Modern Training erroding pilot skills

[egbt]

Article by Mark Townsend reporting BALPA concerns

"Airline pilots increasingly lack 'basic flying skills' and may be unable to cope with an in-flight emergency such as sudden machine failure, internal documents from Britain's major pilots' union claim"

"[] because pilots are not being encouraged or trained to fly manually"

In full here (http://observer.guardian.co.uk/uk_news/story/0,6903,1553443,00.html)

[pax britanica]

As a humble but regular member of the SLF community I am obviously interested in the competence of the people in the front seats. I am probably in a minority but safety and competence -at least perceived- are factors in choosing how I fly not just who is the cheapest.

I read the full article from the link and one thing that came across to me was the spread of idiotic 'management speak' into the flying side of aviation. Witness the words of the spokesperson for the aviation industry. He said

'I don't share these concerns. Airlines are tying to make training more efficient but are not compromising on safety. It is true that we have moved towards a more simulator-based system, but that is more like a real aeroplane and is not a saving on safety.'

So a simulator is more like a real aeroplane than what ??? errrr a real aeroplane??? The quote sounds good but is actually rubbish.

I suppose the real balance that has to be struck ,and I am sure it is not easy to assess this, is can the automatics fly a Heathrow SID through the maze of Inbound tracks and holding patterns more accurately than a pilot -an every day occurance- as opposed the the less likely scenario of a engine out approach to Aberdeen in heavy rain and a 30kt cross wind when the automatic features can't do a lot to help and traditional handling skills are critical.

PB

[Centaurus]

With a modicum of commonsense, it is easy for airline pilots to improve their skills at basic aircraft handling. On the majority of route flights there are many opportunities where turning off the flight director and the autothrottle and then disconnecting the autopilot, will not compromise perceived flight safety. Of course, you pick the time and place but it is a rare flight where the safety of the flight is compromised unless all the automtic gizmo's are locked in. But like I said -you pick the time and place.

It is my experience, however, that a good proportion of pilots are simply too lazy to be bothered to take the opportunity when it presents itself to actually fly the aircraft, rather than simply twiddle knobs and let the automatics take the aircraft from A to B.

While it can be a chore to fly by hand with the FD and AT switched off, this is a poor excuse. You have to decide whether you should maintain equal skills at both automatics monitoring and raw data hand flying - or whether raw data skills are simply irrelevant in glass cockpits. Ask yourself if a CAA examiner testing you for an instrument rating renewal would prefer you to conduct an NDB approach by basic RMI hand flying or by LNAV on automatics. Which one is a sure test of your basic handling skills?

Individual twitch factors come into play with some captains. Some mutter in their beards when the first officer asks can he please turn of the FD and hand fly a climb or descent. The comfort zone of the captain of the ship has been invaded. Others, more wise, will say go for it - within bounds of commonsense airmanship.

For some pilots the automatics are a vital crutch because deep inside they are aware of their own rustiness but dare not admit it in front of a junior. Arguments on the subject of automatics dependancy will go for many years to come. One thing is for sure and that is this blind dependancy erodes natural flying skills.

[Flying Torquewrench]

Totally agree with you Centaurus.

Fly a bus myself and i enjoy it much more when i can take out the automatics and fly the STAR manually. It is much better than only turning some knobs and kick out the autopilot at 500 feet.

However like you mentioned already not every captain likes it when you do this. Even on a calm, cavok day with almost no traffic around. But on the other hand some company's prohibit the use of manual thrust on the A32X. So you can't blame pilots from this outfit to be a bit rusty on the use of manual thrust.

Personally i think it's part of your job to keep your handflying up to scrath as well. If the autoamtics fail on a demanding SID/STARt at least you know what you are doing.

FT

[A and C]

At last a well balanced thread with constructive coments ......... How long can this last?

[Studebaker978]

I do share this concern. Myself I have flown A32O family and A330 for several years now. I still fly very regularly raw dat take offs, landings and even sectors. As said before, all based on the right time and the right conditions. And I am proud to say that my hand flying skills are still as sharp asever.

However.....This can not be said of most of my colleagues. I used to fly for a major European carrier where everybody more or less had the same flying skills. We used to enjoy handflying a lot, in fact it was recommended to practice.
Since a couple of years I have been flying in the middle east with people from all over the world....

And here those basics are totally gone. The company allows handflying ( AP, AT and FD off) but people are affraid of it. No practice so the skills go away eventually.
And this shows in the sim.....AP off is ok but once we go further the plane is all over the sky.

Who is to blame?

First of all....ourselves! We should force ourselve once in a while to fly the plane iso managing the buttons.

Management can push their pilots more etc...

A lot of big ( mostly UK influenced ) companies however dont allow this hence the results...

Another flaw is the dissappearence of the aviation basics: 1/60 rules, holding entries and calculations, lapse rates, descent profiles etc.....OK, we do not really need all this in our daily lives but maybe, one day , we will need it again!!!!

[Rananim]

In my experience, the hand-flying pilot is often oblivious to the workload of the non-handler. To fly, blinkers on, following a flight director, may make us feel more important, but I reckon it misses the point. I am certain there are more missed r/t calls, repeated requests cross-cockpit, and mis-selections by non-handlers caused by inappropriate hand-flying in busy environments

I am not sure I get your point here;does it make someone feel important to do the job that they have trained for and are paid to do?You have inadvertently detailed the very dangers of over-reliance on automation,not those of manual flying.Manual flying that leads to attention deficit,whether it be on the part of the pilot flying or the pilot monitoring,is not reason to desist from that practice,but rather justification for continuing to practice it until the skill is mastered.
Flightpath control by exclusive use of the FMCS makes you,by definition,a systems manager,not a pilot.It is a perfectly valid method of flightpath control and a skill in itself.Manual manipulation of the flt controls by reference to the flight director is yet another valid method of flightpath control and a skill that must be mastered(esp.the ability to anticipate the f/d or "see through" the cross-bars).Manual flying without any FMCS interaction is the third and final method of flightpath control and it too must be mastered to the point where no attention deficit exists.This final method is by far the most important as you might have to resort to this modus operandi during an emergency where any attention deficit could well prove fatal.
Folklore says that a good skipper can fly an ILS to minimums at night with 20 knots x-wind on standby instruments and that he can do it in his sleep.
How,where and when you keep these vital skills current should be left to the pilot's good judgement and not mandated in any SOP manual.The airline already trusts in your judgement;they hired you.

[xodus]

are we that lazy?
FL100 bling bling autopilot disconnect A/T too, surely we know our power settings for each stage of flight.. not saying its "fun" but surley we know where everything sould be or else we not monitoring the automatics.

you know when it is the "sim" coming up, for me its the worst flying seen, but if you spend one flight a week raw data, no need for this sim next week give this a go attitude.....

[Flight Detent]

I'm confused here,

Surely we're not suggesting that flying the airbus with those side-sticks is referred to as 'manual flying'!

I've always been Lockheed and Boeing trained, but to my mind, that side-stick is just another form of autopilot!

Further, airbus pilots don't have the capability to 'hand fly' their machines at any time, outside the airbus interpretation of hand flying.

I've always referred to 'hand flying' in the conventional sense, that is, with no computer aids at all, purely the inputs from the pilot on raw data. Surely you airbus pilots remember hand flying....don't you?

Cheers, I think! :uhoh:

[Ignition Override]

B-757 Captains during my 757 FO years (over three) sometimes hand-flew the plane to above FL 180 in good weather (but not on the east coast). Is this a disturbing thought for anyone? By the way, if you see a Resolution Advisory on the IVSI, you can react much quicker and better. As usual, this topic on Pprune might not apply to the pilot culture in the US. In the 1980s, pilots hired by major airlines here all had about 3,000-6,000 or more hours if from a transport background, and often 1,500-3,000 if they flew military trainers/tactical jets/small turboprops (i.e. T-34 or OV-10). In the 90s, most transport guys/gals (gals at my company) had at least around 4-5,000 hours, for the most part. They are our ("my") FOs . :D

Therefore, unless one was trained to avoid hand-flying in the simulator during Initial Training, i.e. using MCP/FMC modes for Cat 2,3 ILS and certainly " VS mode" for ALL non-precision approaches, a pilot always had a very solid background to lean on. Maybe the Airbus philosophy, being foreign, assumes that pilots will always use as much automation as possible? For many, older and even younger pilots, figuring out combinations of Boeing autopilot/flight director/autothrottles was a challenging experience. They never had a problem with real hand-flying, as long as they could guess which power setting to use (if autothrottles inop. per MEL, or not) and the non-flying pilot kept up with FMC and MCP changes plus radio calls and checklists during climbs and descents :) . "On a 'two to go' callout, how do we reduce thrust for a modest climb rate and avoid an abrupt level-off"? "Oh, somebody said to set the Vertical Speed mode and use 1500-2,000 fpm, etc!"

Reading Pprune, I'm always baffled by the fact that many foreign airline cultures tend to discourage hand-flying the plane. Is this in lands which have little general aviation, due to weather and very high cost? The ironic point for laymen is that until one gets used to most modern transport aircraft, the automation is NOT at all automatic-modes and changes are constantly required. The airplane does NOT know what we want to do, or change :oh: . There can be three vertical and three or four lateral navigation modes (enroute or approach). We must tell it at what point we need to be at i.e. 12,000' and 250 knots etc. Due to the constant need to extend speedbrakes, it takes a good bit of getting used to, due to the fact that they are difficult to descend and slow (757 and A-320).

Do many Fleet Captains and Chief Pilots not have faith in their line pilots, or do they feel that mgmt is not getting the most value from the airplane, or both? Do they only trust their standard operating procedures, or should developing pilot judgement and experience not translate into long-term safety, provided the traffic and weather situations/terrain are near optimum, along with normal system operations?

[FlyVMO]

It is, IMHO, our responsibility as pilots to maintain proficient hand flying skills. It is true that Autoflight systems are very reliable, but anything built by man is subject to failure at some point. Additionally there is always some contingency that the engineers did not think of, they cant possibly be expected to think of every remote possibility. Yes I know thats why there are two or even three of everything on board, redundancy and all that. Im sure there was also a group of United mechanics saying "they cant possibly have lost all 3 hydraulic systems" while 4 guys were fighting with a DC-10 over the midwest US a while back (United 232).
My point is only this, anything can happen, and if doing a little hand flying when the opportunity presents itself can make you better able to handle more of "anything", well why not?
Like I said, just my opinion.:D

[Soft Altitude]

It is difficult to forget or get "rusty" on something one has never acquired properly. I believe hand flying basics get to be learned from the very first hours in one's flying school. After that, one is supposed to build up on experience on those basics and later on eventually adjust it for the type of aircraft he/she is flying.

Hand flying should be allowed and even encouraged in airlines, as said above : choose the place and time.

From my experience, I am amazed how many experienced pilots just got through the "net" into airliners, with below standard raw data and hand flying skills, to the point that landings really look like controlled crashes. This situation of course being aggravated with the "Bus"type of automation where you actually never fly manually the aircraft, unless you go into "Direct law" following some failures.

I havent seen many guys doing a proper raw data ILS with a "Bus" with all the automation and Flight path vector taken out, although I reckon it might be a little bit of a hard work, due to the sidestick type of flying philosophy;"No FPV ! Kamikaze type of flying" they say in the airline I work for. Kamikaze may be, but the FPV is just another FD, and there goes your raw data hand flown approach.

[jaja]

After reading the insteresting posts on this thread, I sit with a feeling of being among "old" people, who are talking about the good old days.

Time changes, and so do airplanes, and which skills are needed.

We are not in 1930 doing the mailrun, using basic stick and rudder. Or in 1950 doing transatlantic flights, using celestrial navigation.

The skills needed today are much more of a "management" type, and not so much "hands on". All professional pilots are fully capable of as much manually flying as needed for todays flying.

[A and C]

The most interesting comment above is that the high cost of GA in Europe leads to pilots reaching the right seat of an airliner with the minimum of hand flying skills.
I find this ironic that in the UK it is percived that we have the highest standards of pilot training we now have "Airline preperation programs" run by the big training companys ( Oxford, Cabair etc) that reject pilots who have done some GA flying.

Yes these companys will take the £20,000 that it will take these modular students to get a CPL/IR but even if they are very good will not help them to get a job, however pay £60,000 for the modular course that takes the student from zero flight time to the CPL/IR and the training companys will recomend these people to airlines.

I have seen APP students fail flight tests and then get recomended to airlines when modular students from the same company don't get an airline recomendation even when they pass all the tests first time!.

This skill errosion will only get worse with the CAA review of charges , this British airways driven idea is to try and get the CAA charges down and transfer them to the GA sector.
This will only have the effect of further driving up the cost of GA flying, eventualy BA and the rest of the airline industry will pay the price for this "short term thinking" but by then the bean counters responsable will have moved on to mis-manage another industry with short term policys.

