Before-landing-check-list. I can see how my post may have seemed suspicious. But sorry no, nothing as interesting as a reporter on the prowl. Just a jaded old man disappointed by the observed changers to my beloved industry.
It’s all about training. Pilots need to have enough confidence in there own knowledge to be able to carry out certain tasks fully. It is complete lunacy for a Pilot to trust his preflight inspection to an Engineer, which he may not have even met. When asked, the Pilot replied, “well you know what you are looking at better than me”.
Is the Pilot being a nice guy by trusting the Engineer?
Is the Pilot lazy?
Is the Pilot loaded up with so much other procedural and reporting rubbish that some thing has to give somewhere?
There are no brownie points for doing a preflight inspection, it is a base requirement. There is no excuse. It is expected. It is standard good airmanship. It cannot be delegated!
Pilots in the company I work for routinely certify for inspections they either have not carried out at all or have carried out in some amended fashion that has become culturally normal. They don’t refer to technical documentation; they will ask another Pilot what he does.
Our pilots do some of the most sophisticated full motion flight simulator training at great expense but avoid doing a preflight inspection of their aircraft at every opportunity. Are we serious about safety? Or are we more interested in superficial progression and qualifications.
To do a job safely you must be able to do that job easily. In order to be able to complicated tasks easily you need your ducks in a row.
- Good training
- Required equipment.
- Continual practice at task.
- Be physically fit for task (Rested and well).
- The company culture must be supportive of the task being done well. It cannot be considered beneath an IFR Captains standing to spend the time to do a preflight inspection to the depth required by the flight manual.
- The Pilot must want it.
The Pilots I work with are all good men. The company culture is shot.
From my point of view my observations are clear. What is not clear to me is how to fix it!