Originally Posted by
SASless
Was it Double Bogey that was involved in the improvements in Night Offshore Approaches?.
Hi SAS, indeed twas me..........the odd thing was I met a lot of resistance amongst my very close training colleagues. Some of which simply could not make the adjustment that the Pilot Monitoring really has an Executive role to play in these types of approaches and the role of the Advanced cockpit and Automation could play. Lots of agreement and support form the Regulator and the wider Rotorheads community. I have to say it did not make me too popular with my own Company Training colleagues, many of which I felt understood more after the following spate of NS HF/Automation cock-ups. Looking back, the helicopters we began to operate were far more advanced than our thinking, strategy and understanding at the time. This led to very poor training responses which at the time were best characterised by an over reliance on manual handling skills. Most of the TR course for complex heavies still treat the automation like an afterthought rather than integrating the concepts right from the get-go. In my later role for the OEM we had one operator using EC225 and L2 with dual rated pilots. There risk assessment and analysis led them to conclude that "If the L2 doesn't have that feature we will not use it on the EC225", effectively reducing the 225 to an L2! As [pilots, trainers and managers we are the most influential players in our expert field! When we fail to analysis/adjust/mandate effectively it leads to horror shows like this one. Fear is the great moderator and a pilot without fear due to lack of understanding of the dangers he is about to experience is the most at risk.
Safety Officers, Risk Assessors and Nominated Post holders need a healthy active imagination in order to identify hazards and risk and mitigate effectively. Sadly, the modern SMSA, in my opinion, is an overly complicated and huge administrative burden on Operators that its true value and effectiveness is often lost in the ether.
Good to see you back in the Fray SAS long may it continue.
DB.