[egbt]

Now that the thread has got going I’ll put in my thoughts that seemed inappropriate when I started it.

First I agree 100% with A and C in his first post; a well balanced thread is an endangered species, lets not get into a Europe vs US or Boeing vs Airbus fight this time! :ok:

I’m only a 100 hour PPL having learnt late in life, but as a very frequent traveller (and systems engineer) I would much prefer both pilots to be current at flying the aircraft without the autopilot. One of my favourite aphorisms is that “A fail safe system fails, when it fails to fail safe”, the pilots are partly (largely?) there to cope with these potential failures, either by managing the systems appropriately or by “hand flying” as becomes necessary. It appears to me therefore that not being current at “hand flying” removes a large part of an important aspect of flight safety, after all why did you guys have to build the hours in SEP and MEP rather than in a low tech simulator before moving on?

Not having flown a full simulator I leave it to others to comment the effectiveness in practising for “hand flying” in them.

[7gcbc]

I often fly circuits from early downwind to 500 on finals using only trim and rudder, (sure its occasionally a sloppy circuit and difficult to be accurate- I only do it when its empty) but it gives me confidence that I know the aircraft and what she'll do If I ever lost aerlion or elevator or both). 3 deg approachs on a light single (as they are taught) also give me the willies.........

I know you guys are probably all RPT's , but do you ever get the chance to "see" what a 757/73 in a sideslip is like, or play with the asyms and not use rudder to pickup the wings ?

Ps was on an Egyptair bus into luxor a few years back, and that guy did a class 1 x-wind, wing low landing, even holding the wing down on the tarmac until opposite came down naturally, I spoke to the FO (same hotel) later and he told me the Xwind was 20-25 and that it was a manual landing. I was impressed, he did not use the rudder to "hunt" for his best picture, nor seemingly I recall bank, he just pretty much got it right, which in a 320/321 was pretty damn impressive.

Apologies in advance if its a stupid question.

edit(changed "it" to "opposite")

[on the glide]

Gus/Gals,

It's nice to hear all the respond and it's part of the crm anyway...

Have a safe flight,

O_g:ok:

[daidalos]

May I add my two cents in this thread?
Thank you.
Hand flying is hand flying, even in the Columbia!
I am not sure if the … Boeing guys have any experience in the new Airbus fleet, but the maneuvers that you need to do, with autopilot and autothrust off are almost the same (as I recall from my Boeing days, and they were a lot!).
As a matter of fact, it would be more appropriate to put the yaw dumper off, even in the Boeing a/c and while we are at it, let’s switch the HYD off, so that the feeling will be completely “truthful”?
Let’s get serious. Hand flying, which is allowed and encouraged in my airline, is a very good practice. You need the practice, so that whenever you have one or two automations missing, you will be able to cope easier.
It doesn’t have to be completely manual and definitely you’re not going to do it into a busy airport, like LHR, for instance.

[RMC]

7gcbc- sideslipping a swept wing a/c is a huge no no.

Flying is a degradeable skill....if you dont use it you lose it.

Remember the chalk on the wall analogy. People with 15,000 hours will lose the skills slower than the 1000 autopilot merchants.

This is not only my view but that of the CAA - check out FODC 24/2004 www.caa.co.uk/publications.

Our part A encourages you to take the flight director out. We have just started doing total electrical failures in the sim (manual flying on standbys only) if you want a reason to keep current with hand flying you need to look at the results.

My aircraft type mandates manual flying for the single engine go-around , TCAS avoidance , EGPWS and Windshear recovery. All relatively high stress manoeuvres which do not need to be carried out by people "frightened" of flying the aircraft manually.

Yes some of our AP in at 1000' out at decide pilots are afraid of the aircraft (stressed out / sweat like pigsetc ) when flying manual approaches.

[egbt]

RMC

duff link there old chap hopefully this one (http://www.caa.co.uk/docs/33/FOD200424.PDF) will take people directly there (small pdf).

regards

[ZQA297/30]

I have two small observations.

1.To function effectively as a manager you need to have a fair idea of the "managee's" job. Applies to systems just like people.
2. Many emergencies do not happen "according to the book".

The automation flies "by the book".
When it is not a "book" situation, you are on your own. This would be a good time to have some old fashioned thinking/handling skills.

[toomuchradiations]

I DO NOT AGREE WITH " A TO C" interpretation of Oxford and cabair Modus operandi.

the truth is that Airlines are NOT interested in modular students so they ask for Integrated students.

Why do they prefer integrated??.....because they went through a selection before joining the school, because they average MUCH higher grades in the ATPL subjects and in flight tests. This is a FACT. (if you dont believe me go and check it out at the CAA).

Airlines prefer Integrated students because they know EXACTLY where these people have trained and that all of their training was under a very RELIABLE and HIGH STANDARD organization such as Oxford or Cabair.

[7gcbc]

toomuchradiations,

Its actually quite common for prospective employers to remove "unknown" risk when considering candidates, and the route through Cabair and Oxford may indeed just do that, it's no guarantee from the employee performance point of view , however it removes the risk of employing a non-starter.

All the investment banks do this, however they are smart enought to not confine themselves to just one or two uni's

I use the work "unknown" because until you have the pudding on you're spoon, its all conjecture, the best candidate on paper may turn out to be a no-hoper, and the worst candidate may often thrive, that said, the method of going in using the two schools you mentioned is pretty solid based on historical requirements.

I don't speak from aviation experience in this respect, however in the commercial business world, there is a significant amount of bias towards the top-end Universities, and who can blame the employers, although I have to add one point, the graduates/candidates only "shine" *after* they have been exposed to the work in anger, and not before - it's the same in any industry, with one or two execptions. Indeed some of the best on paper turn out to be incapable of "dealing" with people and adverse to teamwork, and the middle level candidates (all rounders - no genuis, but very comfortable) seem to be the best at making the runs, I have seen more than enough MBA grads come through and "read it like a book" and they all fail to a man, you can't learn this stuff in a classroom, it just does not cut it, yes learn the basics and get through and remove the "intellectual-capability-risk" but after that, when you start "work" its a whole different ball game.........


RMC,

I don't see why you can't sideslip a swept 75/76/73 gently enough to see how it works, and keeping the Vmin or (stall) margin high enough and within weights, I can't see how it can cause problems (anhyedral excepted). ?


edit: changed "perceived" to "unknown" - late night, kids driving me crazy, brain muddle...

[FLCH]

I don't see why you can't sideslip a swept 75/76/73 gently enough to see how it works, and keeping the Vmin or (stall) margin high enough and within weights, I can't see how it can cause problems (anhyedral excepted). ?

How about taking the chance of blanking some of the airflow into the jet engines at low altitude/airspeed ?? Cough ...spit ....sputter Oh my look at that EGT !

[A and C]

It's all about money The training set ups are all making far more money from the integrated students so that they can afford to offer a deal that compensates the airline if the pilot that they have sent is not up to the job after six sim details.

The deal is simple the training companys only take the people that they think will be a low training risk , charge them a bit over the top to cover the odd one who fails the airline sim. Add to this some sort of tax deal that the airlines get (I've not got to the bottom of that one yet) it all adds up to a money thing.

I should think that the integrated students would do better at the exams as to cut down on the risk to the traininng companys they are in a full time training enviroment the modular student has to balance his training with a job that is paying for the training.

On the whole the modular student has a much harder time getting the CPL/IR and tend to be more commited.

As the company that I work for has just gone down the "integrated" recrutment path it will be interesting to see if we get people who have some hand flying skill or a magenta line kindergarden and I will do my best to keep an open mind untill this is proven one way or the other but I would much rather the FO sitting next to me had done 700 hours instructing or glider tugging before setting out for an airline job.

[Huck]

I have flown MD11's for two US carriers now, and was also contract trained by a third carrier and MD in Long Beach.

The MD11 has undergone an interesting evolution in this area, from a strong "do not touch it" philosophy that sprang from the manufacturer, to today's environment where proficiency in ALL levels of automation is required.

At my last employer, I was known for clicking off the autothrottles any time I hand flew an approach. A junior FO turned me in to the head of standards, who emailed me to stop doing this.

I wrote him back that if he would put a letter in my file stating that I was not responsible for flying with A/T deferred, I would stop practicing for such a scenario. I never heard back from him.

[Centaurus]

One of the most thought provoking experiences that I have ever witnessed was in a Boeing 737-200 simulator where I was conducting type rating training on a highly experienced SE Asia born airline captain.

He was asked to intercept a VOR radial while climbing at 250 knots on a departure. He was on autopilot. The first officer had only 300 hours total time. Both pilots displayed some lack of familiarity with RMI interpretation.

Asked to now hand fly and level out at 8000 ft, the captain showed lack of familiarity with basic cross-reference skills. Without warning his ADI failed (became frozen) during a level turn but neither he or his F/O noticed this until the captain was asked to take up a new heading.

Despite a comparitor light showing , the captain steadily wound on ever increasing angle of bank (ADI was "frozen) while attempting to turn to the new heading. The standby ADI and the F/O ADI were operating normally. The simulator was set on night IMC scene.

With the "frozen" ADI still not responding to his roll input, the aircraft became inverted due to the captain's continued roll inputs.
The nose dropped and at this stage the captain looked puzzled as he felt that obviously something was not quite right.

The F/O's eyes were staring at his own ADI and he seemed frozen in fear as the IVSI went off the clock. He sat on his hands and said nothing because he simply was out of his depth.

Passing through around 120 degrees angle of bank and 20 degrees nose down, the captain suddenly looked at the standby ADI (correct) indication, and disbelievingly called out "Standby ADI failure!" He then proceeded to reach over and pull the standby ADI caging knob. The no doubt astonished standby ADI did what it was told and showed "level" flight under the influence of the pulled caging knob. After several thousand feet of altitude had been carved off it was clear that the plot was lost, so the instructor froze the simulator in order to knock off for morning tea and a little chat.

Automatics complacency can do those things to some pilots.

[swish266]

Our current base check syllabus for the Captain is dual AC fail after t/o RW16 on ALBIX 1R SID at LSZH.
Vis 400m.
Dont U pax guys worry. No matter how rusty we get we can still hand fly wide body twins.
Shame on companies quoted to encourage autolands and auto approaches.
As to d previous post... I never used to position on a Vietnam Airlines flight with no expat on the crew...
Hear dese days sit is d same dere...
So choose carefully whom U fly with...
Unfortunately I know one of the badly injured pax on AF358... as well. She will only be able to walk after one year wit an artificial kneecap...
So even d Gods make mistakes...
:mad:
P.S. So let us enjoy the money that can buy us nice yachts and fast cars or else we will have more "feed the computer Dude, and stay away from the controls" pilots' CRASHES

[Croqueteer]

I retired from airline flying a year and a half ago, and have been worried about falling hand flying standards for a few years. A fact that has not been mentioned is that companies that strongly discourage hand flying and raw data flying can promote an F/O that has only been in the airline environment then expect him to fly low level circuits in poor Wx around the bottom of an Alpine valley (or any class C field) after only six months in the seat.

[Piltdown Man]

And how do we know? Lot's of manual flying to, wait for it... practice for the sim. IMHO, this is not how it's meant to be. The sim should be used as a learning tool, not as a chopping and trapping tool. Unfortunately we too (as an industry) have gone along with the "tick the box to cover ourselves and then blame the pilot if it looks like it will get the laywers of the company's back" route. Lawyers and Human Remains... don't get me started!

[mbcxharm]

Going slightly off topic, sorry: Am I not sideslipping when I do a wing-down crosswind landing in a jet?

[blackwatergoblin]

mbcxharm.

If you are doing it right, with wing down into wind and a little opposite rudder you are still tracking straight down the runway centreline.

If you were sidesipping you would be tracking forwards and in the direction of the lower wing i.e diagonally.

God, are there any stick and rudder guys out there anymore or is it just the fly by numbers products of these flying school factories that mummy and daddy pay a fortune to so as to be able to tell their dinner guests that the fruit of their loins is an Airline Pilot?!


Blackwatergoblin

[oic]

"If you were sidesipping you woud be tracking forwards and in the direction of the lower wing i.e diagonally."

Ehhh..... that is exactly what you are doing, relative to the wind.

[7gcbc]

splitting hairs here maybe , but any wingdown opp rudder is a slip, in heavies perhaps its not so as evident ?

gotta love the "kinetic" push at the end of the slip tho, anyone want to explain that in plain english to a dumbo ?

[mbcxharm]

oic:

That's my point exactly...

[Earthmover]

Piltdown Man - how true you speak!

