OK645;
the newer Airbii have a more consistent and intuitive series of actions required to set up, for example, a LOC only approach with a VNAV-style APP DES vertical mode....more intuitive than the comparable series of actions required in, for example, the 73NG.
I'm beginning to appreciate that statement more and more as I encounter, (but don't fly) odd FMS arrangements and their (highly, in my opinion) non-intuitive operation. With others, I'm having a separate discussion on the relative safety of such post-production installations, particularly as it concerns those new to transport operations - another thread.
I retired in late 2007 off the A330/A340 just when RNAV approaches were being introduced (Canada) so I never flew them though I have done numerous NDB/VOR LOC(BC) approaches in both managed and selected (using TRK/FPA) modes on all three Airbii types with very satisfactory performance, easily monitored/managed with solid SA from the PFD/ND/MCDU displays .
I thought they were as close to "precision" as one could get without traditional external electronic guidance. But one always had to give the airplane/autoflight time to do its job so a late intercept more than a few hundred feet above the calculated path wouldn't work and one had to resort to either capturing from above, (using IDLE-OPEN DESCENT, V/S or FPA, (protected with the Alt-Select)), or hand-fly it. In this, the traditional ILS was a but more robust so one could abuse the approach handling a bit more and the airplane, like any airplane, would still do it. I expect the same non-precision "room" for the airplane to do it's work would be necessary on an RNAV approach.
I completely agree with the thread's comments on raw data. It was (and remains, IIRC) a mandatory SOP to have raw data up somewhere if there Nav Accuracy was "LOW". Otherwise it was a matter of airmanship, and with the equipment provided, why not have it up anyway, all the time?
Like most technical tasks which require a set series of steps tailored to particular requirements, I suspect every one of us has our "rabbit trails", - our favourite ways of accomplishing oft-used, familiar tasks to do the non-precision descent, etc., etc.; - which means when something new arises, I again suspect that very few of us are not 'slightly' challenged, which is a good thing, but which also becomes a human factor when/if other circumstances, such as those which I believe arose in the BHM approach, arise.
My original notion behind raising 'the old ways' was a nagging sense that the cadet schools teach rote stuff and don't, nay can't, provide "opportunities" to scare oneself after just about killing oneself and everyone else on board. I don't advocate "arranging" such affairs but aviation is inherently dangerous (as the words under the photo of the airplane in the tree go), and somehow that sense has been subsumed within the relative comfort of cockpits and brilliant auto-systems, displays and all those things that have been designed and intended to reduce/deflect "human factors" risks . . . .
I am a great believer in no cotton-batting around what the airplane is always trying to do to one and I am afraid that increasingly-"pampered" (the term is not intended as derisive but merely as a recognition of the nature of the structure and priorities of such an 'aviation education'), cadets work as one cannot teach "adrenaline". There is a real possibility of "graduating" without comprehension of the nastier bits and, of greater concern, with an inappropriate measure and impresssion of self-satisfaction that the job is getting done, and well. Data programs, statitistics, papers and robust SMS programs can only accomplish so much and are of no use whatsoever when one is "it" and comes close to or meets aviation's prime reality.
Nothing has materially changed in the principles of flight and risk, or in these airplanes that one can't master with native initiative, talent and ability so I believe this state of affairs is at the seat of the newly-coined notion of "startle effect".
An uninformed, school-encouraged self-confidence is vastly different than an abiding respect informed both by 'experience' (as in a healthy fear in the form described above) and knowledge derived from hard work and constant professional learning. I think it is appropriate that an "airman" possesses both overriding qualities. A major, large transport operation is no place to be gaining the former.
I miss it, but I don't miss the business...