Aren't too many bells & whistles what got us here in the first place RAT? The promise was better SA, but the automation is taking us further out of the loop.
Is automation taking us further out of the loop or simply allowing some to take themselves further out of the loop?
I can only suggest the dilution in SA might be caused by their apprenticeship. I was brought up on 1970's GA a/c and then very basic B732; much of the operations into non-radar airfields with very little nav aids. That was well before VNAV/LNAV and Maps, auto-thrust etc. The same level of fuel efficiency as today for descent & approach was expected then as it is today, except profile management was for the pilot. SA was vital, as it was when in non-radar environment. Your brain was programmed & educated to be aware of these matters at all times, including climb & cruise. When the 'bells & whistles' arrived we were taught all about them, how they worked and how best to use them. Our mental approach was the same, but now we could be so much more accurate in a more relaxed low work-load atmosphere. I never forgot my apprenticeship and used the new toys to make my life easier. I did not let the gizmos take over command and drag me around the sky as a follower: I was always the commander and told the a/c where I wanted to go and what I wanted it to do and I made mighty sure it was doing it at all times. There wasn't the "what's it doing now" because I was telling it what to do and I knew what it was doing because of my training.
So, in review, I do not consider the increase in 'bells & whistles' to be the problem; I consider it to be lack of education during the apprentice stage and lack of further consolidation in simulator exercises. One negative consequence of this lack of knowledge foundation is it becomes self-perpetuating. Captains are coming through an isolated airline training system with less foundation than earlier generations, they are upgraded in half the apprenticeship time as earlier generations, they then move into training and the spiral twirls on. I believe the change needs to be in attitude & education not in technology. The pilot should be the commander not the computer. I feel there is a lack of meaningful oversight, call it monitoring, and too much utter reliance that the computer can never be wrong. There was a wonderful comment by an NTSB investigator into a loss of SA crash: a pilot should not take the a/c to a place where his brain has not already been a few moments earlier. That's what we learnt during the B732 apprenticeship. We knew where we wanted to put the a/c and then we used the very basic tools we had to make sure it went there. Now guys program the computer where they want to go and at what speed and assume it will happen. When it ends up high, too fast, off track there is an external warning. That warning should have been internal, moments before.
Note: manual flying is not mentioned in the above. Manual flying may well improve SA, but the brain needs to be educated first otherwise the workload of manual flying will may well overload and SA will suffer. After the brain knows how to keep SA sharp then add the manual flying task.
Last edited by RAT 5; 3rd May 2015 at 07:45.