keep the cost down. Airliners are automated SOP controlled aircraft. The airline wants an SOP wizz-kid and the XAA's want to issue a licence to someone who can demonstrate the very very basic of handling skills in a not too difficult non-normal situation. Previously, in low powered multi-engine a/c, before performance A, losing thrust at V1 was a big deal. It was a challenging manoeuvre. Not anymore; or it should not be. Try losing 50% thrust just as you raise the gear, (bird strike). Much more testing, and perhaps more likely than being on the ground, as is usually tested. I know the test is between V1 & V2, but to avoid too many student failures it is common to insert failure on the ground. Even more interesting to insert it just as you make an all engine G/A. These would be testing piloting skills, but the XAA's would have to define such a change.
I just watched the Nat Geo reconstruction of the China Airlines B747 that went aerobatic at crz level. (Lets forget that the captain was knackered from FTL's. The FAA NTSB were very tight lipped and politically correct-ugh- at saying only that his mutli-timezone schedule could have been a contributory factor.)

Put simply the NTSB analyst said that "there is only one thing required of a pilot in an emergency and that is to 'save the a/c'. Inherent will be the saving of any pax. They did indeed save the a/c. They may have caused the emergency by their actions, aka Atlantic glider, but they saved the a/c. It is necessary to have confidence that the pilots at the sharp end, when confronted with an unusual situation and failure, which is not covered by checklists nor training, can use their knowledge and skill to work out what is needed the save the a/c.?" I concur, not out of some macho/ hero worship thing, but because I believe the pax the pax regard us as their final insurance policy. They expect it to pay out.

[a1anx]

I have a computer driving license, plenty time with flight sims and 10 years experience troubleshooting PC/Software issues. Can I be a Airbus pilot?

LiveryMan

Not so far from the truth.

Like all occupations aviation has been ruthlessly de-skilled.