Originally Posted by
RAT 5
It does worry me that basic airmanship needs to be written in an SOP. Clue? Look out the window. Can you see where you are going? No. Check TAT ref: EAI, 2nd turn on Wx Radar. The problem with too many SOP's is it dilutes airmanship because guys stop thinking. There is no SOP to increase thrust if you need to climb. It is just what you need to do. Let's get back to airman and not trained monkeys.
Could not agree more... More and more pilots just follow blindly SOP imposed by the company but do not try to really understand why are we doing that, does it really make sense? Etc...It's not because it's in the SOP, it's the best way to go. Of course we are paid to follow the SOP and we shall do it. But let's be honest sometimes we have to admit some airlines established some very questionable rules. The most recent example I can think of is: To have a cabin crew in the cockpit for safer operation when one pilot goes to the toilet. Like a cabin could prevent a pilot to crash an aircraft.
This was one the dumbest aviation rule of 2016, hands down.
Originally Posted by
Avenger
low level windshear can occur in clear skies depending on the topography. As commented, some "States" require weather radar to be on when transiting their airspace. There is no evidence that the WX Radar is harmful to crew as it points forward, although the constant grind of the gimble can be annoying. Guess we just stick to SOPs and let other higher powers decide!
Hi Avenger, the predictive windshear function on Airbus A 320 Family is always ON regardless of the radar system status if equipped but active only
when flying below 2300 feet AGL. And the reactive windshear is independent of the radar system so flying with radar off or on will make no difference. I guess Airbus thought about everything.
Originally Posted by
PENKO
Working for a WX radar on company, the largest A320 operator in the world I'm led to believe, I have NEVER encountered or heard of a WX-radar being unserviceable.
Hi Penko,
Funny you mentioned that cause actually it happened on a flight where I was passenger. it was an A330 and after 1H10 of flight time, the captain made an announcement due to technical problem, we had to turn back. I managed to talk to the captain on the ground and he told me it was due to radar mechanism failure. And yes, this airline required the crew to operate the radar all the time... So I was wondering maybe if they were not abusing of it, these kind of problem might happen less often?
What about a proper ground training to the crew on how to use the weather radar? Instead of having useless class like Dangerous Goods every 2 years no pilots care about. So many folks just blindly turn the Radar on and leave it on auto mode the entire flight and I'm pretty sure they don't really know how to use on manual mode when required.