Young ATPL F.O. 200Hrs TT on right seat.....
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Brave statement! but doesn't hold much water. Manufacturer builds aircrafts on a design philosophy and they need to be operated by procedures that are based on that. Operator who knows nothing about it cannot throw them to the winds. Yes there can be some regional necessities which require some variations. But they should be done after consultation with the manufacturer. Air Asia Indonesia crash was mainly due the captain trying to reset CBs not authorised by manufacturer. No line pilot however brilliant has the training to do things reserved for a test pilot.
Brave statement! but doesn't hold much water. Manufacturer builds aircrafts on a design philosophy and they need to be operated by procedures that are based on that. Operator who knows nothing about it cannot throw them to the winds. Yes there can be some regional necessities which require some variations. But they should be done after consultation with the manufacturer. Air Asia Indonesia crash was mainly due the captain trying to reset CBs not authorised by manufacturer. No line pilot however brilliant has the training to do things reserved for a test pilot.
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@vilas, it is not helping to cite an accident where the crew in question deviated from any known SOP. That does not prove anything except that some pilots should not be on board an airplane.
However, having experienced several sets of SOPs over the years i do not agree that the OEM knows best. In fact, he cannot know in which environment with which kind of training system and with what kind of average experience level the airplane is operated. Therefore he has to propose a set of SOPs that covers all possible kind of environments, training schemes and experience leves. Which invariably comes down to cater for the lowest possible standard. Which especially in the case of the current set of airbus SOPs shows very much.
We switched to those SOPs about a year ago, and the safety case made by external auditors does show clearly that the OEM SOPs are not safer or better, they are just a lot cheaper, which is basically due to the outrageous fees airbus charges for documentation implementation if one uses the airbus flysmart apps. We used a silent cockpit approach, same as our biggest local competitor (lufthansa) with no checklist at all as long as the aircraft was in motion and no FMA callouts. And it worked exceptionally well. Well, being in business longer than airbus surely helps knowing how to operate aircraft.
On the boeing it was even more obvious that even the OEM can see some extremely different SOPs to fly an aircraft that has been in service since the 1960s. The change to the "new" set of 737 SOPs around the 2008/2009 timefrage was drastic indeed, but both worked quite fine.
However, having experienced several sets of SOPs over the years i do not agree that the OEM knows best. In fact, he cannot know in which environment with which kind of training system and with what kind of average experience level the airplane is operated. Therefore he has to propose a set of SOPs that covers all possible kind of environments, training schemes and experience leves. Which invariably comes down to cater for the lowest possible standard. Which especially in the case of the current set of airbus SOPs shows very much.
We switched to those SOPs about a year ago, and the safety case made by external auditors does show clearly that the OEM SOPs are not safer or better, they are just a lot cheaper, which is basically due to the outrageous fees airbus charges for documentation implementation if one uses the airbus flysmart apps. We used a silent cockpit approach, same as our biggest local competitor (lufthansa) with no checklist at all as long as the aircraft was in motion and no FMA callouts. And it worked exceptionally well. Well, being in business longer than airbus surely helps knowing how to operate aircraft.
On the boeing it was even more obvious that even the OEM can see some extremely different SOPs to fly an aircraft that has been in service since the 1960s. The change to the "new" set of 737 SOPs around the 2008/2009 timefrage was drastic indeed, but both worked quite fine.
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I said airline should consult the manufacturer. I know airlines which have made some changes after taking airbus opinion. Especially not calling FMA issue I was surprised to know that Lufthansa does it because this particular thing airbus is fanatic about it and I know following company SOP has led to three incidents during GA which easily could have been accidents. You can read about Jet star incident after that they changed back to FMA first. In an airline conference airbus categorically supported that. Verbal or silent basically need to observe the FMA changes but in silent mode there is a chance of not monitoring. I feel silent monitoring may require higher experience level in the cockpit. Well if it works for you fine. I am expressing my opinion (about supporting airbus SOP). I know manufacturer's logic about FMA. Since you do it differently I am curios to know the advantage of doing silently.
I said airline should consult the manufacturer. I know airlines which have made some changes after taking airbus opinion. Especially not calling FMA issue I was surprised to know that Lufthansa does it because this particular thing airbus is fanatic about it and I know following company SOP has led to three incidents during GA which easily could have been accidents. You can read about Jet star incident after that they changed back to FMA first. In an airline conference airbus categorically supported that. Verbal or silent basically need to observe the FMA changes but in silent mode there is a chance of not monitoring. I feel silent monitoring may require higher experience level in the cockpit. Well if it works for you fine. I am expressing my opinion (about supporting airbus SOP). I know manufacturer's logic about FMA. Since you do it differently I am curios to know the advantage of doing silently.
Last edited by vilas; 6th Sep 2016 at 10:58.
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@Denti, vilas: Lufthansa changed to Airbus procedures in the meantime, including FMA callouts... I don't know the exact reason however, I guess it was an economical decision...
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Yes, the reasons were the same as for us, to save some €uros. Pretty much at the same time too. Except, they don't let their FOs taxi the aircraft from what i hear.
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Generating and maintaining individuel company SOPs costs time and money, and it requires of course dedicated personnel for that as well. I believe at Lufty around 120 employees worked in the relevant department, over all their fleets. In our case that number was much lower of course.
If a company uses the airbus apps, in our case the flysmart suite, there is no way the airline can edit content themselves. It has to be done by airbus and distributed for each MSN individually, which can cost several millions a year as airbus charges extremely high premiums. Not to mention that the process is designed in the typical airbus way: time consuming, complicated and built with a lot of unnecessary but required work. Therefore keeping SOPs that are different from the OEM set is economically challenging.
If a company uses the airbus apps, in our case the flysmart suite, there is no way the airline can edit content themselves. It has to be done by airbus and distributed for each MSN individually, which can cost several millions a year as airbus charges extremely high premiums. Not to mention that the process is designed in the typical airbus way: time consuming, complicated and built with a lot of unnecessary but required work. Therefore keeping SOPs that are different from the OEM set is economically challenging.
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I am 84 years of age and spent a lifetime in aviation both militarily and civil. Experience was always of value but never the be all and end all. Flying had to be a passion not a job and if you were any good at it and not a danger to all and sundry it would become evident in the simulator. The ability to spot a problem, deal with it calmly and take over manually when necessary is a great asset. 90% of simulator training was manual flying with emergencies thrown in at regular intervals and I hope this still prevails. How many pilots fly their aircraft manually to keep their hand in, when flying on the line today? I shall look forward to hearing how, in this modern era, the complex systems of today, are dealt with when they malfunction.
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By searching into emergency procedures manuals of course
How someone can be expected to suddenly acquire the skills and capacity to be able to deal with emergencies when a/c are flown by computers in normal operations is something I fail to understand. Following a string of accidents in this respects regulators are pushing for Emergency UPRT training, will this suffice ?
This is not to say crews are no good, but manual skills are no longer exercised not only in aviation but wherever computers have replaced highly skilled labor
How someone can be expected to suddenly acquire the skills and capacity to be able to deal with emergencies when a/c are flown by computers in normal operations is something I fail to understand. Following a string of accidents in this respects regulators are pushing for Emergency UPRT training, will this suffice ?
This is not to say crews are no good, but manual skills are no longer exercised not only in aviation but wherever computers have replaced highly skilled labor
