alf5071h
I would not disagree that unusual attitude recovery training is an important subject, but what is the exact relevance to automation / computers?
Relevance is that if your computer flies and you don't, you get rusty. More importantly, you scan gets rusty so that when you need it, you have to play catch up or it is too slow for conditions.
It may be more beneficial to look at the reasons for the loss of control.
If the airplane can do it, you need to be trained to deal with it. Arguing perfect prevention is a good way to fill up graves.
If there have been system failures, then why did they fail, and how did the crew manage these failures given that in most, if not all circumstances the aircraft is still flyable – rule 1 fly the aircraft.
Rule one requires practice and proficiency. If you don't practice, you won't remain proficient.
‘Loss of control’ accidents without system failure appear to have elements of non normal operation, surprise, and hazards of physiological disorientation – these are not failures of technology or the aircraft.
They are a failure of the man machine interface. I do not find it that useful to pretend they can be separated.
Thus, the higher priority for training might be related to how pilots manage system failures, how they fly an aircraft in a degraded state, and how they manage themselves when dealing with the unexpected or when challenged by weakness of human physiology – always trust the instruments.
Trust the instruments, and know when the instruments are working, or aren't. I completely agree that training in degraded mode is critical for safe flying ... since eventually, any machine will break, or, as a computer is the topic here, have a small hitch and need at the least to be cycled on and off, if not reprogrammed back at base once safely on the ground.
It would better to avoid the hazardous situations, rather than relying on recovering from an upset, if indeed it is recognized / recognizable.
Presuming pure and perfect prevention fills graves. Yes, work on airmanship and judgment to improve hazard prevention, but if the plane can do it, you need to know how to fly out of it, and practice it.
In re the RTO and an FO whose attention is asserted as wandering ...
This is where teaching condition based scan patterns is useful. Teach and train particular scan patterns, and scan variations, that are tailored to particular critical conditions. That allows you to pick up on critical performance data in a timely fashion.
sys: (chris?)
They say a picture is worth a thousand words. Why ?. Because
a picture is effectively parallel processed by the brain, while reading
text or scanning instruments is serial and it takes much longer to
assimilate the meaning.
Possibly why those suites of nice round gauges worked so well for so long.
They painted a picture.
Trying to diagnose problems by wading through pages of error messages, and / or getting out handbooks, finding the right page, ad nauseum, takes far too much time in an emergency. There just has to be a better way. In some ways, modern a/c are quite primitive, despite all the complexity and shiny paintwork.
In a multi place aircraft, the trick to all that is pilot flying, FLY, Pilot non flying, work to filter out the non essential from the essential.
That is another area in this era of computers in the cockpit that absolutely must have emphasis in training. (Sim seems a great place to practice such things.)
Back to BOAC's original premise:
When I flew T-28's, I had to know its systems. When I flew Hueys, I had to know its systems. They were similar enough in complexity, with the added worry of hydraulics in the latter. Avionics mostly a wash.
When I flew SH-60's, I had to know a HELL of a lot more stuff, since it had more systems. So, the training was more intense, and the amount of work I had to do to stay proficient in my aircraft was considerably more detailed. (I sometimes hated knowing that I knew what a Mux De Mux was, but know it I did, since I had to talk to technicians when it went south.)
You have to know your systems, and I think the training and professional end of this lays a serious burden on leadership in the industry, in pilots, in training departments, and in the corporate management sector.
How do you encourage and incite active curiousity among your pilot work force in diving into any and every detail of how the bird works? This sort of enthusiasm can't be limited to the pilots. It needs to permeate the entire culture of your airline, because now and again, you'll find things out that you want to bring to the attention of the supplier, and others who fly your bird.
That last is a cultural imperative that I think increases in gradient as the computer era puts its stamp more firmly on flying.