Shouldn't the question be, why is any RPT JET allowed to conduct an approach on a 1930's era navigation aid which is subject to so many errors
How many accidents have happened in Australia caused by errors in the NDB? None that I have seen published. The fact is it takes a lot more skill to fly manually fly an NDB approach than it does to couple to an ILS for an autoland. But then the test is not about piloting skill anymore. It is a good bet that told to fly the simulator on a manually flown NDB approach raw data in a cross-wind most airline pilots used to button pushing LNAV and VNAV to "fly" the aircraft would fail their instrument rating test. Instead we have the ludicruous situation where the NDB part of the simulator test is ticked off as PASS when the whole shebang was done on autopilot and VAV and LNAV overlay. Talk about dumbing down of pilot standards. And CASA ccouldn't care less about the original principle as a test of a pilots flying ability on instruments, as long as a box is ticked and they get their fifty bucks or whatever for re-issueing the licence sheet.
I agree that the superb automation capability in airliners makes instrument approaches as safe as houses and a mere doddle for the button pushers, but to claim that the NDB approach on the Instrument Rating Test Form can be ticked off as completed successfully, is in my book, unprincipled. Feel free to disagree
