PPRuNe Forums - View Single Post - Boeing admits flaw in 737 Max flight simulator
Old 23rd May 2019, 17:32
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derjodel
 
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Originally Posted by FlightDetent
The word average (skilled) pilot should be avoided for the purpose of this discussion. If we are true to the mathematical meaning, adding even a small number of extremely well proficient people to a group, the previously "average" pilots of that group become less-than-average.

Less than average skilled sounds like "not competent enough to fly an aircraft designed for an average pilot". Which itself is an element of the debate, thus the word "average" makes a big mess of everything here.

My suggestion is that "the average pilot" in the certification realm means "any pilot who passed the licence proficiency criteria with at least bit of a margin, is able to achieve that or better performance continuously (as his experience builds but memory fades), and is not having a bad day"
You are spot on. "Average" and "Subaverage" are usually interpreted very, very wrong. Not just by common people, even by people who really should know, like doctors (e.g., they would like to get rid of all subaverage tall kids, and go as far as even giving them growth hormones, producing just a smaller standard deviation and even more pressure on the small kids).

That's why I'm saying, designing airplanes for average pilot is very, very bad idea. Planes need to be designed for any certified pilot. And to make discussion clearer, perhaps it would be good idea to stick to those terms.

Because once you accept that planes must be designed for all certified pilots, then you can not, by definition, blame pilots to not react properly, specially in this situation.

It's actually the other way around - this crash is giving us a data point how a certain crew of certified pilots reacted in under specific circumstances. Actually we have a few more data points: penultimate Lion Air crash, ultimate Lion Air crash and ET crash. All are certified pilots. They reacted differently. Was the system designed to accommodate any certified crew?

And I'll go further and ask: isn't it the fact that the crew can not be responsible. Either they should not have been cleared to fly (e.g. stripped of their license, fail the MAX rating). Either they meet the minimums or they don't. If they don't and they still got licensed, it's not their fault. It's the regulator's. If they crashed because the plane was not flyable by any certified crew, it's boeing's fault.

The crew could only be at fault if they were under influence, if they cheated to pass the tests or hide any medical conditions etc...
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