Originally Posted by
The Outlaw
If you fly the FAA approved approaches, flight paths and minima specified on the approach plate then you'll never any problems. If you try to "re-invent" the wheel by trying to let the automation do all the work with charts made by nervous neophyte office types then you WILL run into problems.
This is a silly statement. Why? Because no approach published anywhere in the world purposely flies you into the ground, if ANY published procedure is flown to the letter, the aircraft will be fine. Meaningless words from you.
Providing additional lateral & vertical guidance to crew for a visual phase (when used appropriately, for monitoring purposes) can only aid safety. For example, is using the internal FMS FIX page 'dangerous' as a monitor of lateral tracking during an EOP? Both manufacturers recommend using this in several factory-issued flight references.
Suggest you explore recent JFK approaches from other airlines where pilots were flying the FAA 'PURE' Canarsie 'VOR or GPS' chart and ended up approaching 13R instead of 13L & vice-versa. Or had other lateral/vertical issues. There's quite a few.
Fact is, there are peculiarities with an A380 FMS/MMR design flaw that make it unable to fly curved paths in Approach mode. Unlike most 777/767/737/747 A320/A330/A340/A350, this means it can't fly the RNP-AR (Precision) approaches for 13L/R.
This very unfortunate manufacturer design flaw is the root cause of recent A380 issues on 13L/R at JFK, forcing less-safe VOR (Non-Precision, zero guidance after missed-approach point) approaches & greater reliance on pilot monitoring/ 'meat-servo' adjustment of vertical path. All of which means less consistent flight paths if humans at controls fail (for whatever reason, fatigue, lack of familiarity, other) to monitor & act accordingly.
For this aircraft, the only defence for crew (other than ATC monitoring) is for PF to use visual references at the right time, and for PM to back up properly, with internal aids + comparing outside view.