AirRabbit (#529), thanks. The hub of my point is that there appears to be too greater use of auto brake; even a dependency on it.
Re “[i] … after thousands of landings you know what is normal …[i]”
Perhaps this is an emerging problem; will pilots upgrading to captain be required to have “thousands of landings”, and will all of those be without autobrake to enable experience of foot force vs deceleration? And even with that many landings how many are likely to be on runways which involve reduced friction conditions.
The conditions required might have to be similar to those which were encountered in the example above, however in hindsight did the experience result from error.
Was it an error of judgement – known conditions but an inappropriate choice of action. Or alternatively as the result of poor information or situation assessment where the choice of action appeared reasonable, but was in fact incorrect?
In either case error may have been the root of the experience, i.e. true experience might only come from error.
Whilst experience of deceleration vs foot force is valuable, in marginal conditions it may only be used to detect a poor situation and mitigate the circumstances. This is an after ‘the fact’ activity – after the decision to land. The real defence against overrun accidents must start much earlier, during the approach briefing – situation assessment, and the decision to land.
Perhaps as in the example, many people rely on reverse to save the situation. Therefore it is important to understand how we value thrust reverse. Either it will save an overrun in marginal conditions because it’s been done before (drift of normality), or it may prevent an overrun in the event of any unforeseen circumstance (#531), i.e. it hasn’t been done before, but it still might be required (risk alleviation).
The first view is not as per the certificated distances (although in Europe it may be when operating on contaminated runways – implying that there is not second option).
The second view provides the better safety margin; a means of improving safety.
Thus the assessment of conditions and how resources are to be used are critical items.
How do pilots gain experience of this? Will pilots have to land in poor conditions resulting in less than expected stopping capability to gain the necessary experience to make a decision, or can this be taught? A similar question as in #528.