Couldn't agree more, but there is a blockage. We've read many comments on here where pilots disagree and say that if you're slow add power and vice versa. To me that is following the a/c and not leading it. You can tell by the power setting that you are going to become slow or fast BEFORE it happens. And that includes the PM, who should be aware of this as much as PF. Or, if there is a unexpected power setting you can consider why; tailwind, headwind, thermals etc. You are controlling the a/c. There may be a dog in the cockpit, but
I like to wag the tail.
From that CAA Review a rather damning observation
ver 10 years or more
"75% of a/c fatal accidents have had a human causal factor." [LIST][*]omission of action/inappropriate action 38%[*]flight handling 29%[*]lack of situational awareness 27%[*]poor professional judgement/airmanship
Relating to another thread about pilot FTL's and tiredness. The same CAA medical department has said that deprived of regular quality sleep a pilot can be worse off than a couple of drinks. The causal factors above will all be effected, markedly, by lack of sharpness and calm relaxed attitude. Yet this same CAA, and others, allows the degredation of FTL's. Getting out of bed at 04.00 5 mornings consecutively and then working 13 hours is not a recipe to reduce the incident/accident rate; including on the roads afterwards. Remember, these statistics are only the fatal crashes. What about the near incidents that never go reported. The list would be longer than Warren Beaty's girl friends.
CTC make the comment, very correctly, that training just to the minimum standard is not good enough. I've flown for many airlines who reduced their training to this level and increased FTL's to maximum. In all cases their excuse was "it's legal". I spoke to the JAA FCL and their argument was they established a minimum level, but expected the airlines to adopt a level necessary for their operation and in-house philospohy. That also included having a sensible buffer to FTL's and schedules. We all know what happened: cheapest legal requirement. It was a hopeless thought. 30 years ago my C.P said "I want my pilots to be excellent handlers on the line". Indeed, amongst the Greek islands on dark stormy nights, it was abolsutely necessary. The captains were generally excellent and demonstrated/ encouraged F/O's to follow suit. Command was after 5000hrs. Now 3000hrs seems to be acceptable and some airlines positively discourage visual approaches because there have been so many screw ups that time & money has been wasted. That is a very strange solution to the problem. Instead of improving training they encourage staying away from the problem. In some cases that is a valid response, but not in something as basic as a visual approach. There will be captains who are not proficient at this most basic of manoeuvre.
When I've seen pilots program a visual approach in the FMC and then fly F.D & LNAV, allbeit manually, I cringe at their thinking.
LPC's should be about a/c handling proficiencies. OPC's & LIne Checks can be about procedures and SOP's. Thus 2 different ypes of check. No where in the checking syllabus is there real handling checking. The 3 year un-usual attitude recovery recovery is pathetic. A couple of simulator induced upsets, training only, then move on with the rest of the program to more automation. A V1 cut & SE G/A should be child's play. That's all there is. Circling is not an LPC item, and even that is flown on A/P.
In new a/c there is a massive amount of information to make handling the a/c more accurate than needles & dials, but sadly the skills have been diluted. This has to be laid at the door of training departments. the LPC's haven't changed, so the CAA's have not changed their hoops to jump through. It has to have been driven by training departments, answerable to the financial dept's. It will have to be reversed by the same. I don't believe the CAA's can devise a program suitable for all operations and operators, but 2 different types of check might be a start. However, whatever change is introduced it has be long term and not a transient modification.
I see that some airlines have reduced the 2 day sim training/checking to 1 day combined. Legally!! That means even less time in the sim to practice 'what if' scenarios; including simple non-normal handling. During training sessions, if there had been a recent survivable crash, but it failed due to wrong analysis, mis-management, mis-handling, I tried to include the elements into the session. If one crew had got it wrong, why should we not learn from how they did that and learn what would have been better. It may not happen again, but finding out what would have been more successful will always have spin offs into other scenarios.
Is it really true that new fully integrated airline pilots' course are now conducted with much less handling skills and much more in simulators? I can understand the cost reduction incentive, but has this been the start point of training a systems opertaor and not a pilot. Has this sowed the seed in the cadet's mind that big jets can't be handled like spam cans? There is an argument to train for what you are going to do. A Super-tanker skipper doesn't need to be able to sail a dinghy, but he still needs a healthy respect of the elements and be able to manage when the sutomatics have gone AWOL. Has the 'airline pilots' training course been diluted too much solely to reduce cost. Why else? The focus of MPA/MCC could be introduced as a separate module at a later stage once the basic solid foundations of piloting have been established. CTC had an airline indoctrination course as a stand alone module before type rating. It's similar to medical students; they have a strong basic foundation of medical training and then some years to specialise. Why not us the same? Perhaps the career path has caused some of this; 150hrs straight into a jet. The ladder, via G/A, commuters, military, taught some of these basic skills and they could be carried forward to airlines.
I do think we've progressed backwards with pilot training.
Sadly, like the FTL's question I expect this one to revolve at ever increasing speed and disappear down some black hole until there is a smoking one. Only then will the bean counters stare the problem in the face, but it won't be an overnight fix. It has to be a culture within the airline, and that comes from the top.