I had an entertaining discussion with a surgeon today and the subject of airline\healthcare parallels came up. The discussion involved a very insightful comment from her - an aircraft takes off in a definable condition. A patient may turn up at hospital in a desperate state, and requires definitive and urgent attention. The surgeon described this situation in aviation terms as a pilot materialising in the captain's seat with an aircraft in severe difficulty and on its way to crash unless interventions were made. The surgeon has a PPL by the way.
Mercurydancer, what an excellent analogy, and a very pertinent input to a thread that has developed along natural lines into a mature and reasonable discussion, with minimal input from behind the scenes (unlike certain other threads on this site, I have to say.)
I'm certainly thinking now, particularly following John Farley's post earlier, about the relative merits of "handling" versus "operating," and the interface between the two. I can't help but feel that they are not mutually exclusive, regardless of the corporate or legislative environment we work within. My view, having watched pilot handling skills degrade within my own company following a decision to ban manual thrust handling on Airbus (a previous type) is that it is a necessary function of risk management to allow practice under controlled conditions; example, I as Captain would neither perform nor permit a fully hand flown approach into the London TMA at rush hour to minimums, as the workload for the non-handler would be detrimental to flight safety. But I would certainly allow same on a quiet day as long as I felt comfortable with it and felt it was within either the capability of the P2 flying or my own capability to monitor, given rest, awareness, workload issues. After all, part of my remit is development of P2's, and I also include personal maintenance of skill within that remit; part of the trust placed in me by the award of command is that I have the necessary judgement to know when to say no.
I feel that is the thrust of the debate, with a strong nod of respect to the well-considered and experienced views of John F. Indeed, knowledge of your own situation is perhaps the ultimate expression of situational awareness.
One of the best calls I have ever seen in my career was with a young copilot flying a fully manual approach into LHR, a few years back. We were vectored tight, a little hot, little high, and he asked for the gear. Just as I was thinking "yep, we need the gear." Everything was working out fine, I'm quite comfortable. After a short while, he asks for the flight directors back, so I give them to him, then he re-engages the autopilot. Without me asking, he then says, "With the gear down, the attitudes were all wrong, I was getting maxed out."
Once we were on the ground, I congratulated him for what I still consider the single best call I have seen from the other seat; he was struggling, though not apparent to me, and elected for the safest route. The definition of workload management. So despite my comfort in the simple fact he was doing a good job, he felt empowered enough to call a halt to it without having some form of ego/machismo called into question. THAT, in my opinion, is what we should perhaps be struggling toward, as to me it indicates the ideal level of awareness that we, as pilots, should not just possess but foster.
Thank you to all the contributors for providing a thread and debate that reinforces my decision to devote my spare time to moderating this forum. A thread that also reminds me why this forum is the number one aviation site on the web.
Squid (moderator hat off, for a few minutes.)