aterpster,
What's new under the Sun is the total ineptness with the Turkish Air and Colgan crews; the obvious lack of basic attitude instrument flying skills.
No, that's not particularly new. Scroll back and look at some of the past accidents as I posted to deSitter. For similarities to Turkish in the 80's look at the SAS DC10 in JFK or the Buffalo 707 in Kansas City. For Colgan, the L188 at KC and the China Airlines 747SP bear great similarity. There have always been "a few" accidents of this nature.
As a side note, the initiation of both of these accidents occurred because of a failure of monitoring skill, not manual control skill. Greater practice at manual flying might have improved the quality of monitoring when the a/p is on, as it was in both these cases, but then again possibly not. That's an unproven hypothesis. In any event the failure to monitor was not the final nail in the coffin in either case. Inappropriate stall recovery actions take the blame in both instances, and that is not going to be improved by more hand flying.
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About RNP AR qualification, the answer is no, the regulatory authority that has jurisdiction over my carrier has yet to implement that standard, and as a consequence it is not in use with my company. But then, what does that have to do with the price of tea in China?
It's pertinent because you come across as being a state-of-the-art pilot unlike those of us who have been "expelled from the club." Sounds like your operations today are much like what we did in the Dark Ages.
It's not a "club" and you haven't been expelled from it aterpster, so how about canning the trucelence. Perhaps though, as a guy who last flew the line 20 years ago you might accept that some things have changed since then in ways you may not have a full appreciation of, and that the perspectives of someone who spends each day up close and personal with the equipment we're discussing bears being considered a bit less dismissively.
Hmm, yeah with RNP AR I suspected that's where you wanted to go. The environment I work in today does have some Dark Ages elements to it, but that would not be the case with some of the previous operations that I've spent time with. I'm thinking that having collected the qualifications to operate these types from 6 different authorities including TC, FAA and CAA and having been hands on with carriers and crews in a number of different countries and cultures might give me a wee bit more insight into how things work in practice than any particular approach qualification.
Regards,
ELAC
PS - We're now doing a disservice to the thread so if you wish to continue the discussion I'll be happy to do so on the thread BOAC has suggested, or by PM. You may yet be surpised on the number of areas where we would share full agreement.