The JAR FCL LPC is an almost totally "testing" routine - I, and several of my colleagues have been chewed-off by the Training Inspectorate for 'instructing on a test'. I LOATHE the principle that I now have sit there with my mouth shut. Make cock-up? - Fail, tick the box. Every trainer used to know precisely when to apply discretion - not any more, you can lose your TRI/TRE in minutes with one particular Inspector (who, rumour has it, has never worked in the industry as an actual airline pilot.) Hate it - it's gone back 40 years.

High standards are maintained by continuation training not continuation testing.

[blackwatergoblin]

oic

"Ehhh..... that is exactly what you are doing, relative to the wind"

Ehhh....Splitting Hairs, relative airflow!

I always used the sideslip as a maneuvre to lose height without gaining airspeed just before a spray run in my more basic but happier days, it had nothing to do with the wind or it's direction at all.

Maybe I just got it wrong for a whole lot of years!

BWG

[A and C]

I can assure you that I am a sick and rudder luddite and I am alive and well but I suspect that I am on EASA's hit list !

[egbt]

Piltdown Man

Good point

I seem to remember an incident report that’s pertinent to your post, FO has a sim check coming up so flys the approach into LGW with auto-thrust off in marginal conditions and bumps the tail.

O dear I was suggesting hand flying is a good thing, perhaps I just shot myself in the foot :{ :ouch:

On second thoughts no, if he had been in practice it probably would not have happened. :E

[RMC]

7GCBC

Dai Davies (ARB Chief Test Pilot) view from "Handling the Big Jets"
"It is wrong in princple to allow a swept wing a/c to suffer significant angles of sideslip"

The difference in apparent airflow between leading and trailing wings can cause a spin at low speeds.

Large sideslip angles via abrupt inputs can also cause engine surge/stall.

A couple of degrees in ground effect is not a major issue.

[Little Friend]

Would the test pilot explain EXACTLY why you can not side slip a Boeing in modest cross winds.

And would the test pilots mate explain EXACTLY why the engine will fail, near to the ground mind, if you so much a think of x-controls.

When I was on the Gemini program we did not take Oxford cadets-real pain in the butt-lots of trap and no ability. This was a view I held all the way through as head of the Staturn program untill I retired recently as head of manual flight skills for NASA/TOP GUN.

[Loose rivets]

This is something that I feel very, very strongly about…but my thoughts have all been said in an impassioned chapter at the end of Davis’ HTBJs--later editions.

[brain fade]

I hope this won't be taken as 'thread creep'. What about visual apps? Sure you can do 'em autos in or out or FD on/off. Great practice tho and an excellent chance to get rid of the AP and the FD for the most interesting bit of the sector.
Seeing my fellow pilots around Europe leads me to conclude that for many a 'visual' is something to avoid; whether it's laziness, lack of confidence, company procedures or lack of hand flying skill or maybe a combination of these thats to blame I know not.
But.
1. It can save time
2. It can save fuel
3. It helps prevent queues building up.
4. Keeps your hand flying skills sharper
5. Makes you think out your own approach instead of relying on ATC
6. It's fun!:ok:

Of course not a go-er everywhere but still possible often and at some airports more than others.

[PAXboy]

Earthmover I LOATHE the principle that I now have sit there with my mouth shut. Make cock-up? - Fail, tick the box. How is it possible for a company to take a valuable member of staff (Cpt / FO) and put them through their six monthly check and yet risk them 'failing' because they have turned the Instructor into a Tester?

I was followign this thread with interest as I recall a similar one a couple of years ago and was recalling that one reported problem was with carriers insisting that automatics were used more in oder to save fuel and so forth.

After 27 years in commerce and govt, I thought that I had heard most of it but this new peice of information from Earthmover, really leaves me aghast.

[L337]

Make cock-up? - Fail, tick the box

Not strictly true.

Make cock-up. If relatively minor or with an easy solution. Verbal debrief, then do it again. If another cock up fail that bit. First attempt fail. Wait till end, then instructors hat on. Practice that bit until it is proficient. Then put testers hat back on. Do it again, if then not good enough. Second attempt fail. Fail check. If five or more first attempt fails. Fail check.

L337

[FullWings]

Slightly OT here but where has all the fear of sideslipping come from? All the Boeings I have flown are pretty docile up to quite a large slip angle. Indeed, the test pilots themselves are usually keen to demonstrate this to anyone interested.

If you land "wing down" in a 40kt crosswind (I find this the easiest method), you are in a sideslip, the same as you are immediately after liftoff in the same conditions. OK, if you whack in full rudder and aileron in a highly streamlined aircraft there might be trouble ahead but contemporary subsonic wings seem to be more about higher aspect ratio/larger span than excessive sweepback.

Modern engine inlets are quite happy working against some quite radical angles of airflow and turbulence - all part of the certification. If it was that bad, crosswind takeoffs woudn't be allowed!

[Huck]

...where has all the fear of sideslipping come from?


Our MD11 procedure is to put in the correction by 300' agl on final.

I don't particularly care for this (VERY hard to do in the sim - visuals get screwed up) but there you are.

[Ignition Override]

Fullwings: Which airplane can sustain landing in a 40 knot crosswind? Can most line pilots avoid exceeding the max. bank angle?

This must be an exaggeration. Even if limitations state 38 knots on a dry runway was flown by factory test pilots, I've seen no actual "line pilots" (guys/gals with over 30-35 years flying) attempt over about 30 knots; probably doubtful that the runway could be dry. And what if a reverser or autospoiler is on MEL? :ugh:

[A and C]

On my last sector as an FO the captain let me land the aircraft (738) with 40 kt at 90 degrees to the runway.

The guy's attitude was that next time I was faced with the situation I would have no one to help me if I was getting it wrong.

The most chalanging approach that I have flown was into MAN a few months back , it was a quatering croswind 20 gusting 48kt with a lot of turbulance a number of guys went around and diverted but with the condtitons changing by the second I think that I might have got lucky with the weather and would not seek to question any one who diverted that day.

However I don't think that my skills as a pilot are anything other than average but my hand flying skills are probably a bit sharper than most because I fly a lot of light aircraft and this keeps me in practice, I feel that with the same amount of practice most pilots would be equaly happy to hand fly aircraft to the flight manual limmits if it was wise to do so under the prevailing conditions.

[Ignition Override]

Pardon this question. It is not intended as anything negative.

Pprune is basically a British ("Commonwealth")/European website.

I have a huge amount of respect for what the RAF and RN achieved in WW2 (other nations, on the Continent or elsewhere, also had some amazingly skilled pilots). Most RAF transports and bombers were flown by only one, single pilot! The British aviation industry produced numerous excellent aircraft, even long after the war, and never stopped.

Is it just possible, that British aviation, or othe nations' aviation cultures, subconsciously "rests on their laurels", i.e. having a nation that survived 1940-1945 (or did their utmost to survive...)partly due to aviation's accomplishments, and results in a lack of appreciation for hand-flying skills? Does the lousy weather and reliance on instruments result in too much faith in SOP, or is it parly due to the crowded airspace over there (like the eastern US)?

[A and C]

Having flown for both an American part 121 airline and a few brithsh airlines I think that what you have to say about the crowded airspace has a lot to do with the degrading of skills however a lot of the new generation of pilots flight training has been via the JAA integrated course and the student has to pick up a $75,000 tab so the pressure is on to do the course with the minimum required time and so flying for practice is not encouraged or te student simply can't afford to do it.

The guy's then have to pay for the type airliner traninng and likewise that is done to the minimum standard with the minimum amount of time in the sim.

The JAA thinks that by insisting on approved courses and closely comtroled traininng that has someone into an airliner flight deck with only 250 hours real flying and one sim course that they are upholding flying standards when quite the opposite is true and to my deep dismay things are going to get worse with all the sim based training that the JAA propose.

In the old days the airlines paid for the lucky few (the very best people that they could get) to do the approved course and with 250 hours these people could probably fly the aircraft but the rest if us had to go the non-approved route and do 700 hours in light aircraft before a CPL was issued (we could instruct or glider tug on a PPL) this provided the airlines with pilots how had a lot of hand flying practice and had been "in comand" of an aircraft without too much outside supervision.
This situation did not put money in the hands of the big training companys so they put the pressure on the JAA to come up with the CPL/ATPL as we now have it.

[FullWings]

Fullwings: Which airplane can sustain landing in a 40 knot crosswind?Most modern jets, certainly all the Boeings I can think of. We used to have all sorts of funny limits as they were the worst crosswind that had been encountered during certification. Nowadays I think they use simulations to arrive at the limiting figures. Airlines also differ widely with their policies in this respect.
Can most line pilots avoid exceeding the max. bank angle?I would hope so. In my company you have to demonstrate competence in limiting crosswinds (in the sim) before getting your fourth stripe. I think most contemporary twins provide quite a decent margin before ground contact of the airframe. I don't feel this technique will become popular on the Jumbo, though.:ouch: Some use "wing down" to remove a proportion of the drift angle and do the rest very close to the runway or even let the landing gear absorb the offset.
This must be an exaggeration. Even if limitations state 38 knots on a dry runway was flown by factory test pilots, I've seen no actual "line pilots" (guys/gals with over 30-35 years flying) attempt over about 30 knots; probably doubtful that the runway could be dry. And what if a reverser or autospoiler is on MEL?I have no problem taking something to its AFM limitations: that's what they're there for. However, I reserve the right to discontinue an approach or even not attempt one if I (we) feel that I'm not coping/won't be able to cope with the prevailing conditions, whatever they are. There's a world of difference between a daytime landing in dry, steady x-wind conditions at, say, AMS and a night approach into HKG during a typhoon. Despite the numbers being identical.

If you have MEL items then you take careful note of any restrictions that apply to them, crosswinds being an obvious example. I'm not sure either of those defects above would affect x-wind limits on my type (not having an MEL to hand) but anything that affected control authority (hydraulics, etc.) certainly would.

[ironbutt57]

Airplanes of the future are not going to require "basic flying skills"...unfortunately.....bean counters rule.....the possibility that a future airliner mighe be lost due to the "pilots" not knowing how to actually fly it, and it maybe totally unflyable anyway..will be an "acceptable risk"....get the picture????:confused: :confused: :{

[calypso]

While the MEL allows dispatch with both aoutopilots u/s it is necesary to keep your handflying skills current. You can be asked at any time (and I have a few times) to handfly two or more sectors, sometimes into cat C airfileds, sometimes in challenging weather conditions often tired after a long day. Is this the time to start relearning old skills?

This also applies to circling approaches, TCAS RA'S, Winshear and GPWS scape maneuvers, failure of the automatics to operate normally without even going into elaborate hydraulic or electric failures.

Handflying skills are still required in an airline environment, at least for now.

[ironbutt57]

What skills in an Airbus fly by wire...GPWS escape...stick back???? windshear...stick back???? as it should be....airline flying is slowly being lowered to the lowest common denominator.....the human factor....they will never get rid of that because then there will be no one to blame....:p

[CPilotUK]

Below is an abstract from a major UK training organisation's website:

It is simply no longer the ability to fly the aircraft that matters. Much of your flying will actually be carried out through the autopilot and the flight management system.
Today you are expected to be the manger of a complex set of circumstances and equipment; to adapt to the ever changing real world around you. To operate commercially as well as exceed the expectations of the customers which pay your salary.

[Ignition Override]

You folks raised some very good points.

As Captain, I'm just a little more conservative on crosswinds over 15 knots on wet runways than as FO years ago (.:O ) . One go-around (this was spelled "ego around"! ...maybe this is THE only main point!) was due to sudden rain and just a crosswind as such: it was not very gusty and the runway fairly long-but nobody had braking action reports. The FO with me had been a KC-135 or AWACS Instructor Pilot, and I could have easily landed but the sudden increase in surface wind combined with lower visibility, when on a three mile final, inspired a message in my head. This subtle voice told me to not be the first to land (even if the other pilot felt that it was wimpy of me). Let's not forget about how slippery wet rubber can be in warm weather (might prefer thin patches of dry snow).

On dry asphalt, the max crosswinds I could probably handle ok, but the planes are certificated by factory test pilots with lots of practice, or at least that has always been my impression. My main problem has been to sometimes clarify, by calling tower, that there is not a sudden quartering tailwind on a short, wet runway. Automatic wind-reporting equipment has been known to malfunction (i.e., at SAT), stating the wrong wind direction, but if due to a rain shower, it can be best to stay at 2,000-3,000' etc and wait for the winds to slow down, at least the tailwind component (or get vectored out to an ILS in the opposite direction).

By the way, having never trained on the A-319/320, comments made about its inertia and handling in crosswinds always sounds interesting and puzzling. How much near maximum limits do regular LINE pilots operate on the A-320 etc?

