There will always be a need for airmanship – judgement, but in modern high-reliability and complex operating environments the opportunity to apply this is reducing. The views of modern operations in previous posts illustrate the reducing margins between the required standard of operation and established safety limits, i.e. there is less room for the human to experiment and develop judgement, yet human judgement is still required in ‘unforeseen’ circumstances.
I detest the constraining legalist approach, encouraged by the layout modern regulations, commercial pressures, and litigious public culture, but this is today’s environment and we have to learn to manage operations within it.
It is important to evaluate the previous example situations over time. Responsibility in making a justifiable decision in operation is not the same as justifying the decision afterwards - being responsible after the fact. Unfortunately not all areas of the industry realise or accept this difference, also as regulations drift towards ‘law’ (EU) there is a tendency to apply legal interpretations to all events opposed to human-system views required to maintain safety.
In addition, modern management style tends to move responsibility downwards leaving the difficult grey areas to the crew to resolve in real time.
Safety defences involve greater constraint via rules or advisory procedures (often interpreted as rules after the event). However, the industry often overlooks the need for everyone (regulator, operator, and crew) to draw their safety boundary, understanding and setting personal standards, - exercising airmanship before the event.
Thus views such as “knowing what is the best and safest thing to do” should not be interpreted as passenger comfort, minimising disruption or maintenance cost, which are often covertly promoted by management before the event, then overridden with “safety first” after an event. These are strategic management problems, not those for the crew to judge on short final.
If a decision and action was safe who cares what others think or say (of course we do), but the experience gained from debriefing (crew or self) knowing that a correct, although not perfect course of action was chosen is invaluable – this is how we learn.
A simplistic view of the required thinking process is like having the ability to join-up the dots in a situation, but this requires the overriding ability (airmanship, expertise) of being able to determine what constitutes a dot in that situation.
The differences in many of the posts can be identified by what is assumed in reaching a decision; assumptions are rooted in knowledge and bias, thus the control of these, and particularly a review of the assumptions beforehand could provide a more balanced view of safety.
Anyway back to reality; the opening scenario (#1) is a question after the event.
During an approach use the reported tower wind. The landing decision at the time should not be based on ‘can officially land’, the decision is yours. Consider if you can land safely bearing in mind the circumstances of the situation; employ airmanship and judgement vs book flying.
… And why are you looking at the FMS on short final opposed to conducting other tasks such as handling and monitoring the aircraft/systems; what are the safety priories, assumptions, knowledge – what are the dots in this situation.
… and before the windshear replies are drafted, consider strategic decision making (thinking ahead), pre landing brief – speed additives or not making the approach at all.