When is Training for Safety Not Enough?

[Thridle Op Des]

Having had the good fortune to experience both sides of the public transport coin I can say with personal experience that the gulf between commercial fixed-wing and rotary is as wide as the one outside Mexico. The the major differences can be catagorised as:
Operational (SOP's as 212man says),
Enviromental (the chance of an Airbus 340 being dispatched to a remote location to pick up a RTA victim is small) and
Equipment (yet to see EGPWS in a helicopter - I wait to be corrected).
On the operational side, rotary tend to have challange and response checklists which are really cumbersome and frequently misused as a result to the low stimulus as suggested above many times. In the FW world the SOP is a script, you learn your 'role' in the crew and while it takes time to absorb, it is a wonderful thing to watch when the pilot-non-flying can anticipate the next move by the pilot-flying. As a result the airbourne checklist in the Airbus has about 10 items between two checks, and the Boeing has none, at the moment the longest leg flown commercially is SIA from SIN to EWR for approximately 18 hours, thats not many checks per hour. I know that there is still a large community of single pilots out there, but strong SOP's work even for that enviroment. SOP's are written for all aspects of NORMAL operations VFR/IFR, Precision Approaches, Non-Precision Approaches.
Enviromental differences are hinted in the intro, FW go into 3000 meters of tarmac with an approach aid at one end and the surrounding countryside has been surveyed to the nth degree, it still does not prevent FW's picking up trees or worse, but at least an approach into Nairobi in 2006 is very similar in geographical terms to one made in 1954. FW do however have much more dynamic situations to deal with, they cover huge territiory and can depart from a flat Sea Level field with an OAT of +40C and arrive at a 6800' elevation field where the IAS/TAS split on landing is 30kts. The rotary world will always have the problem of 'doing what a helicopter does' they are masters of the offshore shuttle and getting an injured soul into the hospital inside the 'golden hour'. There is however a lot more that can be done to improve the IFR and more critically the IFR/VFR transition phases. I believe it is this transition phase which causes the most near death experiences - reported or unreported. FW know what they will see on an approach, All Weather Operations (Cat II or less) are really set into the stimulus/response bracket. The pilots are sensitive to very specific actions on very specific stimuli (AP self disengage below 1000' - Go-Around, call "Go-Around Flap" PNF response - "Flap 3" etc, etc).
The equipment in modern Boeings and Airbus are something to behold. I have seen some of the attempts made by RW constructors to create meaningful EFIS and a FULLY intergrated flightdeck, truly they are 20 years behind. I really wonder how much true Human Factors research has been made into instrument presentation on RW flightdecks - rather than the personal foibles of a small group of people who design the layouts. There is a guy called Edward Tufte who writes some very insightful books on this very subject. In my opinion, the RW EFIS attempts are cluttered with superfluous ticks and dots, strange combinations of digital and analog (very good if done well) and a distinct lack of being able to give the best visual information in the most intuitive way. Having things like EGPWS and TCAS gives the FW world such a wonderful outlook onto the current aircraft situation and most importantly - what will happen in the next few minutes. The flightdeck is intergrated - no tuning of navaids, unless you really desperately want to, you only get the information you need and the result is being able to see the wood for the trees.
I am very pleased that I have been given the benefit of having experienced both operations, it has made me admire both strands of aviation that much more, but the RW world desperately needs to catchup.

edited for dire spelling as a result of nasty cold caught doing Ultra Longhaul!