Originally Posted by
7-cylinder man
Unfortunately when the poo hits the fan there will be no one other than the crew to resolve these sort of problems. Is that not what a professional pilot is required to do?
The failures would have been covered in the initial training. As well as the cycle of failures that will form the recurrent training by an ATO there is normally time to practice those little extra items if you ask the trainer.
These days we have the luxury of FCOMs in PFD format that can be read and studied on mobile devices. No excuse not to know the systems and procedures required in doing the job.
Not a dig at you 'F-16 guy'.
7-cylinder man,
In the perfect world that would be truth, but many resent events in the civilian aviation community have shown that training of basic ”pilot ****” is a thing of the past. Here I especially have incidents like Colgan Air 3407, Air France 447 and Air Asia 8501 in mind.
While I know that there are many professional and talented pilots in the civilian world, I also suspect that the ”Race to the Bottom”, created by the influence of low cost carriers world wide, have created room in the cockpits of commercial liners, for pilots that have less than 250 hours total time on machines that needs to be hand flown. And once those pilots get into the RH seat in a larger machine, the amount of ”stick time” that they will get is ridiculously small. They will never really learn to feel and fly their aircraft.
Now put a pilot like that in a Partial Panel situation where he has to hand fly his machine back to a safe landing, and best case it will be ugly but he will live, and worst case he will crash his aircraft within 60 seconds.
Many companies have been very reluctant to allow pilots to hone their skills in the air when conditions permits, because it affects passenger comfort and it costs a bit of extra fuel. Then they say that pilots can practice their hand flying skills once a year in the simulator. Get real!
I am so fortunate to work for a “company” that does not get affected by the publics demand for cheap tickets. Therefore we have the luxury of writing all our SOP’s and regulation with one thing as the main focus point. Safety!
Beside of the fact that most of the flying is "hands on", I get one ride in the simulator every 3 months where emergency procedures are practiced, as well as recovery from loss of control. Furthermore I get one instrument check ride in the simulator once a year, where Partial Panel and no giro emergencies have to be demonstrated. Why is that? Because when the **** hits the fan, the only thing that matters is proficiency. It does not matter if you get the most sophisticated presentation of your checklist on your screens or if you know all the systems by hart. If you are not able to fly the aircraft first with basic stick (yoke), rudder and throttle inputs, everything else does not matter.
In my “company” you are considered experienced when you have 1000 hours on type. Every time I read a safety report from the civilian world where it states that the both pilots where highly experienced and had several thousands hours on type, I cant help but thinking, I wonder how many hours of hand flying the type they got? Would they be able to hand fly their aircraft take-off to landing in IMC conditions even without some kind of failure? In my mind they should not be let loose in an aircraft if they 100% positively can.
Back to this incident in Sweden. We still miss a lot of information, but the SHK (Swedish Investigating Board) will in time tell us what went wrong and why the pilots where unable to correct the situation. One thing that I think is important to remember, is that if the accident was a result of poor pilot flying skills, the company and the regulators have a huge responsibility to make sure pilots get the necessary training.