I think some are being rather prescreptive here
Birds From a previous flying career, birdstrikes were a real hazard. "Some" advice was given to avoiding them:
- Lights are a great benefit
- Birds will, if they see you, try to avoid you, and are conderably more agile than you!
- Birds will tend to "break" downwards when confronted by danger i.e. don't try to avoid birds by lowering the nose - if you must avoid pull up a little
In my airline flying I've hit a few, little damage except one damaged LP Fan on Rotation (CFM) - despite bent blades / broken spacers and N1 vib off the clock, engine ran fine. I try to avoid maneouvring for birds - when you're in that regime you are low and slow and should be stabilised. If you see enough birds ahead of you that you really consider climbing over them, I would think a GA is the best course and properly climb over them. Any other deviation will de-stabilise the approach, and if you then end up at idle <500' descending again back to the correct approach, in our outfit that's not stabilised and a compulsory GA.
Engine Fail on App - GA? Some operators may have "rules", but I would think circumstances and type are important. If your type requires a lower flap setting SE than you have for climb gradient, say, and you lose an engine, then "continuing" effectively denies you the GA option. If OTOH, like my current type, you can do SE Ldgs with Normal Flap, and there are no other significant drills / procedures, continuing maybe fine. Weather? LVPs? If, say <1000', you find yourselves "dealing with the emergency" rather than just flying the approach, then maybe a GA is a good idea.
Evacuation Our outift has altered the Evacuation for CC to only be initiated in dire circumstances - suffice to say I believe it is public knowledge that in the BA38 incident the CC did
not initiate the Evacuation, and correctly so. In this incident an evacuation was not required by the circumstances (the fuselage is still inhabitable today), but I dount any of us know exactly what FRs rules are, and the exact understanding by the crew of their situation...
Just some idle thoughts
NoD