Originally Posted by
Jonty
Thirdly, and this is the most important, if I need it I'm going to use it. 10 min limit or no 10 min limit. However, it's in the manual that it's a 10 min limit, and so it should be respected where possible. But people need a deeper understanding of why the limit is there and what it's secondly trying to achieve, rather than 10 mins and that's it.
You are mixing up things. The 10' limit is a hard limit that should be respected at all times, unless your life depends on it. From the moment you apply the rating, you can only keep it applied for consecutive 10 minutes. The idea that pilots need a "deeper understanding" is very dangerous as the story is usually not that simple and contains a wide series of domain, from insurance to airworthiness and maintenance. Claiming you "know" is usually an indication you don't know the full story and the consequences of your actions, and you're going to have to do a lot of explanations to cover those consequences. We've recently seen a very poor example with an A330 diverting with a fuel leak and keeping the engines running because they had different ideas than the procedures. The most standard black/white clear procedure of all procedures are limitations. We can all do what you say, easy. It's not about what we can or how much we know about it. The reason why is much less important than the possible consequences of not adhering to the limitation.
I think the topic makes clear that there are limits to what can be prepared and verified, and those limits provide a very good level of safety. However, that does not cover every single situation (every operator is very clear on this topic as well), and it is your job to be prepared and adapt as appropriatly.