S76Heavy,
We must not fall victim to a misunderstanding here; when considering how to deal with the introduction of automation, it would be wrong not to consider how others coped with the change from 'control of flight' to 'management of flight' - in Professor Boy's description the 'first revolution'. This was recognised at the conference and characterised as follows:
Necessary changes required in piloting skills when converting from flying with basic instruments and stabilisation, to managing the on-board systems, have not been fully recognised and implemented; there was ample evidence that the necessity for managed transition had not been understood (by regulators or operators) or put in place.
The general mood at the conference was that we are - as an industry - insular and had not taken note of the effect of the introduction of automation to the fixed-wing world. This was summed up as follows:
...we have not aligned ourselves closely enough with our fixed-wing colleagues and we do not, even when offered the opportunity, participate in many of the work-streams. In fact we have actively fed the myth that Rotary is different from Fixed-Wing because it is more flexible but, there is extensive evidence that in SAR, HEMs, Offshore and Onshore Operations, the flight-path and automation management principles look pretty similar to those in aeroplanes.
With respect to the observations of Colin Milne, they were in the context of his presentation ‘Achieving Common (Best Practice) Operational Standards’. In my view it was a cogent observation - particularly in the light of the interim report on the Sumburgh accident - that the majority of automation accidents/incidents occurred when the PIC was acting as PF. What he might have mentioned was that this was also the fact in the Cougar 851 incident - which led to observations about this by the Canadian AIB.
To call the Captain's monitored approach a fixed-wing practice is to miss the point; where 'onshore' instrument approaches are being conducted, there is virtually no difference between fixed-wing and helicopters. If a risk assessment by the airlines had established that Captain's monitored approach was a safer practice, we would be foolish not to assess whether that might be the case for us as well.
Also with regard to Sumburgh, there did not appear to be good (or even any) SOPs with respect to the use of automation and, in particular, mixed mode flying. That appears now to be in the process of rectification as is the issue of stable approaches.
We are also in the process of establishing what monitoring might mean with the advent of automation. That this appears to be more complex than at first imagined was evidenced by an interesting presentation by Steve Jarvis; Steve didn't leave his presentations for us to examine but my observations were as follows:
Doctor Steve Jarvis showed how, by taking different perspectives on any subject, opposite conjectures can be shown to be correct. Even such well used phrases such as ‘situational awareness’ mean different things depending upon context; the crew need to have ‘awareness’ of where they are in the patterns of an instrument approach but also need ‘awareness’ of the current parameters of the flight (and might be ‘aware’ in one but not the other). Understanding that situational awareness is a multi-level concept will have an effect on the roles specified for the crew members and the subsequent division of labour and responsibility.
The roles of pilots in managing and monitoring are more complex than first imagined and simplistic views of what solutions may be required are often misguided. Monitoring for example has always been problematical because it is difficult to know what is being viewed, and when...
John,
I think it is fair to say that industry are filled with trepidation about the transition to fly-by-wire. In fact the wake-up call that now appears to be motivating the industry to examine the current situation, with respect to automation, will hopefully result in effective processes in managing change in the future.
Perhaps this might start with the regulators who should examine their stance with respect to the certification of exotic systems. Although there is now guidance with respect to fly-by-wire, we are still missing the rule/guidance xx.1329 Flight Guidance Systems.
If anything, the introduction of fly-by-wire strengthens the case for close oversight of the design process. However, we are bedevilled by the perennial problem that the knowledge is mostly restricted to the manufacturers.
Jim