Originally Posted by
4Greens
As a starting point SOPs/Checklists set down by the manufacturer should be adhered to; this if nothing else gives legal protection. The problem starts when these are added to or changed by various fleet managers without reference to the manufacturer or other operators. Boeing instructor pilots are continually amazed how different airlines can fly standard Boeing products in completely different ways.
On a lighter note, I have a theory that changes are only made to standard procedures as the result of a stuff up by a management pilot!
Please read my last post. Manufacturer's do make mistakes. Operator diligence in proof reading anything before general distribution to line crews is always required. I won't identify specific examples but think in terms of how documentation is produced and the process. The ACME aircraft chief pilot isn't sitting in a back room writing out procedures that make their way directly to you. He will obiously have input but so do the engineers, the systems folks, the e-docs people with their databases etc and other assorted groups. There's always a weakest link in there and a bunch of meddling and in the end you may someday find yourself using a relight or tailpipe fire procedure on your PW engine(s) ultimately put together by somebody who was sure you had GE's. You'll also find the number of manufacturer errors increases drastically following mergers or when getting aircraft on the used market when equipment specs might not be quite correct or up to date.
I won't say which manufacturer makes the least errors but I do think The Boeing folks probably do the best job I've seen in achieving consistent policies across the different carriers. That's not to say they're any better at writing error free SOPs but in my experience they work with carriers much more effectively and they're much more hands on. Better and more consistent customer service I suppose you could call it. Then again, maybe their brand of customer service just worked better with our people and our way of doing business. I should add that I don't have half as much experience working with Airbus people but I do respect their expertise and support efforts. In a few more yrs I might even change my mind.
As for the different ways they're (Boeing) amazed, they've taken steps to lessen that. When I left they we had just finished some QRH focus group work and it was amazing the way different languages interpreted the same sentence in English. As a simple unilingual type, it was quite an eye opener and a real shock to see the different interpretations in some rather sensitive situations of something I thought was quite straightforward and clear. Although I haven't seen it implemented in practice the push at that time was to introduce standardized symbology/icons and phrasing along with a fault tree process flow into the QRH. I'm not sure how far they got with it though but in re-reading Saddest's original post I suspect some of that is working it's way into the system.
As for management pilot mistakes leading to SOP changes - Think lowest common denominator and then factor in monthly duty times.