At that moment, you are 50' above a runway you can't see. You've just disengaged the autopilot, and ......
This is a statement that supports a following opinion; but...why would you disconnect AP on a multi-channel Cat3A approach to an intended autoland, especially when not visual at DH?
Considering all the various practice scenarios in the sim: it is impossible to dream up all the possibilities. So will training for a few minutes once every 3 years on recurrency cycles really solve anything. There was mention of all the safe manual landings with AT in use. Fact. However, SFX & DXB have thrown up a gotcha just waiting to bite the unwary. Accidents waiting to happen every day but prevented by, perhaps, SOP's, knowledge, luck, manual back up. Should those latent sneaky gremlins be allowed to still lurk in the dark shadows of control computers? Should the high priest of developing design be brought in to exorcise these demons?
Regarding more manual flying in today's highly automated a/c: It could help, in that a pilot who is in tune with their a/c's handling characteristics would have no hesitation in taking over; whatever the a/c threw at him they could wrestle the bronco back under control. The only SOP required would be to fly the damn thing as necessary. That way SOP's could be simplified to the common daily operation and any deviation thrown at the pilot could be sorted out as required. If there is an SOP for everything, but some are never practiced, or very rarely, it can lead to the pilot first trying to remember this long forgotten SOP while nothing is happening to resolve the situation. The delay in so doing can make the situation worse.
I once trained for an operator who did not have a particular GA profile written down, only the standard one. As an outside TRTO we wrote one for training purposes. It involved making selections on the MCP as required for whatever flap you were at and to navigate where you wanted yo go. i.e. fly/operate the a/c using the systems installed. This caused consternation in the customer's training dept and out came a curious SOP of '1 size fits all' variety. No discretion. I discussed it with friends in other airlines and they were bemused why an SOP was necessary. It was a normal GA that had some navigation variations and delayed flap retraction. You just did what was necessary. Why did you need a trained monkey SOP profile to do that?
So that is where we are in some parts of the world. Perhaps that is why there are those of us, from the older more basic world, who struggle to understand serviceable a/c crashing when they are supposed to be safer. Fly the damn thing. KISS. Aviation is an arena where I understand the problem but where is the difficulty.
P.S. Indeed there are some, now known gotchas, that should be incorporated in the mandatory type rating and not left to the good will of some trainers in some airlines. These are scenarios that perhaps the manufacturer had not envisaged. They had written a caveat and that they thought was that, but is it? I was at a Boeing meeting with my company and during our open discussion, when we queried some of Boeings changes in normal ops, they responded that we could advise them with our opinions as we flew 00's of line sectors every month. In other words they were admitting that they did not necessarily get it correct first time inside their limited world. Perhaps we operators should be more interactive with the manufacturers rather than just blindly following all their recommendations without question. We should be their R&D dept. Perhaps they do have chosen customers who do so. It would be a grand idea.
Last edited by RAT 5; 21st Sep 2016 at 09:20.