This just gets better ............
PeeJay et al,
What an interesting and thought-provoking thread this is turning out to be. Hopefully, we can continue to attract more contributors and thus more good ideas.
I would like to take up on a couple of points before digressing slightly.
'Management' comes in for a lot of stick, and much of it is justified. PJ alluded to a typical CEO having little or no understanding of the intricacies of an SMS and called into question the validity of MBA's standing in our industry. Both very valid points. However, airline managers - in many cases - are not carefully nurtured as they are in many other industries. Typically, one day a chap is a competent line pilot and the next he / she is sitting in an office with their name on the door, wondering what the heck they are supposed to be doing. Consequently, ill-briefed and ill-prepared they take the 'safe course' - and don't make decisions, or they make decisions that don't agree with the 'management party line' and get a severe 'career interview'. Either way, they may well become ineffective managers and not necessarily due to latent incompetence. Either way the industry suffers.
Many CEO's (Accountable Managers) have little or no understanding of the minutae of the line operation. I replaced someone as a JAA Accountable Manager, who had absolutely no idea of what his responsibilities were. Although I was surprised I quickly realised this is not an unusual situation.
Summary of the above: many airline managers may be well-intentioned but desperately ill-prepared for the job.
We cannot avoid the 'commercial expediency' that pervades our industry, any more than any other. The mindless, and unsustainable, pursuit of constantly improved quarterly returns (ie; profits) puts CEO's in untenable positions and the stress is passed down the line to all management and supervisory positions, and results in 'extraneous' expenses, such as training, safety, etc, being pared back. The result is an operation that ostensibly meets all regulatory requirements but has nothing in reserve. Assumptions are made that all is well until something goes wrong. Concerns expressed by the pilot group are often seen as a nuisance that can be ignored. We all keep our fingers crossed that there won't be an accident or even a serious incident though often we feel as though we are living on borrowed time.
From time to time the industry becomes heavily involved with a trend that warrants attention. For many years this was Controlled Flight into Terrain (CFIT); now it is Loss of Control in Flight (LOC-I). LOC-I is now the largest single cause of accidents. having replaced CFIT by a significant margin. I have recently been involved in some interesting exchanges on the subject and offer my most recent thoughts for consideration and comment. They are presented slightly tongue-in-cheek, but I think you will get the gist of what I am trying to say.
"Thanks for this. Funnily enough I have just been reading the article in Flight International on the proposed (expected?) training for 'upset flight', LOC, LOC-I, and all the other myriad definitions it has. I am also wading through a document on the same subject. I am sure it is all well-intentioned, but there is very little being said about what, to my mind, is the principal cause of this situation - overreliance on automation to the exclusion of handling practice.
Loss of control is not like Swine Fever. It hasn't suddenly mysteriously blossomed somewhere then spread like wildfire through the pilot ranks. It has, instead, insidiously grown to be the major factor in aircraft accidents due to diminishing professional standards amongst pilots.
Do I mean that we have all suddenly become a bunch of glue-sniffing, soap-opera watching, layabouts more interested in a perceived glamorous lifestyle 'down route' than serious attention to what is an extremely demanding - though rewarding - profession?
No, but what I do mean is that we have allowed ourselves to be led by the nose by accountants and aircraft manufacturers to the extent that we no longer fly the aircraft: we have delegated what used to be the fun bit to the automatics.
This didn't start yesterday. It started with the Airbus and 'Next Gen' Boeings with their marketing emphasis on 'ease of operation' with little or no human intervention.
("Frankly, Monsieur Airline CEO, we could teach ze monkey to fly zis plane").
As the 'older generation' pilots, with their years of handling lesser technology aircraft chose when and whether to engage the automatics with little or no fear of the consequences, others, with minimum experience - and, in some cases, rank unsuitability for the job - were coerced by their managers to make maximum use of the magenta line, LNAV/VNAV, coupled approaches, etc, etc.
("You see, Monsieur, all ze peelot 'as to do is taxi in and taxi out, and we already 'ave ze fix for zat in the future").
Eventually, with rapid expansion in the industry, the hoary old guy in the left seat was often replaced with a spotty-faced youth with little experience but a fascination with wiggly amps and computers. He did really well until the automatics played up and he and his sidekick had to figure out - quickly - what all the waggly bits on the wing and tail were for, and how they reacted when the stick was moved.
In my humble opinion the answer does not merely lie with investing squillions of dollars on more technology and more simulator time and more expense and more procedures to learn, but enforcing - and reinforcing - training of the basics to ensure familiarity with the characteristics of the aircraft, THROUGHOUT THE FLIGHT ENVELOPE.
"Hey, Guys, you can actually fly the aircraft MANUALLY. I know it is a strange concept these days, but it still works the way the Wright Brothers envisioned. You don't automatically die if the autopilot disengages in the cruise. It is fun to hand fly the aircraft in the climb, as well as the descent, and there is nothing, absolutely nothing, quite as satisfying as doing a visual approach on a nice sunny day"
I could on for hours on this subject, and I am about to put pen to paper. Although I agree that more and better simulation can help, I also think we could do more to avoid some of the bone-headed decisions that some of our brethren make / made / will make in the future".
GW