EK 231 20 December DXB IAD near crash?

[InnerLoop]

Originally Posted by alf5071h

InnerLoop, welcome. [...]

A question to ask is where does the mis ‘conception’ of flying originate.

Thanks. It's simple human nature to do the least actions possible to accomplish a task. After a while, the non-used actions wither away (assuming they were ever there to begin with, which is not a given).

The task of flying an airplane (properly) involves actions such as setting the attitude to the pre-known approximate level, setting the thrust to the pre-known approximate level, then while checking the results on VSI, altimeter, and airspeed, making continuous fine tuning adjustments (also heading/course deviation to make sure those are still good, and adding some aft elevator and/or trim if needed for a big turn); and if changing speed, trimming immediately one way against the thrust-pitch couple and then trimming in the long term the other way (or the same way, depending on the airplane) against the speed change; and doing the right thing with the pitch and/or trim for each flap extension, which may each have its own personality.

All of these are extraneous when you can just "keep the dot on the cross" or whatever, which accomplishes the task of completing any given flight. So, without thinking about things long term, it is no surprise that the extraneous actions/processes get dropped out. It's just the way normal brains function. (But it's naive to think that watching the autopilot do it for X thousand hours is in any way comparable to doing it oneself... this is not how brains function.)

The minimum effort to get the job done... and it's not a problem until this locked-in loop continues to run and the pilot follows the flight director into a 6000fpm climb at FL350, or follows it into level flight while on the ground. Then it's a problem.

With thinking about things long term, it's a huge fallacy to measure the success of the system by the result of each individual day-to-day flight. Each one could be (and, is) measured "successful" this way, while hiding a lurking AF447 or EK231. (I wonder what those passengers would think about their pilots' comfort and proficiency with flying raw data).