TOM stall?

[JW411]

I have been holding off commenting on this subject for some time, but I do think that it is high time that a serious discussion about what actual level of skill really remains on the modern flight deck when the sh*t hits the fan and the FCOM and the automatics don't work any more.

Those of you out there who come from my vintage will remember the old CAA Base Check and Instrument Rating. During the resulting two hours, the entire exercise was hand-flown and the only time that the examiner would allow you to use the auto-pilot was while you made your let-down brief.

I duly left the Royal Air Force after 18 years and joined this civilian way of doing things without too much difficulty.

And so things continued until JARs came along.

As an examiner (by then), I simply could not believe how much the candidate was allowed to resort to auto-flight.

It went like this:

EFATO: Hand fly until clean wing and then allowed auto pilot.

Subsequent Actions and Holding Pattern: Auto Pilot.

Attempted Relight: Auto Pilot.

Traffic Pattern: TCAS event etc to base leg. Auto Pilot.

Three-engine ILS: Arrange failure of automatics resulting in hand-flown ILS

To Go Around: Which invariably was "untidy"

Then: Invariably the call was "Engage the Auto Pilot"

For the next exercise, which was a Non Precision Approach (using the auto-pilot once again).

This could hopefully (inshallah) end up with a manual landing (or G/A) on 3-engines.

Apart from things like renewing the 3-engine ferry take off certificate, a bit of flapless etc etc, that was it.

So why am I worried?

I am very, very, worried that basic handling skills have been removed by the basic JAR renewal tests to the extent that our youngsters could very soon just find themselves doing something for the very first time with a very expensive piece of equipment crammed full of passengers.

Let us hope that EASA is going to be more realistic.

PS I managed to survive for 13 hours and 30 minutes in an aeroplane without a working ar*se end and during which the FCOM was of absolutely no help to me or anyone else around me.