[Bigmouth]

Handflying skills are still required in an airline environment
But not by airlines or regulating agencies.

airline flying is slowly being lowered to the lowest common denominator
...of necessity. With ever more cockpit seats needing to be filled, the skills of the average pilot are bound to decrease. Modern airliners are chock full of automation and safety features and company sop's are rigid and sometimes inane precisely so that even the 21year old, 250 hour non-wonder employed by save-a-penny airline can move the jet from A to B in a reasonably safe way - most of the time.

Back in '96-'97 UAL had a human resources department that preferred to hire low-time "nobodies" rather than the literally thousands of highly experienced and qualified pilots available then, as they felt that the young uns could be molded to fit the company profile better.
Unfortunately the game is still played that way in much of Europe and the rest of the world.

[pax britanica]

Regarding CpilotUKs post and quote from the training organisation.

Can anyone explain how an airline pilot can meaningfully exceed the expectations of the customers -ie the SLF-a position I do feel qualified to comment upon.

My expectations are that the people up front are competent and professionally trained and that they give me a safe comfortable ride. As I like aircraft a few informative words about the route and flight are always nice too-but how does any of this exceed customers expectations.

Does anyone seriously get on a plane with low expectations of the flight crews competence ?

Would I be comfortable witha voice from the flight deck saying - "Well folks LHR has 60kt crosswinds and everyone else has diverted but here at KrazeeAir we are going to get you down anyway-we aim to exceed your expecations"

These sorts of phrases and statements are dreamt up at weekend or evening Management Seminars -the objective being to come up with something that sounds or looks good litle thought being given to its relevance or practicality.

Perhaps someone should start a parallel thread on dangers posed by falling management standards-that might be nearer the mark. Case study One-British Airways-"I have a good idea boss -lets outsource the catering"

PB

[chuks]

I have the feeling that if you took the gamut of techniques from 'hand-flying all the time' to 'only taking the autopilot off at 80 feet to land' the mean has migrated in the direction of the latter over the years.

I spent most of my career flying light aircraft single-pilot, many of which simply had no autopilot. I guess I carried over an attitude that an autopilot is something in the 'nice to have' category rather than an integral design feature when I moved to flying Transport Category aircraft so that some people would get upset that I really wasn't all that interested in using it for everything all the time, including flying a basically visual pattern, say. I prefer to stay heads-up rather than going head-down to program the automatics if I am close-in with the field in sight; this makes perfect sense to me but seems to be heresy to some guys.

Too, I have noticed some of the younger guys baffled by some aspects of basic hand-flying such as a smooth touchdown on a cross-wind landing, when I was unable to give them absolutely quantifiable data to use.

You know, 'Use the sight picture to put the airplane where you want it and then try to "feel" what it is doing.' That makes sense but it's not quantifiable in the way that programming an FMS is. So I think some guys really like the quantifiable stuff and let the hand-flying stuff go as 'old-fashioned', perhaps?

I usually just excuse outbursts of hand-flying as 'getting ready for my sim check.' The truth is, though, I still enjoy hand-flying the aircraft. That is not to say that I do not know how to manage all the automatic stuff too. Oh, and in my spare time practice good CRM. (You know, if I really, really wanted to work with other people I would have been a pyschoanalyst or perhaps a counsellor to troubled youths. I went into flying to work with machines, and I end up working with people! Go figure...)

Shouldn't one be able to do ALL of this very well, preferences aside? That is what we are paid for, after all.

It sure does make it easier in the sim when you already can hand-fly the thing without too much strain, since the next thing that seems to happen is an autopilot failure of some sort once some situation arises.

[Scudsy]

Can't agree more. The better your scan and motor skills the better your stuational awareness. That simple formula has yet to be disproved. I have seen many inexperienced pilots attempt to "make" the autopilot do something that was needed in a hurry. The real solution was to disconect everything (even for just a while) and sort it out the old fashioned way and then plug it back in. There is some very interesting research out recently about TCAS events handled badly. Specifically adjust vertical speed. This would not be so if the whole culture was more hands on friendly. It's got to be a happy medium between automatic and manual. We've gone too far towards the automatic. I've been at work and the autopilot is U/S. The MEL (and the company) quite rightly say "operate the aircraft". (Ok you may not be in RVSM airspace but you're still going).
Are you ready for that tomorrow?

Those with experience must demostrate to help those without. Good weather, not tired, blah, blah, etc., of course...

[SR71]

I turned everything off 40 miles out of CWL this evening having gone visual.

At the end of the day 74, 73, F27, G5, PA28...if you can't make it go where you want looking out the window, you oughta be home on the porch.

;)

[Irish Steve]

I did a project a while back with BAE, where they were doing research on secondary systems on airbus. As part of that project, we had to provide a reasonably accurate simulation of the aircraft, as they were going to be using line crews from a locally based operator to "fly" the sim, which is a non motion reasonable representation of the basics of an A320.

We did one exercise in a Level D sim to find out more about the extremes of the envelope. Pretty much everything was disabled on the automatics, so we were flying a "raw" 320. The plan was to try and discover what the "basic" aircraft handled like without the assistance of all the computer protections.

It was "interesting", in that the first sim we tried it on could not be flown in manual reversion, in that if it suffered a gross upset, it became totally unstable, and eventually departed stable flight. We decided that the best way forward was to try the same exercise on a different manufacturers sim, and we ended up having to go trans atlantic to do so (pre 9-11). This time, it responded in a more predictable and expected manner, so we were able to complete the testing.

This is where it gets interesting. There were 2 of us flying the thing, neither of us type rated on Airbus, but with reasonable testing experience. In that no one had told us any different, we'd got to the stage of flying in manual reversion, with only power, pitch trim and rudders operating, and were working for a landing in that configuration. At about 500 Ft, we didn't like what we were seeing, so threw it away, did a go around, still in manual reversion, and put it where we wanted it the next time round. We then took 5, as it had been a pretty intensive period. On the way out of the box, the instructor commented "I'm going to have to have a chat with the lads inside about that, we'd been told that a go around wasn't possible in manual reversion, and you two have just shown that it can be done"

OK, it wasn't pretty, and we were working VERY hard to make sure that it didn't depart.

Now, to the point. How many people reading this thread and flying the bus have ever done a manual reversion landing in the sim.

The reason I ask is that it's been suggested to me by several people that not all operators train to that level, as the beancounters have determined that the chances of it happening are so small there's no point spending money on training for a situation that will probably never happen.

I could mention other scenarios that we've flown in sims where we've found subsequently that line crews could not comfortably handle the scenario that we'd just done, as their training didn't go far enough out towards the edge of the envelope to allow them to be able to cope with the extremes.

Some of the things we were doing were at the edge of the envelope, but surely, that's the whole purpose of training, and simulation, to allow people to find out where the limits are, so that they can hopefully remain within them but using their capabilities when subsequently operating the aircraft.

If the limits are not probed, then the limits get closer to the centre. Equally, over time, if an instructor passes on (hopefully) 90% of what he knows about a type, after several generations of such passing on, the level of knowledge may well have been seriously eroded, because each pass is not passing on the whole knowledge. If to this we then add the concept that someone who wants to broaden their experience is possibly "trying to solve a problem they have with the type", instead of trying to broaden their knowledge, there's a real risk that the people that have a genuine interest in knowing more will be inhibited and prevented from learning more by the suspicion that their motives are not genuine.

All in all, I look at some of the trends I've seen in the last 15 or so years, and I will admit to some concerns, for the reasons I've given above.

At to the "real" validity of those concerns, I guess I'll never know, there's no way that the beancounters will ever admit to being anything other that "working for the best interest of the company", even when their results are shown later not to have been so.

Time for the coat, and probably some reinforced outer garments to repel incoming.

[PAXboy]

Irish Steve That is possibly the most fascinating post that I have read since I joined PPRuNe. If I was an inflammatory journo, I would use the word Terrifying but I shall stay with Remarkable. However, it all makes perfect [ghastly] sense.

I find it remarkable that any Bus operator does not train for Manual Reversion landing. Yes, I know there are three or five or seven computers but, one day they will all stop working and then you have to know how to make a reasonable descent towards the ground.

chucks I have worked in telecommunications and I.T. for 25+ years and the problem that I have seen in commerce is what you describe in the air! That is, that a company automate a process to make it easier and cheaper more often than they automate it to make the process better.

Nothing wrong in saving money but, in the UK, we have already seen the money saving process fail someway down the line. Best example, the state of maintenance on the national railway permanent way (the lines themselves). Too many years of politicians and Yes-men have broken the system and people have died.

One of the most common questions that a machine operator has when being taught a new function is, "Why is it doing that?" They then concentrate on trying to understand the machine. The best solution may well be to kick off the automatic and get to a safe place and then try to understand it. That safe place may be home base and even the SIM. But, if the operator/pilot does not know, or fully understand, what the machine is trying to accomplish in their name ...?

[West Coast]

I agree with very litle else chuks has to say, but here he is spot on. I've flown with guys who knew tricks the FMC could do I never thought existed because they took a class on it at college.
As them to stay a dot high when hand flying because we are trailing a heavy and they can't. This aplies to a small percent, but damn they are a memorable few.

[El Desperado]

This really should be two threads: 1 - Discussion of handflying and skills associated with all aircraft except the Airbus. 2 - Airbus !!

I have just converted onto the 32x series, with around 3000 hours on 757/767. I now have 300 hours on the mighty Bus and offer the following.

Firstly, you don't hand fly it, except in manual reversion as discussed earlier. It's pretty much control wheel steering which is an autopilot mode on many other aircraft. The same decisions and calculations have to be made (i.e., where to point it, how quickly and how high/low), but once you have established this, you take your hand off the stick, gently bumping it to correct deviations from your intended path.

This still requires the same skill and judgement as in other aircraft, but it's not a mighty display of crossed-controls and hundreds of little inputs on the column. Same result, different method, but I suspect after 3000 hours on the Bus, my conventional aircraft skills are going to be pretty much stuffed and I'll have to relearn how to fly every other type ! Pilots who have came straight out of flying college onto this thing are not going to have the stick 'n rudder skills that other pilots may have accumulated.

Secondly, the autopilot does a better job than we do in most normal scenarios. Sure, it doesn't cope well with extreme weather conditions, but overall you give your pax a more comfotable ride if you leave it in !

I feel a little programmed out of the loop with the Airbus. The auto-throttles, sorry, auto-thrust system doesn't move the levers, so I need to be heads-in to see what power setting I have. I can't think of another aircraft that doesn't couple the auto-thrott..thrust system to motors to give the pilots feedback. The distance of travel of the levers is too small to allow precise adjustments of power. It's exactly what someone else was saying earlier - these are not Dakotas with wire controls and I don't feel heroic turning off the FDs, the AT and poling it about.

Now, before I get accused of starting an off-topic, anti-Airbus thread... I'm not. The aircraft is just different from everything else, and achieves the same job in a different way, but I feel it is definitely biased towards being operated automatically; it can become a bit of a pain when you turn everything off....

I liked taking the automatics out on the Boeing. I knew that the deflection of the controls corresponded to the input I gave them. I could anticipate gusts and smooth out the ride. I could operate it to the manufacturers limit with confidence.

With the Airbus, I have no idea what the control surfaces are doing compared to stick input - the aircraft picks its own wing up for me in gusty conditions, not allowing me to really feel what's going on and I am always reacting 'after' the event, rather than anticipating it.

Perhaps this will change as I get more experienced on type, but I feel that the 32x series is designed to be flown on automatics. On the day that every computer system fails, you get a trim wheel and a rudder. Time to brief the cc for the crash and hope it's your lucky day.

Me, I'm going to buck the trend of the thread. Had this come round six months ago, I'd have been with y'all on the 'huzzah, FDs off, raw data NDB to minimas and home in time for tiffin', but I'm not sure now.

Think I'll leave the AP in on this machine. It seems to think it can do a better job than me, and it probably can.

It's not like I can practice manual reversion, is it.... ?

[TurningFinal]

I have a friend who flies RJs now who used to fly the 1900D. He told me that the hand flying hours he accumulated on the Beechcraft were invaluable and that he enjoyed that a/c a lot. Most airlines have taken the 1900 off the line at this point. In the US, handflying at an airline seems to be disappearing more and more.

[West Coast]

I see a consistent argument here and when hanger flying when this subject comes up. Yes, the AP does provide for a better ride than when hand flying. My counter is that somewhere, sometime the AP has to come off. Be it deferred, turbulence kicks it off, SOP requires, etc.
You still have to maintain some semblance of handflying skills to cover those occasions. If there are a few whitecaps in the coffee in first class to maintain your proficiency, then so be it.

