Originally Posted by
Mach E Avelli
However, if we stopped wasting valuable sim time on familiar stuff (long-winded briefings, engine starts, taxying, SIDs & STARS at home base, ILS approaches etc) and reduced the amount of time spent on things we should be able to handle (rejected take-offs or engine failures), maybe we could devote more time to the tricky things more likely to be encountered. Some of the recurrent training and check matrixes I have seen seem to be there to give an impression all eventualities are being covered, without consideration for probabilities and relative risk. Often run from the pilots' home airport or over a familiar route. Pointless box ticking.
Note I said LESS time, not NO time on RTO's & engine failures, but realistically if these were visited once every two years it should be enough. More aircraft have probably crashed due to mismanaged approaches than mismanaged systems failures.
I don’t disagree with you. And this is where Evidence Based Training will hopefully cut that down. But a simple thing such as inputting or selecting data from an FMS, shouldn’t be an approach specific thing, so why do we need to practice them. An internal memo saying “hey dickheads, do it properly and then check the data” should be sufficient for this. And if events continue to occur, maybe then look at the systems (including procedures) or the design (approach, FMS entry process). But wasting time flying an approach in the sim, when the process could be the problem, is not the answer.