FMCG
I fully agree....
You wrote "Good airmanship stems from sticking to SOPs unless there is a good reason not to. As soon as you stop sticking to SOPs you are going through that first hole in the cheese, you are starting the chain of events."
My issue is that people blindly sticking to SOP's when there is a good reason to deviate but blindly follow them anyway is just as dangerous.
This involves a decision making process by the crew...shock horror....even a call to ATC to say "would it help if we kept the speed up" at least theres some dialogue on the tape. To quote my example above this guy was back at 180knts 20 odd miles out like a mobile chicane and REFUSED a request by ATC to increase citing SOP on the RT as a reason
SOP's certainly economically derived ones cannot account for all situations, Why should other operators who wish to use more of their aircrafts abilitys be dictated to by some beancounter sat in an office in the UK.
If somebody within your oganisation decided that due to the slower speeds, sector times were increasing which impacted negatively on maintenance and or Oil came back to $55 per barrel you would all be "requesting high speed" again, so please refrain from reffering to those who wish to operate their aircraft perfectly legally and properly within the confines of their AFM as "cowboys".
If indeed we have a problem here, and if it is its probably going to give ATC the hardest time then it isn't going to get resolved on Prune, maybe a call at TOD and again when checking in with approach with your descent speed might just be classed as good airmanship, something that we all profess to have in abundance .
UK ATC will no doubt just deal with it, but in other parts of the world controllers might just feel the pressure of trying to sort it out, for the sake of a call, let them know - whats the worst that could happen? lose your place in the queue??
Last edited by G-SPOTs Lost; 5th Sep 2008 at 12:29.