Originally Posted by
Hi_Tech
This is a bit scary. There are some very good posts here by pilots of B777. What is scary for a non-pilot is, there appears to be a variation in their understanding of the system. There is also apparently a variation in standards of training and write ups in FCTM between airlines.
Another difference that is very evident. We have Byron Bailey type of pilots (A few pilots left), who rose from earlier moderately automatic aircraft, and those who have flown only the modern jets. I have seen in ME airlines cadet pilots who start on the modern jet like 777 and are now sitting on left seat. I think it will be this lot who are most vulnerable when automatic system misbehaves (or used wrongly), and you have seconds to understand and react. And when you have some one to retract the gear after a bounce, .... I need not say more. As one experience pilot once told me, "we are paid these days for the first 5 min and the last 10 min of a flight". That was on a A310 when FMS was introduced. We have gone several steps ahead with automation after that. The challenge is how to train and remember all the logic behind automation at critical times. It is a bigger challenge when one switches from Airbus to Boeing or vice versa as Asiana pilot in SFO incident testified. The discussion on this thread has become very interesting and revealing at the same time.
Well said and since you have mentioned A310, not an easy plane to handle in GA, how many of us here discussing did base training on an a/c and not in FFS. Touch and go's with basic rules, no reverse, flaps 1 notch up and trim for T/O and TOGA and I can tell feels much different and that is exactly what new gen pilots need, get out of the box and use your common sense....