[Ignition Override]

Irish Steve: quite interesting. Pardon the comparison to a totally different aviation subject, but thinking of stupid policies and desk pilots reminded me of something. It wast the stupidity of whichever generals in the US Pentagon Air Force Department never wanted to install standby artificial horizons in the C-130 Hercules, at least for many years. I'm told that they never installed them (is this true?). My father suffered TWO total electrical failures (in A and E models: the Colorado Springs squadron ALMOST lost a B model over Hawaii-the AC definitely had the skills, had extended the landing gear at high speed to limit the speed in the spiral, and they came out of the clouds in time...) in night IMC! Two flightcrews owed their lives, TWICE, to very professional and quite knowledgeable career Flight Engineers (and pilots) who knew how to reset multiple generators etc! The first thing the FE did was to shine his flashlight on the AC's horizon (ADI)...In the 70's, The Aircraft Commander's (my Dad's) horizon was at about a 15 degree bank when the gyros spun up after being re-powered. If my information is valid about the C-130 A throught H models, then what STUPID clowns in the Air Force allowed this cheap, chicken-s**t budget advantage to go forward for decades? Zantop lost a logair Lockheed Electra over Utah when an FE made an error on the electrical panel-the "grandfather clause" in civilian Part 121 regs also never required the Electra to have a standby.

Deperado: you have described the Airbus versus Boeing (or Douglas) much better than anyone I've ever read, or listened to! Now things seem to make sense, when I ask guys how high they hand-fly the "airplane": some give me a blank look and can't seem to remember. Those throttles must be challenging, with so little movement. Never mind the crosswinds. How could the design engineers take so much feedback away from the pilots? Maybe the 777 and Air Force C-17 pose similar new challenges for pilots? How about the F-16 and F-18? Maybe the Airbus stories will make sense one day. Whenever I transition to the Airbus in the future (I like the 60's technology too much to give it up, and lose lots of seniority in my seat now), I will remember your observations, however, quite honestly, I would rather not ever go back to an FMC aircraft :ugh: unless Somebody will let me fly, a little bit, in at least a small single-engine REAL plane as a hobby: and I'm not kidding about this. FMC-flying is not quite real flying, in my opinion. Real real flying might be in an old round-motor plane, but a classic F-27, 737 or DC-9 is much more real work and a challenge than any FMC Maschine. After another extortionate pay cut, I would never even consider renting a plane (have not in many years).

Chuks-one of our "Ninja (Turtle) Captains" (young guys who had "super-seniority":"the annointed") years ago on the 757 suddenly asked me to 'build' him a "Chinese glideslope" on the FMC, about 12 miles north of Orlando (MCO)-because the runway (18L?) had no glideslope, maybe no VASI or PAPI lights. Maybe we were already cleared for a visual approch. Maybe it was my first or second time to create this artificial glideslope using the runway elevation etc. To me, that seemed ludicrous but I tried to quickly "build" it. It is easy to be too high and fast on the 757 to be under the max speed for the final flap selection. Go-arounds are quite possible if pilots comply with the stable approach criteria.

The so-called "Chinese glideslope" was thought of as a good visual back-up, but we could have made a serious mistake as we were near the corporate airport in Orlando and one half of the c0ckp1t crew had his head down for a while, punching on buttons without a good reason (in my opinion).

Why not just slow the airplane down and use your eyeballs (over flat terrain) and when on final approach speed, check the IVSI sink rate + the recommended 1.05 EPR to estimate one's approach angle, possibly ask the other pilot how it looks when no VASI or PAPI is visible? :hmm: Just be very careful about aiming for the first section of runway with an airplane which has a long fuselage-a flat approach could easily allow the main gear to hit the runway edge or approach lights etc. :uhoh:

[chuks]

When it comes to politics and the state of the United States then West Coast and I will probably just have to agree to disagree. But it may be that we are reading from the same page when it comes to the trend in aviation and perhaps in society in general.

There is a general run-down of pride in being an old-fashioned master of one's trade right across society that carries into the cockpit. Well, aviation has expanded so quickly that it may have lost something of its heritage.

I have been spending a couple of weeks pottering around the hacienda, doing small maintenance tasks as a way of getting my mind right for another spell of work in West Africa.

I had asked a fellow at the local garage (non-franchise) to drill and re-tap a sink fitting for me, a fairly basic task for anyone equipped with basic metal-working skills and tools. Result: nothing! He kept the thing for a while and then gave up without even trying, handing it back as unrepairable. (Of course one can forget sourcing repair parts for something more than ten years old!) I ended up fixing it myself using basic hand tools.

This made me think of some of my un-met expectations when flying. For instance, I seem to be coming across as unreasonably demanding to expect that someone should be ready to respond to a TCAS alert with an immediate hand-flown response rather than a nice long look at the mode selectors before putting in the VS mode and then dialling in an appropriate number.

What I am getting at is the parallel of getting to grips rather directly with a problem, I suppose. What used to be called, 'Killing your own rats.' The essence of flying is to fly, just as the essence of having a workshop is to fix things, yes? You hold an idea in your mind, the Platonic ideal of whatever it is you see yourself doing and then you damn' well do it!

Nowadays it often seems to be 'This is not in my job description!' rather than 'Let us get on with the job!' It is as if people are coming into the wide field of aviation with a very narrow set of expectations, and perhaps a narrow set of skills as well.

The trend, what with cost-cutting and legislation-driven risk-avoidance, seems to be that many of the old skills and mind-sets are either not learnt or else discarded today. If we maintain that the basics of aviation have not changed then this means they shall have to be re-learnt and re-acquired later.

[Daysleeper]

I'm surprised no one has mentioned the rumour that BA are cutting their SIM recurrent training/checking from 4 hour sessions to 3 hour sessions.

Thus allowing the simulator to do 8 sessions a day rather than 6.

[d246]

My grandfather was a coach driver, one dark and dirty night he had a horse throw a shoe, no torch of course just a candle. Even when torches were invented he wouldn’t use one ‘battery might run out’. Eventually he had to admit that maybe automobiles were the way forward but he always ‘kept his hand in’, never really trusted this ‘damn fangled’ new technology. How many traditional skills and trades have followed his into the history books? There was always a backlash of course, a rearguard action rejecting progress and trying to stop the clock, might as well try holding back the tide. The technology already exists to operate aeroplanes in three dimensions to an accuracy of inches without the need to ‘see out’. More accidents are caused by pilots practising their skills and playing ‘Top Gun’ than by the automatics, human error is still the most significant factor in accidents and near misses. As has been pointed out the Airbus has already made traditional skills redundant and this process will continue. The present limitations on manoeuvring will be overcome. I’d rather be a pax in an aircraft with an automatic TCAS than let the pilots run into each other, I’d like to see Airbus go one step further and stop pilots flying visual circuits into the sea. Already you are unable to take direct control of engines as the computerised FCU’s don’t give you a direct link, likewise with controls. Mode S on the SSR will aim to prevent the increasing number of level busts and eventually allow direct ATC intervention. The writing is on the wall boys, if you don’t like it go back to crop dusting.

[chuks]

One could argue that flying an aircraft into the sea points to poor hand-flying skills rather than over-emphasis of this skill-set!

Point taken about the crew being the cause of most of the accidents, but what to do about that? When you look at some of the recent accidents it would seem the crew is often a bit lost when the automatics kick off. Yet, on the other hand, it's a lot easier to train and evaluate on the use of said automatics than on some rather indefinable ability to 'make the airplane do what you want it to.' So you are right about the way the trend is going, but what about the larger question of whether that is a Good Thing?

I think things will have to go a bit further before we may see a return to basics. I could be wrong about that, of course.

One thing I used to get a laugh out of was people calling me a 'bush pilot,' as if that was a bad thing.

I ended up in a simulator with the Instructor from Hell, a very keen young woman who wanted to strip off 15 years of what I had learnt as 'best practice,' in a Citation 500 Initial Course. We were not as one in our approach to this profession of ours, shall we say?

It was all frou-frou and how to check this or that system, rather than just keeping the damn' thing pointed in the right direction while handling a systems failure single-pilot. I pointed out that if I made it safely back to base then the engineers could check out the systems for me, but meanwhile I had a complex airplace to fly safely!

Then we had a period of about five minutes 'in transit' between emergencies. At the end of it She Who Must Be Obeyed turned to me and said, 'Okay, take the autopilot off now.'

'What autopilot?' came the answer. I guess she never saw anyone do five minutes straight and level before? One for the 'bush pilots' there! Try a bit of 'crop dusting' before you diss it, is my advice.

[greek-freak]

d246:

I rather prefer sitting in an acft with a pilot in front who has extremely good hand flying skills and is perfectly able to execute a visual approach when landing e.g. in Greece where most airports have non-precision approaches, terrain, and heavy crosswinds + ws.

Moreover, most autopilots have difficulties at crosswinds exceeding 10kts.

And as a computer scientist let me tell you something about the way those things are implemented in FMCs. Once you have the specification what the system should do, there are very safe ways to implement it and function accordingly to the system specification. However, who tells you that the specification is correct and covers all eventualities, only God can. The Lufthansa Warsaw rwy overrun is a "classic" for bad system specification because the stupid computer did not let the pilots use the entire breaking power available.

[A and C]

And just how do you propse that aircraft are flown into airports in the Greek islands ?

Most airports have only one NP approach....... do we just not go to these places if the wind is in the wrong direction ?

From your post I can only conclude that you don't have a clue about flying in the charter business or you have only just got out of the Magenta line kindergarden.

[SR71]

I'd keep the autopilot in for this field myself:

http://www.sr71.org.uk/MAF_takeoff.jpg

;)

Out of interest, I do not accept (until proven to the contrary) that, as mentioned by a previous poster, whilst it may be asserted that

crew are the cause of most of the accidents

this affords one the luxury of inferring that use of the automatics in the same situation would have saved them.

Human error may continue to be a major factor in the loss of commercial hulls, but I am not aware that this has been correlated with a failure to use the automatics. As I understand it, more pertinent in many cases is compromised decision making skills, loss of SA, incorrect pressure settings, information overload, incorrect failure diagnosis, distraction...

I stand to be corrected.

[TurningFinal]

Am I correct in drawing these conclusions?

Automation compromises at least two sets of flying skills:

1. Motor skills - the basic stick 'n rudder if you will. This is your eye hand coordination variety, such as scanning, as well as motion perception...they body's sense of what the a/c is doing on the 3 axis (which can become confused in IFC....one reason we have autopilots).

2. Mental navigational and situational awareness skills. This is the sort of 3D spacial awareness a pilot has in his/her head about direction, distance from terrain, and relationship to NAVAIDS and airports, and even being able to point out one's location on a chart at all times. Nonprecision approaches also require this sort of awareness of location of markers and AGL altitude and location of obstacles...towers...mountains near the field.

I know one could break it down to more subcatagories, but these are skills needed to get the ratings in the first place.

I've heard of pilots who don't even pay attention to the FMC information provided in MAP and VOR modes and don't know in their head where the divert fields are...they are just along for the ride. If both FMCs suddenly went down and there was smoke and no radios...would they know where to divert?

Two accidents...I'm sure there are more, remind us of the danger of overdependence on the computers and the failure to maintain s/a. Both occured during the approach phase. Both times the crew pressed on despite a loss of s/a. If they had been in less automated a/c, would they have been more focused on reviewing charts and conducting more briefings?

1. AA 757 accident in Cali, Columbia. It was mountainous, at night, and the local controllers had minimal english skills. When the approach was changed to direct to make up of for lost time the crew was unfamiliar with the area and lost s/a. At one point the F/O asked the captain "where are we?" CFIT.

2. Korean Air 747 accident in Guam. Glideslope was closed at the field. The crew performed a nonprecision descent with outdated map and got messed up on the altitudes at the markers. CFIT.

Even if 90% of the time the computer takes the flight right up to the ILS intercept, if the crew doesn't maintain awareness of landmarks and navaids as if there was no computer, then s/a has already been compromised.

[West Coast]

I can't agree with point number two. Having a map of your position directly in front of you improves SA. I agree with your first point however. The best approach is a blend of new and old.

[qwertyuiop]

West Coast.

A map is fine if it gives the correct info, sadly not always the case. Better to use the map to back up raw data rather than the other way around.

[d246]

Your'e history fellas. Autoland sysytems handle at least 15 Kts and do a better job than most pilots and will of course be developed further. Greek Islands, we have the technology to do three dimensional approaches anywhere, to Cat 3. We have global mapping to prevent CFIT, GPS to give accurate mapping etc etc. Try matching smart weapons or stealth technology', it's on its way lads.

[egbt]

d246

I for one would want landings to be considerably more reliable than the current generation of smart weapons; they may be extremely accurate 99.?% of the time but when things go wrong they can go very wrong.

You also have to point them in the right direction which has proved a problem in the past.:(

[West Coast]

qwertyuiop

I agree. That said, the SA is generally going to be higher with someone who is using EFIS type displays in conjunction with raw data than simply divining one's position simply by which way the needle is pointing.

