I am very disappointed indeed to read that the use of simultaneous approaches into Heathrow with a monitoring controller is being considered.
I will be perfectly honest and admit that I have never done a PRM approach (effectively the same thing from a flight crew perspective) for real, though I have had the mandatory simulator and CBT training, as the fleet I fly on has diversion aerodromes that use the procedure.
Having read, watched and "flown" various breakout manoeuvres, I find it simply baffling that any regulator could approve such a scheme. For anyone reading this who is not familiar with the technique, it involves aircraft flying parallel (or in the case of SOIA, converging) approaches under IFR, whilst using both radios. One radio is tuned to the normal ATC frequency, the other is used to listen to a "monitoring controller". In the event that an aircraft on one approach "blunders" (FAA word, not mine!) towards towards the aircraft on the parallel approach, the monitoring conroller issues a "breakout manoeuvre" on this special frequency.
In effect a pilot is one minute flying a nice, stable ILS approach when suddenly he is faced with an awful lot of conflicting signals: the ILS beam bar/GP indicator/flight director says fly one way, the monitoring controller says fly another way, the TCAS may be warning "traffic" or providing an RA, the autopilot disconnect wailer will be sounding and the autothrottle disconnect beeper may be sounding.
Even now I can imagine people reaching for their keyboards wanting to type about how "if I really was a professional pilot I would be able to cope" and I "would know how to silence various distracting warnings quickly" and "hasn't the standard of airmanship declined since the introduction of the glass cockpit". However, I believe they would be missing the point. The point is, we should be designing safety in to aviation, not devising procedures which require a backstop as flimsy as the monitoring controller.
I used to regard UK ATC as the best in world, but I have to say that recently I am struggling to defend some of the procedures. Heathrow, once a model for how to operate an airfield from an ATC perspective, is becoming indefensible. The ridiculousness of a DCL system which requires the same information to be transmitted by voice and the use of a LLZ only approach during TEAM when the ILS could be made available are but 2 examples of how the ATC procedures are frankly lacking.
To return to the discussion on approaches using a monitoring controller: SAFE? Not inherently or there would be no need for the monitoring controller. ORDERLY? Not if every operator is required to train every flight crew on another difference from every other airport in Europe and including a breakout which is anything but orderly. EXPEDITIOUS? It had better be. I'd hate to think you were planning to further reduce safety margins for no benefit.
G W-H