Originally Posted by
RAT 5
Old fart airmanship. Rule #1. If something electrical does not work check CB's. I did not know AB's do that for you, but then again, system checking sensors can also fail. Sometimes designers can make life more complicated than necessary. I thought there was a cry that modern automatics had encouraged a reduced thinking and less alert pilot. CB checkers? Really. How more thinking dilution do you need? I can understand it when some CB's are inaccessible in the external E&E bay (does an AB have one?), but 2' from your ear'ol?
I believe in the newer busses (A330 onwards) there are no or only a handful physical CBs in the flightdeck. A few more downstairs in the E&E bay, but mostly electronic CBs that can be actioned via the MCDU. Therefore monitoring CBs is simply the precursor to not having any physical CBs aymore. Anyway, checking CBs is always a good idea, especially on the ground. Resetting them, not so much, especially in flight (see Air Asia). In the bus there is a list of resets you can do in the QRH, apart from that you need maintenance. And there are quite a few more resets one needs to do than i ever had to do in a Boeing, although, the PSEU light is certainly a pita.