Art Field
Technology has provided us with improved collision warning, better on board planning and all knowing receivers but it can not replace a sick or unable to cope co-pilot.
Oh FFS....so the nav steps in and saves the day...
Or maybe the skipper - or the co if the situation is reversed - simply lands the aircraft at the nearest suitable. If the co cannot cope, chop him/her on the OCU.
We went through the machinations(sp?) of the appropriate guys/gals to send to the 2-man flt decks out of METS and the higher achievers were deemed to be the better candidates. As it happens, the legacy platforms produced more issues than the modern platforms; candidates not up to the job, or having to deal with 3 egos rather than one...discuss..
I beggar anyone to justify the use of the VC10 in a passenger-carrying role in the modern Royal Air Force. You cannot. In terms of manpower (let's have a loadie, or was it a steward, on the headset calling abort duringthe take-off roll), efficiency (see my earlier post) or cost savings (annual VC10 maintenance budget is how many millions?) the arguments simply do not stack up.
Time to put away the rose-tinted spectacles of yesteryear and embrace today's challenge: namely, equipping an organic AT fleet rather than simply chartering everything.