Originally Posted by
Turb
Tomaski, fdr,
I mustn't swim out of my depth on this, but there are 3 things I want to say.
fdr points out that the UK CAA Safety Notice does not relate directly in all its aspects to the MAX disasters but I never said it did. What struck me about the SN was that it seems to be addressing issues which Tomaski has
raised concerning degradation of routine in-service pilot training, and particularly the lack of "startle factor" training in simulators. I had no idea that this aspect of training was a rarity now. I assumed that pilots were still expected to experience nasty surprises while in the Sim and sometimes more than one nasty surprise at the same time. The SN also calls for other things which I never dreamed had disappeared from pilot training. I don't think the UK CAA SN should be read as addressing the MAX's problems alone. If Tomaski is right the SN is addressing an industry-wide problem of degraded pilot training and while it may have been
prompted by the MAX disasters, and contain some recommendations which can be read as directly addressing the MAX's deficiencies, I'm much more interested in the fact that it tells me that my confidence in the aviation industry is, at the moment, mis-placed because routine in-service pilot training simply isn't good enough.
My second point is that fdr also alleges that hand flying skills are being over-emphasised, and that Situational Awareness is a key issue...
My third point is that if (but only if) the majority of regulators around the world publish SNs similar to the UK's, and if Boeing's dictum that "the MAX is just another 737" is no longer accepted by the regulators, then Boeing are in an even worse pickle than I thought because someone is going to have to build or adapt an awful lot of simulators, and put an awful lot of pilots in them, before the MAX fleet can fly. Boeing's first reaction to the MAX grounding was to say that a software patch would cure the problem. Anyone who still believes that (including the stockholders) is probably going to get a surprise much like fdr's goat-spotting pilot.
TURB;
PPRuNe provides an opportunity for a wide range of inputs and thoughts on all manner of subjects. It would be self limiting if only people of a particular viewpoint, experience or flavour add commentary tot he general discussion. It may have it's moments, but all viewpoints from people who have an interest in the subject are valuable. whether one agrees with another's views is not where value is gained, the benefit comes from exercise of the mind which is otherwise atrophying in the institutionalised world we live in.
1. Training processes today are the product of the regulatory structure we live in, along with the assumed benefits of process control such as ISO-9000, AS-9100, IOSA. Standardisation makes for a simplified task of compliance audit, by which we determine the health of a system. That results in canned training plans, to the extent that a crew may know in some airlines which engine is going to fail, when and where, and what they are going to be expected to do. It puts lipstick on the pig, but it does remove some variability of the instructor and more importantly the examiner where major systemic issues arise from variability of assessments. The training that is provided is adequate for the globally acceptable safety outcome, but it is not optimal. It is measurable, quantifiable in it's outcomes, and most importantly, provides metrics of performance to management groups, including the company and regulator.
2. Hand flying skills are great to have, but they are not a panacea for loss of SA. The average jet aircraft is a lot nicer to fly than a C-150, but maintaining awareness in the operational IFR environment that we require the crews to operate in can be challenging, moreso that beetling around VFR. When SA is lost in either case, in a 787 or a corby starlet, or an S-1S, bad stuff can happen promptly. having good eye hand coordination is nice, but doesn't directly affect S.A. maintenance, other than being in the control loop gives the driver awareness of the current dynamics of the aircraft, at the cost of everything else, traffic, fuel, systems, crew coordination, checklist management etc.... Sometimes it is a benefit, sometimes it detracts. Making drivers hand fly the jets to TOC and from TOD to landing comes with exposure to collateral risks, and as there is not a direct link between hand flying and S.A., then the current assumption that this will be a panacea to the apparent problems we have is flawed. Historically we flew beautifully smoothly into the sides of hills, into water, into mountain rotors in the lee, were hand flying when we kicked the tail off a jet, when we rolled upside down in wake, etc... At the risk of being the lightning rod of objections, The venn diagram of benefit from hand flying and of S.A. barely overlap, and occasionally the overlap is detrimental. [I fly helicopters and single seat biplanes to improve my hand flying... On my own jets, I do get the crews to handfly, but say today, my student coupled up down through minima to minimum AP engagement height at my behest, due to conditions and to give him some confidence in the ability of the system to behave correctly given half a chance. On the same flights, in the cruise, we also went through randomly selected NNCL items, they get to select one, I get to select one, and we run the well dry on the subject. On this day, about the only "hand flying skills" was doing a minimum vis approach to an airport that required going overhead the runway and then descending into a low level circuit keeping obstacles in sight. The hand flying was only to the extent that the APFD was not coupled to an ILS or an FMC or a GPS, it was managed by heading/track, and by manual pitch to fly a descending pattern around obstacles to land. If a pilot removed a tool from their tool belt in a limiting case, it would be hard to consider that desirable. Any tool or technique that reduces the likelyhood of a loss of S.A., or that assists in regaining it has a place in any operation. That is not just in aircraft, it is in the O.R, where S.A. failures are far too frequent, to corporate management, and to voters, who have a slip between reality and expectation.
3. Boeing has talented guys in their design offices. Personally, I'm attached to the marque, but the 737 is my least preferred embodiment of the art. Boeing's corporate side is another matter, I think that they need some time in a retreat cogitating their navels and hopefully that may lead to some insight as to what they have done in the last 25 years to a company that was known for design excellence. The stockholders should be balancing the merits of myopic expediency vs long term value adding to the program. The MCAS debacle may ultimately be pinned on some poor schmuck, as that is the way of the world, however, responsibility resides at the highest level of the entity, and in part with the self interest in short term gains that stockholders apparently have. MCAS is fixable. The manual trim reversion oddity is a latent risk that resulted from the pernicious problems of maintaining corporate knowledge in the industry. Over time, what we knew and why we knew it gets lost in the QRM and static of the continuous changes to regulations and systems; we don't realise what we have forgotten. Training for that is necessary, and that needs reasonable QTG fidelity, it doesn't need to be perfect, but it needs to be similar to the real world, much like 763ER/PW4062 inadvertent reverse in flight post Lauda 4. Wheter Boeing needs to implement a system design change in due course is an open question, I would think that they would be looking at a secondary electrical trim system to complement or replace the manual trim. Learjet, and IAI could do that in a tiny package... it should be viable to the B737. As a former owner of a 737, I would rather not have to pay for that though, training is cheaper and does the task. The SEA FAA TAD has some highly capable people in the building. All of the criticisms voiced on the matter of ODA have the same relevance to the EU's very own EASA DOA system. Having been a user of ODA, DOA and DER's, I think that the problems that have been highlighted are not fully justified, an ODA approval is predicated on the merits of the QA system. While being a vocal critic of various QA programs, as far as compliance is concerned, the main frustration I have is the lack of buy in to the intent to have an effective QA system; one that just ticks boxes is worse than none at all, the system gets fooled into believing their own advertising at some risk. Boeing needs to reflect on their historical position with QA.... That needs to be fixed, and that means the guy at the top needs to start doing what he is paid a lot of loot to do, "to lead".
[My opinions are purely that, my opinions, they may add value to someone else's deliberations of intractable problems, or not. If they make anyone consider their own opinion, and either reinforce their contrary view or alter that, it entirely up to them, no one needs to agree, but if they consider then they may achieve a better viewpoint of their own, even if it is merely that there is a clown sprouting heresy from the cheap seats]