Originally Posted by
das Uber Soldat
Meanwhile, in the very first comment you made to me.
Love the 'back in my day' reference by whoever it was about a OEI night circling to a no slope landing. You do realise its not 1947 anymore right? I don't know about Virgin, but at Qantas circling has been banned for years. I'd love to hear the calculation for the probability of a scenario where the captain dies, an engine explodes, somehow you're so far away from a suitable airfield that an approach has to be made at an out port with no IAP, where the wx is at minima and the slope guidance u/s. Classic.
Those darn cadets! Probably couldn't even handle a quadruple hydraulic failure with wing seperation and simultaneous magnetic pole reversal! A hull loss is coming folks! I tells ya!
4
I recall as a domestic Australian airline pilot, CASA required a circling approach off an NPA as part of your 90 day sim proficiency. It was singe engine and 500 feet. Nobody in their right mind would circle in those circumstances, it was a skill-set that maintained the high levels of airline handling proficiency on reflection. The skill-set is transferable to other scenarios.
QF stated becoming more involved in domestic flying and I am not sure if the exercises dropped however when QF’s Jensen took over Ansett the sim was reduced to six monthly and the program less demanding.
I went abroad and flew with two different Cadet airlines. The first totally banned circling and visual approaches as the skills too low. The second still required circling approach proficiency though eventually dropped the requirement as the pilot group struggled and this streamlined training costs.
All this was this century! We are dumbing down the job to keep wages low.