Why someone would be doing a GPS approach in VMC without a good lookout still baffles me though
Bon Jour my flatulent friends. Weeks have passed and PPRune has not graced my electronic link with the world due to rapid apathy escalation as the NAS witching hour approaches.
AK's comment above. What can I say? I worked GAAP for a while and lots of enroute before and after and one thing stands proud in my memories. A pilot's job is to take an Air Traffic Controller's licence from him or her. (Hmm is that it?)
OK, it's an obvious over-dramatisation to make a point. Old controllers, like parents, scare young controllers into submission to the social norms by continual brainwashing and psychological torture - or is that just me? The standard in the industry should be "Treat everyone else as an idiot - check everything". Lots of people stuff up and this game is one where other people's mistakes can cost you your life. There are lots of people flying in 8 OKTAS of blue who do instrument approaches for fun or practice and my experience is that if they're learning or out of recency they're pretty busy concentrating on the instruments. I've sat with pilots sh!tting bricks over a difficult approach when I can see for 100nm through the impeccably clean windscreen 1 foot in front of me, even with my dodgy radar screen myopia. For some reason it's sometime more real when you're doing it for practice.
I've seen near mid-airs in the circuit when pilots have told me they're following number 1 because the trainee was under the hood. If they're busy inside they're not maintaining the best watch outside. Every capital city has a reasonable amount of instrument training occurring within the 30 - 50 odd mile range of the primary airport and there are plenty of regional locations with the same happening there. Sorry Snarek, it's not isolated and it's not mitigated against by reducing the frequency monitoring requirements.
Damn, I swore I wouldn't try and use reason any more...
