Safetypee
Some of the semantics in your posts remind me of my A level pure mathematics annotations …I don’t understand them..maybe it’s my age.
It would appear that we were both on the Balpa technical committee in the early 70s. I didn’t last long and my last task was to inspect the nearly completed M40 with the project engineer who was grooving the concrete to reduce aquaplaning. Whilst a good idea, the problem in BEA was the ridiculous number of retreads and the lack of tread design to displace water, hence increase aquaplaning speed. IIRC we retreaded or recut tyres a dozen times and the horror comic weekly published several tyre failures, fortunately none were catastrophic.
I resigned as I had come to the conclusion that it was a waste of time, especially after Cats eyes Cunningham’s testimony at the Lane Inquiry was ignored and we continued to operate the Trident as deemed by those Guild members who “ran” the outfit rather than those who designed, built and tested aircraft.
Other incidents and accidents reflect that this attitude has not changed.
I have had the luck to receiving instruction on four continents by more than ten nationalities with amateur, professional, military, self improvement and hobby backgrounds. I’ve tried my best to do this with an open mind. By far I have learnt the most from continentals especially French speakers.
Not only the rock polishers flying gliders a few metres from the mountain faces in the french alps and flying constant angle approaches into incredibly small and difficult fields but a paraglider instructor in his 20s who taught me about how reflex - falling or fear- can lead to dangerous subconscious control inputs(AF447?).
It reminded me of one of my chop flights with Duff Mitchel when I flew an approach and landing under the hood when the rest of the college’s fleet were weather grounded and I had to ignore the visual illusions and physical senses whilst believing the instruments and trusting this gruff old codger.
The french postal service was of its time and relied on skill and professionalism.
Since then we have gone over to relying on sophisticated automatics which are often not understood, not only line pilots but also those who “train” or tick the boxes.
Monitored approach works but is not the answer to solving the problem of lower standards nor having two crew operation with an extremely inexperienced first officer.
It’s a still a one man band and it would not take much to program an autopilot to fly an approach to decision height and fly a go around without any input. Back to the one pilot and a dog idea.