Originally Posted by
Prawn2king4
At night, engaging in a high priority surveillance task the workload can be high.
Non urban routes can be difficult for ground units - too easy to get clocked, hence the eye in the sky.
Not easy for the pilot. Eyes glued to the target - two tail lights among others. Unlike daylight, normally no landmarks relative to the target to help re-identification after a quick cockpit check.
Other front seat occupant busy tracking with the camera, easier now that there's automatic hold on the target, but still must be constantly eyeballed. Back seat busy with map reading and comms.
Target peels off into built up area, time for ground units to take over. Eyes off those tail lights for a couple of seconds and the pilot's lost it. Many red lights all travelling at same speed. V difficult to relate target's position on the tracking camera with what's down there. Workload now intense. Orbit and search. Orbit and look. Need to info ground units of location. Routine calls to air traffic as the ungodly now monitor ATC frequencies when there could be someone up there.
Just a thought .........
Indeed.
The pilot's primary job is to keep the aircraft safe, right ?
And in doing this job, the pilot should be somewhat isolated from the mission. It's not like they're trying to stop someone nuking Glasgow. They're not equipped for that anyway.
The ergonomics may not be ideal, but neither are the ergonomics of a 737 plank - have a look at the pilots' comments about them. Should we ground 737s ?
As has been pointed out earlier, other countries law enforcement services have operated EC135s for some time without running out of fuel and then unsurprisingly failing to auto in difficult conditions.
It's not about blame. It's about learning. It seems to me that most of what needs to be learned here is about human factors - which the AAIB fail to adequately address.