A37575, “With ground speed read-outs in full view …”
However, the prosecuting ‘Airmanship’ council would argue that if the crew knew that the GS value displayed was delayed in processing, plus a few seconds smoothing, with potential errors due to ‘your’ wind evaluation and addition/subtraction, and looking at the display - head down during take off; … then what’s the legal score.
It’s a fatuous debate. I am sure that we would agree that the airmanship issue is primarily about judgement; but judgement in aviation has to be supported with knowledge, which if inaccurate, misused, or absent when essential, then the resultant decision might have greater risk than for a less complex situation without that information.
This is part of the debate on automation. Recent posts suggest that it is impossible for the human to ‘know’ (understand) everything about highly complex systems (technology, human, and environment). Thus operations have to be conducted with a relatively lower level of knowledge. However in many instances this may represent a lower risk than with older systems due to greater data accuracy, clarity of display, and lower technology failure rates.
I have argued that if the overall risk has not been lowered, either due to the way in which technology is being used (erroneous organisational requirement or individual choice), or increasing operational complexity, then the situation should be changed – change the task.
Trying to use too much or inappropriate data (all available resources) due to complexity-induced knowledge deficiencies is just as ‘culpable’ (or more so), than overlooking/mistaking ‘good’ data. Both of these (opposing) views contain facets of human fallibility (use everything because ‘I know better’, vs mistakes in perception).
I would argue that the industry has to accept that the greater use of technology requires us to change the way we operate, at least to think about it – because the humans are at or beyond the limit of capability.
Adding more task to an already over tasked human is not a good choice, particularly when airmanship is a strenuous mental task.