Originally Posted by AGL_Guy
After reading all this about automation of cockpits etc. and not looking out the big window in front, I ask m myself as an AGL Guy, why do we design and install PAPIs, Threshold Lights, Approach Lights, Runway Edge Lights and RWY Centre Line Lights if the Modern Pilots with all the smart stuff in their kit bags don't need them. Huge savings for the airport operator to leave them out.
But I suggest, there are a few fly boys out there who glance at these little luminaries from time to time, even if just to confirm that where they think they are is where they think they are.
Thanks for opening this particular door … as what I’m about to say is very likely the completion of the thoughts you’ve initiated with your comments …
Actually, pilots
should be using ALL of those “little luminaries” together WITH ALL of what you’ve labeled “smart stuff” (presuming you mean all the instrument presentations currently available – where ever and how ever they are presented in any specific airplane) and using all of this information ALL OF THE TIME – including CAVU at high noon! The more information pointing to the current position and status of the airplane that the pilot can and does reference, the more that pilot will be able to select those pieces of information on which he/she feels most comfortable in using – AND referencing - ALL of that information, ALL of the time, allows the pilot to see how activation of the controls affects the resulting position and condition of the airplane, as that position and condition is displayed in ALL of those pieces of information … collectively and individually … in effect, providing a training exercise each and every time he/she brings the airplane in for a landing. If any current pilot does NOT know and recognize these basic aspects, then the instructors they have had have not done their job as well as they should have (and remember that instructors have a regular and recurring opportunity to ensure that the pilots they train are, in fact, trained and competent aviators) – and those pilots who have been "cheated" on their training are, in turn, increasingly likely to become involved in an accident or incident – or at the very least, in a personal crisis that may be known only to him/her – and hopefully THAT will all it will be!
I, for one, have stood at the edges of far too many “smoking holes” that should have never existed - and might NOT have occurred if the pilot had a better understanding of what the airplane was doing and what he/she should have done to correct it!