RAT_5, a story well worth posting for those are afraid to deviate even when it is obvious that such deviation is necessary. The present pilot shortage is engendering blind adherence to SOPs for their proven record of keeping things safe while keeping the training footprint as small as possible*. Such programs seem to avoid those very occasions in which thinking, knowledge of one's aircraft, knowledge of normal instrument readings & aircraft behaviour, and airmanship take precedence over slavish adherence to habit, company procedures or published SOPs.
In doing so, the commander had better have a very good reason for doing so, but that's the commander's job and also his/her responsibility (to deviate from SOPs in order to preserve, even if only-potentially, life, limb and property).
In fact, if we adhered strictly to every rule and procedure in the book, we'd never reach our destination on-time.
*anyone here believe that, along with simulator time etc., ab-initio airline-pilot cadet flight schools provide a true sense of the principles of aviation, meaning the fact that the airplane is trying to kill everyone on board and will do so at any time the pilots give it an opening...?
Last edited by PJ2; 24th Apr 2016 at 22:50.