Richard,
One of the problems is that some operators in the Antipodes, and elsewhere, pay only lip service to the regulatory intent.
From my viewpoint, regardless of jurisdiction and local requirement... it is somewhat pointless to worry only about part(s) of the flight when the critical situation, on a given occasion, may well be during the bit which is ignored.
On another point, the Australian regulator has some practical difficulty in that the organisation is not well off for operations engineering experience. I can bring to mind only one person who has had airline experience, two others with a sensibly reasonable background, and another two who have the basics under control. This makes it very difficult for the flying types in the organisation to administer the regulations when they don't always have rapid and direct access to practical competence for the necessary backup to control some elements in the industry .. especially when several of the above people work in unrelated areas ..
I concur heartily with your observation that impressive AEO performance, allied with little outside the simulator exposure, does tend to give the average pilot a trust in his/her aeroplane's capabilities which might not be entirely justified. This is, of course, most pronounced in the two-motor models ..
safety_worker,
Peace, brother ... I know that .. and we are of one accord.
.. 4th segment ? ...Many pilots blythely look at second segment matters and forget that
(a) off a shorter runway, the first segment can often be very limiting with respect to obstacles in the early climb .. or even an uphill terrain slope ..
(b) for a jet, the third segment acceleration phase can go on for a long distance due to the big speed split between second and fourth segment climb
(c) fourth segment climb is hardly the stuff of the US space program ...
Now, we are all comfortable with the gross to nett idea .. but, throw in a little turbulence with the failure .. and see how the comfort zone squeezes up real tight ... or rather worse ..
Two observations ..
(a) under reasonable limiting conditions, it can take a LONG time and distance to get to LSA/MSA, or even just above the local terrain ..
(b) if a pilot doesn't quite know the details of what is out there ..and the ops eng support is a bit thin, then, consistent with the specific terrain, it might be a good idea to look at turning back toward the aerodrome so that, at the very least, the plate data can give some comfort ... mind you, that doesn't always work .. I have seen the occasional plate where navaid data blocks inadvertantly have been placed in a neat and eye-catching manner on top of the critical terrain data ...