I don't know why I'm bothering to respond to you 26500 but my annual reports always said 'this officer doesn't suffer fools gladly' :
So did mine funnily enough - so we have something in common, but I do not know what that has to do with this discussion.
true, we didn't fly 600 hours per annum, of hands off straight lines to a rig. Nor did I ever fly less than '200 hours a year' or 300 for that matter. What I did fly, on top of six years SH was 22 years of SAR - and yes, the Seaking AFCS saw lots of use. If you regard a 2-300 cloud base and 2.8k's vis as poor weather then you have never been where I've been. Lets hope that you don't ever try for the CivSar contract too. Nor have you read what I have been trying to say in my posts on here - but, carry on, you're all doing very well!
I am not quite sure what your weather reference and CivSar references are about other than condescension, which is unnecessary. I can assure you I am quite aware of what bad weather is! I do know why I am bothering to respond to you Al-Bert. I do not think you are a fool, but I do not think you are seeing the whole picture. I have flown both sides of the military/civil divide, and believe there is a balanced argument and discussion to be had, rather than trying to outdo each other with our CV’s. I hear what you are saying loud and clear, although they way articulate it is not always so clear. I do not disagree with your sentiments. However the situation is more complex in that a civil operation is filled with issues the military operation is not. Training is far more limited due to the nature of budgets and how much the customer is willing to pay. There is always a competitor who will try and do it cheaper, driving competition and stretching budgets ever further. My point is that we have what we have and have to work with that and within some of the constraints we have upon us. That is nothing new to any of is, and we had the same issues in the military world. Maybe we can relieve and adjust some of the constraints but the reality is we are not going to get a new unlimited training budget across the NS. We can do the job better. We have to move forward and discussion such as this will only help that.
It is just no good trying to fly a modern day operation in the NS with modern tech in the same way we ran a JHC operation. The people are different. They have different backgrounds. The culture is different. The operation is a different challenge. The challenge of routine is one in itself I never really understood until I did it. These days my challenge is keeping pilots motivated and engaged. The routine all too often creates a complacency in a different way to what we used to see when flying complex military tasks in NI or Iraq or Bosnia or Afghan or any number of other demanding theatres. The NS is no less demanding, despite what some may believe. The demands are different and often not always so obvious.
Routine operations are inherently linked to human error. Why do we have robots building cars? We make mistakes all the time, but the latent errors in routine often go unchecked until its too late.
All a bit longwinded I know, but we have to take a fresh approach to how we tackle very routine operations. The proper and appropriate use of autopilot is key to this, and development of appropriate SOP’s will lead to a reduction and management of latent error. Better training in the sim and classroom will help us when it is not routine. This is being done in some places already, so nothng new. It does not need to cost any more either, just needs to be better planned and controlled. Better selection of crews and management by companies will also go a long way. However the recent lack of pilots meant very low time pilots being hired, who have effectively no experience outside the circuit. This is just a fact, and has already happened. Do we kick them all out and hire a bunch of experienced pilots? A little facetious, I know, but of course we have to use them. We can train them, but companies must take this into consideration when they hire. The problem of the inexperienced pilot will not be seen for 10 years, until he is a captain.
What we cannot do is the halfway house approach we are sitting in right now.