Woodpecker;
Sim exercise, ZRH, Wind 280/40, cloudbase just above circling limit.
Landing on 14 above crosswind limit for B757 so the plan was for ILS to R14, break-off (when visual) to join downwind left hand for R28.
The new breed of base training captain (must use the automatics) had us sitting in the simulator and creating an approach using V-Nav and L-Nav. Must have taken 25 minutes of valuable sim time to create this masterpiece of height, speed and track changes.
Once finally airborne the exercise was a total waste of time, Apart from flap and gear extension we sat there and watched the automatics!!
As Monty Python would have said -" Luxury! ". I remember one sim session in a previous outfit where we performed low vis taxi around AMS to the deicing pad where we carried out full de-ice procedures (including reading it all out from the FCOM Supplementary before doing it). One hour from start up to getting airborne.
What a waste of valuable sim time. I believe a wiser training management team has since got rid of that stuff. They have even introduced more raw data/manual flying exercises. Excellent.
As has already been discussed, SOP's are essential for safe operations, but they have to be reasonable , practical and simple (KISS?). I always remember the old saying--" Rules are made for the guidance of the wise and the obedience of fools ".
Fortunately, bad SOP's usually don't last too long , although it unfortunately takes an incident/accident to highlight the flaws.