Functional test of wx radar at altitude is easy. Not doing it is.... lets see... LAZY
I have never heard of this before or ever been trained that we MUST do it
Not doing it is...lets say....I DID NOT KNOW THAT WE MUST DO IT
I can't find any such reference to do this anywhere in the Airbus manuals.
I agree that brightness control is trap which both I
and many other pilots have been caught by.
Why don't Airbus use the large knob to adjust the brighness of the ND if the large knob is used the adjust the brightness of the PFD ?
In the airbus, you use :
- the large PFD knob to adjust the PFD brightness
- BUT the inner smaller knob to adjust the ND brightness. Why not also the large knob ?
The large ND knob will NOT adjust brightness of ND but will adjust the radar brightness.
I believe the radar brightness should be the inner knob and the ND brightness the outer knob. The screen brightness should be controlled by the large knobs for both screens.
I think people set up traps when dimming the screens at the end of the day, and initially turn the both large knobs anti-clockwise (or just turn all the knobs anti-clockwise). There is no need to turn the large knob on the ND display, but people still do, maybe because of the similarity to the PFD knob.
With the weather radar off on the ground, unless you check the brightness control, you won't know that the brightness has been fully turned down.
It will NOT be obvious to you that it is fully dim and this is the trap, its not obvious.
Sure its easy to say to just follow SOP's and that you do not need any warning / obvious attention getter's that something is wrong.
But its a bit like the gear not down and locked warning. Pilots will occasionally forget to put the gear down as long as humans exist unless something brings our attention to it.
The weather radar is just another trap with potentially distarous consequences.
Nothing inside the aircraft will obviously bring our attention to it that it's fully dim (unless you carefully scan/touch the brightness control knob).
I believe there needs to be some other kind of defence in place to prevent many of us falling into this trap.
I believe SOP's as the only line of defence are not good enough. Refer landing gear up example.