[Irish Steve]

If I remember correctly the thread was originally about modern training eroding pilot skills.

I guess we need to look at what we mean. Are we saying, and I think we are, that the modern heavy commercial transport now requires skills and operation that is so far removed from the skills required to operate a Piper Warrior that to spend 200 Hrs boring an expensive hole in the sky in such a machine is no longer appropriate. In many respects, I think that could well be true. OK, some of the very recent single and new multi engine aircraft are fitted with avionics that more closely represent those found on the modern heavy, so maybe, and it's a maybe, spending time flying such a modern light aircraft MAY, and note I say MAY, be appropriate to developing the awareness of the bigger picture.

In theory, it's possible to get someone up to speed and capable of flying a modern jet entirely by the use of a level D simulator. The problem I see with that concept is that it removes the unexpected. Yes, the instructor can introduce "the unexpected" in relation to failures of the airframe and it's components, but can the instructor simulate the huge noise and shock etc of suddenly flying into what looked like rain and suddenly turns out to be hail?

Can the instrutor simulate another aircraft suddenly doing something unexpected, more often on the ground rather than in the air, that demands an INSTANT and positive response?

Can the instructor prepare the student for the strange things that can happen when flying at relatively low levels over mountainous terrain?

The list is massive, and I'm sure that many other people could add to this list in a much more comprehensive way than I have.

The underlying issue is that a low time student trained in the "brave new world of beancounting" is going to have even less real aviation experience when thrown into the right hand seat of what ever it happens to be. The vast majority of the time, that's not going to be a problem. Once every so many times, regardless now of which seat the student is in, and to some extent, regardless of how long that student has now been flying, there WILL be circumstances for which there has been no training, or preparation, and the fear of many is that if there are no opportunities for that student to expand their knowledge horizons after initial training, there is the real risk that the underlying knowledge base will not be there when it's needed.

Flying was something that was an ongoing learning experience, and was enhanced by discussion with peer groups, and by practical experience.

Modern flying bears very little relationship to the art as practised until relatively recently. The automation is now so complex, and so reliable, as are engines and airframes, it's now a matter of heated debate when things like a 747 engine fail on take off :E , and there are recriminations a mile long for other incidents that in former years were regular happenings.

The result of that is the skills to operate a modern heavy have changed. It's no longer a physical endurance test that requires muscle and endurance, it's now about understanding how all these complex computer based systems all integrate, and what they are doing to the airframe.

UNTIL FOR SOME REASONS THAT'S NOT BEEN SEEN BEFORE IT ALL BREAKS

When that happens, and we've seen situations where it does, it's no good then saying "It's broken, and I haven't got a check list for this, now what do I do". When it's all gone for a ball of chalk, and there's not much left working, that's the point where the underlying aviations skills are still going to be needed if there's not going to be yet another smoking hole in the ground, and there's scant comfort to me in a bean counter saying that "the odds on that are so long, we can't afford to spend money training for it".

The problem is that Joe Public does not see that issue, because it's not out in the open, and unfortunately, Joe Public wants to pay less for travel than he used to, so something has to give. Reduce the inflight catering. Don't clean the aircraft every turnround. Don't provide "extras". Charge for wheelchairs, reduce the baggage allowance, charge for every kilo of excess, sell scratch cards in flight. The list is as extensive as can be imagined by an under pressure accounts system, and it's getting longer and more creative by the week.

We've seen all of this happening over the last 10 years. Now, there's not a lot left to trim, all the easy targets have been knocked over. Pilot costs is a large target, both in terms of what they are paid, and in terms of what they cost overall when recurrent training and all the other issues are taken into consideration. To many beancounters, that's a soft target now because there are fewer "incidents" than there used to be.

Maybe, but the accident rate for serious accidents is still there. Recent weeks have seen a worrying blip, hopefully short lived, but it might give everyone pause for thought. There's no easy way to ensure skillsare developed and retained, and it's even harder now than it used to be, as there are a lot more people flying aircraft because it's a very well paid job, and I know from discusssions that some of those people have no interest in developing their skills beyond the minimum that the company requires. That's a change, not unique to aviation, but an insidious and probably long term subtly dangerous change, as it will be quite a while before the real effects of those changes start to reflect in statistics.

Another issue that needs to be considered is aging airframes. Do we really know and understand what the effect of aging on highly integrated systems is going to be? I don't think we do, so we're facing into a new scenario, of trying to ensure that people know enough about the aircraft to ensure that they can bring it home when something significant fails. Again, that's where the wider experience is going to be needed, and I'm not sure that it's there in the same way.

Maybe I'm just being pessimistic, and the beancounters will be right, this brave new modern automated world will mean that failures will be so rare and so easily dealt with that flight crews will no longer even have to be at the sharp end, as long as there's someone somewhere in the airframe, it will be possible to get it working again.

That thought sends all the wrong sort of shivers up and down my spine.

Enough. I could say a lot more, but I don't think I will, this should be more than enough to keep the thread running. I just hope that we're not about to launch into a brave new world that will come back to haunt us in 20 years time.

[d246]

Just what my grandfather used to say.

[flufdriver]

d246 is absolutely right!

We're history! or at least well on the way to becoming it!

Consider the following:

Beancounters objective: to reduce operational cost to the absolute minimum.

One of the costliest components of the Industry are the human resources, so lets replace them with technology to the maximum extent possible.

But of course this can not be just a straight line effort of designing technology that can deal with 99.99% of occurrences in flight operations. The human element (Pilots) on whom the other human element (passenger) likes to rely on has to be discredited before it can be discarded without a backlash from the farepaying passenger.

This can be achieved by changing the training of these aircraft handlers from actually handling flight controls to becoming specialized in programming a third party to the entire operation the FMC, which now becomes the focus of the entire mission.

This shift in focus will have several beneficial consequences towards the advancement of the ultimate objective.

1.) Airline managements are quite willing to adopt new standards of competency for "Pilots"allowing cost savings by hiring persons with minimal actual experience but good computer skills.

2.) An added benefit will be a lower quality of handling skills among these late 20th century aviators as an automatic consequence of never having acquired them in the first place and having little opportunity and less encouragement to practice them.

3.) The lack of capability to deal with anything but precise inputs to produce an acceptable output of the current generation of FMC's, combined with the reduction of actual situational awareness and substandard handling skills of the operator, then contribute to dramatic instances of so called"human error"further demonstrating the human shortcomings and lack of reliability to the travelling public.

I therefore predict that within my lifetime (I'm 57) we will see "remotely piloted" aircraft transporting people for hire around the globe. At first it will be perhaps one person dedicated to "handle" one flight from takeoff to landing, shortly therafter there will be further cost savings by having one "operator" sitting at a desk on the ground, handling two or more flights in different phases of flight.

I suppose one thing won't change, when there is a loss of aircraft (and cargo) it will probably still be called human error!

The one thing I'm wondering about is, how will I travel when it gets to that stage? It takes quite a while to cross the Atlantic (much less the Pacific) by sailboat.

However, for now I continue to enjoy what is by now a dinosaur, a 732 with an SP 77, which most of us are disengaging for everything except cruise.

[SR71]

Flufdriver,

I therefore predict that within my lifetime (I'm 57) we will see "remotely piloted" aircraft transporting people for hire around the globe

I don't for a second believe that and I'm 34!

If a pilot won't get in the aircraft to fly it, why the hell should I just to travel in it?

Rigas Doganis, author of The Airline Business in the 21st Century, writes in Chapter 5 about how labour typically constitutes between 15-40% of airline total operating costs whereas fuel has been around 10-15%.

With fuel price having doubled in the last year, in real terms we are now back in a situation similar to the late 70's and where fuel now comprises a similar percentage of total operating costs compared to labour.

This is good for those of us who sit in the seats ahead of 1A because it diverts the characteristic intense management focus of the late 1990's/early 2000's away from the unit labour cost because it is no longer arguable that this cost is the major determinant in airline profitability.

This weeks Flight International includes an article on how proponents of gas turbine research are now breathing a sigh of relief again as they see their budgets rapidly expand to cope with astronomical fuel prices. William Koop, from the US Air Force Research Laboratory's Propulsion Directorate says the

...phones been off the hook!

The same magazine carries an editorial feature on the shrinking budget available for the JSF, a situation not without precedent when one considers the shrunken B2 and F/A-22 programs.

It is also clear that NASA are staring down the barrel of what to replace an increasingly defunct Shuttle with? Scaled Composites SpaceShip Three?

In Aircraft Commerce you can get an idea of how great a proportion the financing charges comprise of the total trip cost of any particular aircraft. Feb-Mar 2005 edition compare the 787, 763 and A330. Suffice to say that financing charges comprise a higher proportion of the cost than either fuel or crew.

Which leads me round to my contention that we will see technology make a sideways move in the near future to mitigate against the extraordinary investment costs involved in the development of commercial aircraft and their operation using hydrocarbon based fuel.

The Shuttle will, quite conceivably, be the most complicated flying machine ever to fly, if only because cost prohibits the exercise ever being repeated. Its systems might not be the most capable but its architecture, perhaps, justifies the accolade...

This increasing focus on simplicity and efficiency will have repercussions for us and how we carry out our job.

The notion that one is pre-historic if one espouses a philosophy that argues for as much knowledge as possible about the systems integration and operational capability of a piece of equipment one entrusts ones life to, and the ability to practise using it in order to famailiarise oneself with all its functionality, throughout the envelope, so that when it all fails you know what to do, seems to me somewhat cavalier.

Do you dive without an octopus?

[El Desperado]

Well.... is it modern training that may be eroding traditional flying skills or modern aircraft that erode those skills, requiring the pilots to throw away traditional techniques.

Throw in modern ATC, modern destinations (those Greek islands again), modern congestion and I defy anyone to say that taking the autopilot out in most situations is a good idea. It isn't - it degrades the PF's situational awareness and turns the PNF into a one-armed paperhanger with the same result.

The FE has gone... many flightdecks have very low-houred FOs and, no offence to them because we've all been there, a lot of cockpits are single-pilot-with-interference.

In the good old days, when your lone Comet was making an approach, you could close the throttles at TOD and hand fly all the way down, spooling up at 700 feet or so. Anyone done that at Corfu recently ? Didn't think so !

An autopilot in anything bigger than a small turbo-prop is not a luxury. Yes, they can be u/s and you can despatch with the relevant MEL sign-off (anyone remember when the MEL was a 'get you home' document and not a 'depart or we lose money' document ??!!). I've done it..... it sucked monkey balls.... all the way down to TFS and back in a 757, hand-flown... horrible. Tiring. Fatiguing.

Legal - sure. Sensible.. you tell me ?

If all the systems trip out on me going into Corfu, at night, in dodgy weather, an I going to rely on some hand-flown practiced NP approach I did into Belfast when the weather was nice, or am I going to sack it and go somewhere else with a nice visual or ILS ?

I am quite certain that, now on the Airbus, I am not a stick and rudder pilot. There's a rumour that the A380 SOPs will include autoland for every approach. Don't know if it's true or not, but if it is, there's the future.

For those who don't fly... rest assured, that despite some of the gloom about skills that I and some others share, we could still fly whatever it is we fly, safely onto the ground with no instruments and no automatics.

A bit like the circuit I'm sure we've all done in a light aircraft where the instructor covers the panel with the checklist and says...."just do it".

[Ignition Override]

d246: yeah, some skills are slowly disappearing. But in some countries, most pilots tend to have 2,000-3,000, possibly 7,000 hours of flight experience or much more (at the nationals/majors) before they ever step into an FMC/FMS aircraft simulator.

Despite the advanced technical tools stated in previous remarks, a very sophisticated aircraft landed at the wrong US airport not too long ago ( but it was right under the extended final for the correct airport). The Jeppsen note about the "other airport" was not large or in bold print, from what I remember.

Besides the Cali tragedy, and the others at Habsheim, Mulhouse (Lorraine), the Persian Gulf, India, Japan, there were very unstable approaches in automated aircraft in Miami, over Paris (on film). These are just the ones which come to mind. Some we might never read about, outside of recurrent training or the sim. briefing cubicles?

Some involved aircraft factory pilots. Including the horrible A-330 tragedy at the Airbus 'homebase' at Toulouse. But this was a test flight-or just a demonstration flight?

Are line pilots generally less complacent, possibly being more aware of their personal limitations? :O

[d246]

Isn't this thread supposed to be about the future? What we are getting, as always, are the dinosaurs who can't accept or use a 30 yr old FMC. Stick and rudder aeroplanes are going to disappear Airbus started the trend some time ago. Reliance upon automated flight systems, yes please, pilots screw up to often, i.e. the Cali tragedy, and the others at Habsheim, Mulhouse (Lorraine), the Persian Gulf, India, Japan, the very unstable approaches in automated aircraft in Miami, over Paris' etc. Many UK charter airlines are flying pilots with 200 hrs or so, they in general are able to understand and use current automatic systems which do have limitations but are old, the aviation world is looking to the future.

