If you just check the altitude vrs. DME, without temperature compensation, as a procedure, you could be really low; to check each fix could take 10-15 minutes in a holding pattern. TC probably said, "Why bother? Don't want that can of worms! Just let's not reference DME vrs. Altitude." Sam
But why would you not check the vertical profile whether required by SOPs or not.
Isn't there an element of self preservation in all of us pilots.
mcdhu
I'll admit to not having read the whole thread, or not yet the whole TSB report. For interest I'll be seeing an AC mate from B767 fleet and ask him about their type SOP's. But the above comment raises the question that is becoming more common; what should you do, from an airmanship point of view, outside SOP's? In today's diluted training environment it is a very disturbing discussion. I flew for an airline that included the SBY ILS in the approach checks. i.e. switch in ON. It was then removed from the checklist so some pilots then concluded it was no longer necessary to switch it on for approach. Trained Monkey stuff. Those of us of longer tooth decided that airmanship dictated it was still a good idea. Indeed we'd been doing it before it was ever on the checklist. It somehow became an adopted procedure and we never knew why it was removed. However, even some 'still quite raw' new generation LTC's suggested it was no longer necessary during Line Checks of some of us dinosaurs. That led to interesting debates along the lines of "show me where it says I MUST NOT switch it on."
In more general terms it does disturb me that many training dept's are generating type rated LST passing pilots and them grooming them into company SOP obedient a/c operators. There is less and less the creation of type rated airman who operate according to company SOP's. It did make me laugh at an airline who trumpeted that they had comprehensive ultra-safe well proven SOP's that were binding: they then also suggested that airmanship was an SOP, but there was considerable lack of evidence of that amongst new generation crews on the line. They were either ignorant of the concept or felt too inhibited to apply any discretion.
Apologies for thread creep. Much has been thrashed out previously, but this is not about manual skills, rather management & operational skills. Is it that SOP's are diluting self-preserving airmanship techniques?