Originally Posted by
Magplug
@A37575.... The answer to that question works from either seat. Hint - Tip - Take Control. The most important inter-personal skill of an FO is appropriate assertiveness. If you see it is going to rat-**** drop some hints, if no joy then you should directly tell the other guy what he should be doing to correct the issue. As a final resort you should decisively take control in the prescribed manner. Moreover if the guy you are flying with fails to respond TWICE to stuff you say to him you should take control anyway as he may have suffered subtle incapacitation. In a simulator check FOs can get away with average skills and no initiative but lack of appropriate assertiveness is looked upon very poorly (in the west). Do you think we might just see some cultural issues brought out in the investigation?
I do fear that our industry has gone down a road from which it is impossible to return. The industry needs pilots today more than ever before and training departments are under constant pressure to produce them. For some time now we have had guys arriving on the line with c.200 hours, a frozen ATPL and, by definition, zero experience. The demand for pilots has galvanised airline training departments into shaving personal suitability, flying ability, courses and standards to an absolute minimum. The objective is to get the candidate through an LPC and onto the line in the shortest time possible. To support this objective there is a belief that an ever-expanding rule-set will keep the pilot and therefore the operation safe. The result is that you give the pilot less & less ability to make his own low-level mistakes and learn from them. Removing discretion from the operator makes for a safer operation - Right? What's more - Not only will we tie him up with so many rules that it will be impossible for him to remember them all, but we will threaten him with disciplinary action or even termination him if he busts an approach gate or gets a rule wrong.
Our experience is the sum-total of our past cock-ups. We made mistakes, most of them small, and we learnt not to do it again. Today our flights are tied to such a narrow avenue of acceptability that we do not have the latitude any more to make our own mistakes - and by definition we are accruing no experience. De-skilling is not a trend confined to aviation, if you reduce an employee's latitude for discretion to an absolute minimum you can reduce his task to that of a simple flowchart. You can employ someone of a lower calibre, less qualified and therefore pay him less. Today's new Captains are a product of that narrow mindset and the new guys who sit next to them, hoping to learn from their experience..... don't find any. When the day comes that there is no page in the QRH for the problem you have - they are out of ideas. They have no experience to fall back on.
Pilots that are unable to recognise the dangers of crossing the FAF 2 dots high or crossing the threshold at 200kts are a product of just that system.
An exellent post indeed. Well done.
In essence we have produced a load of robots who aren't able to think, leave alone outside the box.