[egbt]

d246

There may be (a few) 200 hour pilots in the charter fleet but they are sitting next to a P1 with thousands of hours.

However I suspect you are partly right, but I think it will be a very, very long time before fully automated systems are 100% reliable in all situations, if for no other reason than issues of coping with the unexpected and the complexity of testing.

Fifty years ago Duncan Sandys (Sec of Sate for Defence) predicted that the English Electric Lightning would be the last manned fighter for the RAF and it would be replaced by missiles and unmanned aircraft, even the Lightning was supposed to be controlled remotely from just after take off till firing the “Red Top” missiles.

Then we had the Bloodhound I / Ferranti Scandal and for unconnected reasons the radio guidance packs were removed from the Lightning. Now 50 years later we have Predator type drones (remotely piloted not automatic a/c) becoming armed but everyone is still designing and building manned fighters, all be it unstable platforms with fly-by wire etc.

So what’s the point of these comments? Well I know about Moore’s Law, improving technology etc but reliability in civil aviation will always have to be demonstrated to be many times better than in the military, they have been trying to automate the pilots job on and off for over 50 years and aren’t there yet.

I don’t think anyone is arguing that automated systems are not a major contributor to flight safety, the issue is that a pilot has to be able to cope without some or most of the automated systems, how will they if they don’t practice or worse aren’t fully trained to do so?

[jafa]

Airbus have achieved one thing with their cockpit design philosophy - created an entire generation of pilots who can't fly.

[Centaurus]

I think the one classic automation versus raw data instrument interpretation accident that sticks in my mind, was the Thai Airways Airbus A310 that flew into a mountain at Kathmandu on 31 July, 1992. The accident was well illustrated in one of the excellent books by the Australian flight safety author Mac Job, called Air Disaster Volume 3.

At the beginning of a VOR/DME approach to runway 02 at Kathmandu in IMC, initially the flaps failed to extend. Instead of following the published missed approach procedure, and sorting things out in the holding pattern, the captain, in attempting to rectify the flap problem (which was successful a few minutes later), allowed the aircraft to wander in a large orbit until it finally took up a heading on autopilot towards an area of MSA 21.000 ft.

The captain maintained 11,500 ft in the mistaken belief that the aircraft was in safe sector where the MSA was 11,500 ft. The CVR revealed that pilots were heavily engrossed in staying heads down into the FMC trying to type in waypoints that were behind them and which could therefore not be easily seen on the MAP.

It was obvious that no notice was taken of VOR or ADF RMI readings which, coupled with the VOR/DME position would have immediately shown that the aircraft was in fact 24 nm NNE of the airport and not 24 nm south as the captain thought. Lack of simple raw data instrument rating skills was the cause of the accident which killed all aboard.

[Col. Walter E. Kurtz]

Flying an aeroplane safely from point 'A' to point 'B' is about more than just the 'machine'.

Automation helps. Not only helps, it is REQUIRED kit and has greatly imporved the safety of jet transports. It is, in modern, complex and fast aeroplanes, an indespensible 'tool'.

It should never, EVER, be a CRUTCH.

Hand flying, whether via direct cable & pulley, hydraulics or FBW, is another INDISPENIBLE tool.

When the chips are down, and the last line of defense is to get your hands dirty and hand fly, is not the time to find THAT BASIC SKILL to have atrophied.

JEE_ZUS, I never thought that basic flying skills would be referred to as 'Top Gun' skills.

:sad:

[Wiley]

Have to agree with the Colonel on this - and fervently disagree with d246.

I’m one of those silly old buggers who hand flies IlSs from the initial approach fixes and earlier, sometimes in (gasp!) IMC. I know I get some pitying looks from my FOs, because I can’t always do it quite as well as the autopilot, and some of them can’t hide their concern when I attempt to hand fly while we’re still above the cloud base. The vast majority of these same FOs disconnect the autopilot below 500’ on approach, and almost as many plug it in before 500’ on departure.

It's always been my habit in a non-normal situation to hand over to the FO after the immediate actions and checklists have been completed so he has the responsibility for flight path management while I get on with being a captain - ie, talking with the purser, ATC, the pax and the company, carrying out any necessary checklists as well as being able to give almost all my attention to planning what to do next without the distraction of having to fly the aircraft while I’m doing it. If I want the aircraft pointing in a particular direction at a particular speed or in a particular configuration, I'll ask the FO to make it happen. In this way, I’m still more or less the pilot flying if not actually the ‘Pilot Flying’.

While maintaining the flight path, the FO watches over what I'm doing, confirms any actions as necessary and sometimes makes very helpful suggestions, but his primary job is keeping a goodly cushion of that stuff we all breathe between the aircraft’s radome and any cumulo granitas clouds that might be lurking out there.

I've found this system works a treat… while we have a serviceable autopilot system. However, I did a simex once where the check captain gave us a double ADIRU failure along with a few other assorted failures which left us with basically a very big Cessna 172. No flight directors, no autopilots, none of those nice speed bands on the ASI.

I handed over to the FO while I set the aids up for the approach and ran the fuel jettison checklist – and stopped the checklist to recover from the unusual attitude we found ourselves in after less than three minutes. I found I had to reverse my normal procedure and fly the aircraft myself and have the FO do the checklist. And in the FO’s defence, I have to admit I found it quite hard maintaining an attitude on a bare AI and using manual throttle to maintain airspeed… but at least I was able to fall back on skills that I once possessed, skills that once were a requirement but in these days of minimizing costs at all costs, no longer are.

To those who say it’s highly unlikely you would ever find yourself in a position where you’d lose that much automation in a modern airliner, I’ll say I agree… to a point. Then I’ll remind them of Sioux City and the more recent missile attack on the Fedex A310 in Baghdad as ask them if we can predict anything with any confidence in this business.

[egbt]

Wiley I’d rather sit behind you or the Col. than d246, if indeed he does sit up front. :ok:

[Kaptin M]

Autopilots are GREAT.
They never forget to turn at flight planned waypoints, they are able to calculate the precise amount of drift required, and fly a heading that will maintain a very accurate track, when used in conjunction with a Flight Management Computer System (FMC).
As a matter of fact, they'll do just about everything they're commanded to do - as long as the CORRECT commands are given to them.......AND their initial programming is correct.
Regardless of the previous 2, they'll do EVERYTHING - without thinking - that they're ordered to do.

And THEREIN lies the problem!
Because I have had, on several occasions, autopilots that are being fed info from an incorrect data base, and autopliots that UNQUESTIONINGLY fly INCORRECT inputs, because the "programmer" simply made a mistake. eg. wrong flight plan routing; wrong hold info.
All with a SERVICABLE a/p!

Humans can think, check...double check.. and update/re-assess their projected thinking.
If a computer reverts to "static mode"/standby - which is frequently the case - there is no continuous system updating that allows IMMEDIATE Danger avoidance procedures.
Rather, the computer will stay in its present state, assuming the chances of radical change are negligible.

In aviation, this can prove to be be a FATAL mistake!

[SR71]

Col. Walter E. Kurtz

JEE_ZUS, I never thought that basic flying skills would be referred to as 'Top Gun' skills.


http://smileys.smileycentral.com/cat/4/4_17_206.gif

[TurningFinal]

So does the young pilot coming in to the right seat of an RJ with 250 hours who then goes on to upgrade 24 months later really have enough skills to handfly an RJ through any situation?

Because the reality is that once they get out of school and on the line they are deep into the automation...heads down programming the FMC. Would you rather have an F/O who spent a few years flying forest fire patrol or bank checks (although the check flying jobs are history now)....

[BOAC]

What an excellent discussion.

I am pleased to predict that I shall probably be too old to travel by air before d426 gets to sit in command of his joystick and panel in his airline HQ and flies 'his' passengers to the US.

I have experienced F/Os with little 'handling' skills; who are LOST without the coloured line on the TV screen in front of them showing where they are and where they are going; who CANNOT have the background with which us older pilots grew up.

It may be that reliable automation will get to the point where the public, accountants and press will accept the occasional loss of a large unmanned hull due to a programming error as a reasonable statistic but......... is there any room in flufdriver's boat......................

I have always been vaguely re-assured as a pasenger that my flight crew would arrive first on the scene of any accident, but the thought of d426 putting his head in his hands, then throwing the offending joystick across the room before going for stress counselling and returning to post 2 weeks later is just TOO MUCH!

[HOMER SIMPSONS LOVECHILD]

I expect the same argument raged when they first started putting a roof over the cockpit.An entire generation of pilots who never felt the wind in their hair.What if that new fangled ASI fails?
Monoplanes? Don't get me started!
One thing's for sure,nostalgia aint what it used to be.When was this golden era of steely eyed stick and rudder aces who never got lost,flew into mountains or spun in on finals?
Someone once likened intrument flying to watching a baseball game through the knot holes in a wooden fence.It is posible with a lot of effort and practice but lets face it it's not ideal.It was only presented on dials because thats the only technology that existed.A map display is an infinately more human centred.Check its accuracy and use it.
I'm still waiting to meet these young fo's who can only type into the FMC.In my experience there is absolutely no correlation between age/experience and reliance on FMC/autopilots.I've recently clutched my seat in horor as a crusty old ex fast jet driver performed an excrutiating protracted auto pilot approach followed by a lousy landing in gin clear vmc with no traffic. Same route next week with 500 hour wonder."there's the runway,mind if I just fly it ?" he says. "Fill yer boots" says I.Nice hand flown visual in about a third of the time as last week.
Tell t'yoongsters nowadays and they wernt believe you!

[Slickster]

I have experienced F/Os with little 'handling' skills; who are LOST without the coloured line on the TV screen in front of them showing where they are and where they are going; who CANNOT have the background with which us older pilots grew up.

Now, that's just plain naughty, BOAC, and I can't let it pass. I sat next to you once, in a-200, and when I asked if you'd mind if I flew manually, you quoted some stuff about the flying manual requiring a dual-channel automatic approach. I seem to remember pointing out to you that the FM also said that pilots were encouraged to practice their hand flying.

As such, this FO flew a manual approach without FD, and the subsequent ILS and landing were "without incident". Be careful who you "diss"!

Best regards, Slickster (ex-cadet, and therefore, presumambly a graduate of the "Magenta Kindergarten"!)

[PAXboy]

Ignition OverrideHow could the design engineers take so much feedback away from the pilots? (To state the obvious) Because the system designers told them to!

The reason is even simpler: To make money and beat the other team. What follows is pure supposition on my part. EADS can sell their a/c as being cheaper to run because, if you fly them on the automaticas, you can plan the sectors and their costs closer than the opposition. Hence the carrier emphasising the use of automatics. They might also say that the training is less intensive and SIM checks are easier. They might say that a generation of students that grew up with computers will understand all these system. Whatever they do say, it will be with the objective of making money and winning!

I grew up in the old world. My paternal grandfather was RFC (SE5As), my father was RAF (Rad/Nav/Radar on night fighters) and my newphew's first commercial work was on Do228 (he is now P3 on 744) and I like the fact that he wants to fly the machine.

--------------------
"I tell you, we are here on Earth to fart around, and don't let anybody tell you any different." Kurt Vonnegut, Jr.

[410]

Point taken, Homer, but I still have to stand with the 'luddites' on this. I recall, not too many years ago, doing a route check where we suffered a double FMS failure at around 15,000' on descent. (The aircraft had a history of this problem, but when else would you suffer a *** double FMS failure on descent than on your *** route check????)

I asked the FO to dial in the inbound VOR radial, (for those not familiar with the modern FMS, three pages, including the RAD/NAV page, where you can make approach aid frequency selections manually, remain available on a 'failed' FMS), we both switched our displays to VOR mode (which gives an ‘old fashioned’ CDI presentation) and were quite content to fly the radial until we took a radar marshal before switching to APP mode for the ILS, (which would also have to me manually inserted). He was one of those increasingly rare creatures, an FO with extensive GA experience, and was more than happy with this.

But the checkie, an ex cadet who had gone straight from initial training into widebodies, informed us in horrified tones that "you can't fly an approach without the magenta line" - and proceeded to lean over the centre console and recover my FMS for me, which he succeeded in doing by about 7000'. (Not without causing myself and the FO considerable distraction.)

In my eyes, the check captain was wrong, while in his, I was. Nothing was said in the debrief, but the incident illustrated what many of the old school find concerning. If the toys we've all come to love and rely on fall over, particularly below 10,000’, forget them and FLY THE *** AEROPLANE.

Unfortunately, there seems to be an increasingly large number of pilots in our ranks who can’t do that without the toys.

[Ignition Override]

410: I can't believe that anyone who is so ignorant ( for us on the old "steam-gauges" with just an altitude hold and manually-set VORs, found on a very cluttered Jeppesen chart) of the ways to fly an approach on the 757 or anything else, is a line check airman. Or maybe I should ask why is he so afraid of using VOR mode, having both an artificial CDI and a flight director? I guess the guy has no real flying background, or so it appears. Are such line check airmen jobs based on politics, or experience, or both etc? Remind him sometime about the 757 crew who followed the newly-created magenta line into the Andes Mountains of Cali, Columbia. And it was their unplanned "retirement flight", and for their passengers-soon to be unidentifiable. They typed "Tulua" into the 'direct box', from what I recall and pushed the LNAV button.

I used the APP mode on each 757 approach (was FO), partly because my plan was to go back to the old technology (as Captain) where a flight director is always used. But watching the traditional HSI (as I still hand-fly :eek: most ILS approaches) course come "active" or "alive", is more reliable for when to turn than only trusting a flight director, which might need re-arming (FD-108 or 109). You can still use the autopilot. But if the sacred "magenta highway" scale is set to a long range, then how does the HSI help the pilot WATCH what is happening? We mostly watched the ADI for the (standby) white modes to turn (active) green. Maybe I forgot too much. On our non-precisions, we must hand-fly the plane. :uhoh:

[BOAC]

you quoted some stuff about the flying manual requiring a dual-channel automatic approach. I seem to remember pointing out to you that the FM also said that pilots were encouraged to practice their hand flying - hello Slickster. Nice to hear from you again. Sorry you should take my post personally:D.

I cannot let that go as it is really an irrelevance to this thread. Firstly the weather conditions would have been such that the company ORDERS (some stuff) required a dual channel approach or I would not have mentioned that. The option to fly manually was specifically "in suitable wx conditions" - and I believe still is. You will know better than I - and may sometime have to consider whether to allow the breaching of company orders. I rarely refused a request for hand flying in suitable weather or monitoring conditions. I have no dispute with full use of automatics where appropriate. You will recall (I hope) I did NOT believe in 'hacking' a raw data ILS to a Cat I minimum approach just because I was a real man and had skinned rabbits while chewing razor blades for breakfast.

Secondly by your own admission you have flown a 737-200 and came later to a magenta line - which maybe makes you 'excused boots'?

It is only when you see the fluster and totally lost look in the co-pilot's eyes when the automatics fail or the magenta line disappears and they do not know where they are within 200 miles (why keep a PLOG?) that you will understand. Still, early days for you - trust me - I and others have been there.

[fireloop]

This 737-FO still uses compass/rose mode during non-precision approaches. Many times a get puzzled looks from the "old dog" in the left seat... "uh... yeah, ok.... are you sure?". I kid you not! Please stop FO bashing, thanks...

Not all FOs are graduates from the "magenta kindergarten" :}

[justanotherflyer]

Fantastic discussion, everyone. Most instructive.
.

[JOSHUA]

I've just started operating 737 having come from a turboprop background. Getting to grips with the automation has no doubt been one of the predominant challenges and as I ascend my steep learning curve I'm beginning to realise what a valuable tool the FMC can be, however my understanding is that the FMC is just one of the many tools available to operate the aircraft safely and efficiently.

At the end of the day it all comes down to maintaining situational awareness, I think it's all too easy to relax with automatics watching the aircraft follow it's magenta line and not taking a moment to think about where you actually are. I'm still a great believer in maintaining an element of raw data as back up on the RMI, just in case all else fails....

I know it's not always quite so simple as I've just mentioned, what with distractions from ATC, cabin etc but at the end of the day when all starts turning to rat s**t, as many instructors have told me, aviate, navigate, communicate.

A small note to add, on those days when wx or workload isn't presenting any poblems why not tell the other guy that you want to hand fly on instruments- it has certainly helped with my raw data skills, as I found last time I was in the sim.

[Cummulo Granite]

I have been fortunate to fly turbo props, 733 &7's and now A319.
Again fortunatly all the companies i have worked for have positively encouraged manual flying.
Disconnecting the A/P & A/THr in a bus is just as enjoyable as it was in the 73.it has exactly the same protection that the 73 had in speed off
what i can never get to grips with is those that then leave the bloomin flight directors in????
Modern day training is such that all our new low hour F/O's come with 200 hours training, no experience of hour building or their first turbo prop. they are taught to deal with the automatics properly because no one willingly flies an A/C into terrain but the autopilot will. They hang on for dear life for a couple of months and then get used to the aircraft and eventually start learning to fly, manually or otherwise.One thing i must say is that the bus makes my life, 4 sector 11:30 hr short haul low cost flying one hell of a lot more comfortable, a lot less knackering and certainly a bit safer. Don't criticise the bus for things you have not tried.
Mind you i did hear over the radio the other day a young voice from the emerald isle requesting from ATC a block altitude of 1000'. when asked why? the response came because we have no autopilot. a little scary i must admit and there may have been more to it but thats what we all heard.

[vee-en-ee]

I'm a late joiner to this thread, but scanning through there are many relevant points. However it seems to me that different skills are required dependant on the aircraft / environment / job.

Whilst perhaps stating the obvious, if I am flying a C172 then I need to have certain skills, whilst if making an approach and landing in bad weather in a bus, others apply.

Aviation has moved on, and aircraft of the Airbus type are designed to be flown automatically. It may be more fun, more macho and much more risky (hence the fun and excitement bit) to fly a bus manually, but the hard truth is the MTBF of critical systems is much, much lower than pilot error caused by a competant but tired hand-flying pilot. There is a very good argument for making all landings and approaches autoland, and diverting if the weather is out of cross-wind limits. Controversial perhaps to some in the rightly conservative pilot community for sure, but it is the truth.

We should use the strengths and weaknesses of the pilot and the machine we are flying together to get the job done the best possible way. Yes, CRM includes the machine! In some aircraft it is very necessary to have a high degree of handling skills (traditionally designed machines), whilst far less so in aircraft like the bus, where systems management is much more important. Both by design.

The problem of course comes when somebody who is highly competant on a bus type aircraft tries to do a fully manual ILS and cross wind landing in an old Boeing or C172! But please do not confuse issues - that has nothing to do with operating an Airbus class of aircraft safely in busy airspace and appalling weather! Standards and safety would be degraded not enhanced by practicing manual flying in some aircraft. Welcome to the new world!

Going back to Mark Townsends article last Sunday which started this thread, for me it is just a typical bit of journalism written to sell newspapers with enticing snippets of truth mixed with ill-judged opinion, sensationalism and half quotes, riding on the back of the recent tragic accidents.

[hazehoe]

A and C it's nice to see that you and good amount of other poeple here agree that that A FO with a solid background in FI /GA might not be to bad to have in the RHS after all. I trained a lot of ME/IR students and flew gargo around at night in piston twins in all kinds of conditions.

I know i would bring a healthy amount of hand flying skills to the flight deck , i have seen no sign at the airlines that they value this kind of experience. From what i understand there are enough pilots with 250hours ,MCC and a TR 737/Airbus in the holding pools.

I don't think there is anything wrong with getting some experience before going to a passenger jet.

My question is : What are you (the guys in the LHS at the EU airlines) doing to get these experienced pilots/FO's in ? ( ok, i have my mouth peace in)
I understand that all of you are very busy with your own T&C and maybe you do a lot more then i'm aware of, in which case i stand to be corrected.

I say lets get some guys in the RHS that still no the basics.:*

[TurningFinal]

There is a book (sold on Amazon) called "Cockpit Automation: For General Aviators and Future Airline Pilots" (Paperback)
by Stephen M. Casner.

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0813823005/ref=sib_rdr_dp/102-8733100-8296952?%5Fencoding=UTF8&no=283155&me=ATVPDKIKX0DER&st=books

While perusing the introduction available for a quick read online, I found this bit especially interesting:

"What presented the biggest challenge to most students was understanding and maintaining an awareness of what the automation was currently configured to do, especially in challenging scenarios presented by ATC...Students had to be constantly reminded that the automation had a plan of its own, and that the plan had to be continually monitored by the student. As one expert has pointed out, the most common three questions asked in the modern cockpit are as follows:

1. Why did it do that?
2. What's it doing now?
3. What's it going to do next?"

[Danny]

May I remind everybody here that the introduction fo automatics and computers have helped bring down the accident rate. There will always be incidents or accidents where over reliance on the 'automatics' is shown to be one of the causes. The increasing sophistication of the automatics means that more skill is needed to be aquired in order to use them safely and proficiently.

At the same time, basic 'stick & rudder' skills with enough situational awareness are getting eroded due to reliance on the automatics. However, the vast majority of us, whether crusty old captains or doe-eyed, wet behind the ears first officers will have had to show our basic hand flying skills, at least in a light aircraft, at some stage in our training and examination. What is apparent is that those of us lucky enough to progress up the career ladder and get our hands on heavier and shinier metal with all its attendant electronic wizardry do tend to get a bit rusty when it comes to raw data flying.

There will always be a very few pilots who after minimal training can fly anything as though it is on rails. Unfortunately, if you're at all like me and decidedly average, if not below from time to time, you will look forward to those days when you have a destination that allows you to disconnect the autopilot and autothrust, turn off the flight directors and just hand fly the a/c to touchdown. All of the above is of course subject to certain weather conditions. The automatics are there to assist and anyone claiming to have such large and robust cojones that they will always disconnect it all, the worse the weather, should take the time to get hold of a copy of Ernest K. Gann's 'Fate is the Hunter'.

That book, a documentary of what it was like in the early days of airline flying through to it's maturing after WWII, shows precisely why we need all the automation and technology that we can get. What is required these days is proper training in how to use all that technology as well as plenty of practice in basic raw data flying skills.

[AIRWAY]

A good reading also is the CAA paper 2004/10 Flight Crew Reliance on Automation.

[JW411]

I seem to remember that we have had this discussion not so long ago on another thread?

Anyway, let me restate my case; I have always loved automatics (how many of you out there remember Triplex autoland?) but I have always been an equal enthusiast for stick and rudder skills.

For those of you who rely on the automatics can I ask you when you last looked at your MEL?

For example, my MEL tells me that I can despatch without autopilots and flight directors. It doesn't happen very often but it DOES happen.

What am I to tell the folks that want to go from A to B when I don't like this scenario?

"I'm sorry folks but I can't fly the thing".

All of my F/Os are eager to handfly which is just as well, for I recently did 5 sectors without automatics or flight directors in not very nice weather with a superb F/O who could fly the arse off a lot of you out there.

Incidentally, the longest sector I ever did sans autopliot was LGW - LAX.

[Flying Torquewrench]

Hazehoe,

What's the point of your post?? Are you a little pissed off that other people get a job and you don't?

If i where you would be spending some more time surfing the internet for pilot vacancies. If you paid some more attention you would have seen a fair share of vacancies where UK airlines (Brittania,BA,Monarch, etc.) ask for people with experience. And according to yourself you have got a lot of experience.

I have seen a few senior pilots whose manual skills could do with some improvement. And these people had the stick and rudder experience. But it's far easier to rely on the automatics and read the newspaper. On the other hand i have seen several low houred F/O's flying a single engine manual ils perfectly down to the limits.

FT.

[B146]

Haven t read all 8 pages of replies to the initial statement, so if I repeat what has been said already I apologise.

I personally came out of a good british flying school located under 'kidli' with 149h total flying time and 80h sim and went straight on a 146.

This aircraft's automation is fairly limited but I never felt that my 'modern' training hadn t prepared me to hand fly this aircraft for most critical phases of flight from the first day I started.

You can obviously argue about the extend of 'flying skills' but at the end of the day you re just flying another aircraft, it s not brainsurgery.

Happy Landings

[hazehoe]

Flying Torquewrench

Thank you for your advise,i will pay better attention.

:zzz:

[Algy]

What a wonderful thread - just like the good old days of Pprune!

However, in safety terms, there never were any good old days of aviation. It was always worse. And I'm not quite sure what Irish Steve means when he says "but the accident rate for serious accidents is still there" - there's a rate all right, and it's lower than it's ever been!

There are so many issues being raised here, it's hard to know what to talk about. But I'm going to go for two:first,saying you're not hand-flying an Airbus when you're... well, hand-flying it - just doesn't make sense. It's different is all - and if you don't understand what's happening then you may hurt yourself as has been proved. (But much less likely than in days of yore.)

And I'm impressed by the tiny number of posts slagging the bean-counters. For those couple that did, yup - automation is about money. I've never heard anyone suggest otherwise.

But that does take us to an interesting question (at least it's interesting on a British public holiday when you have time on your hands) - which is, how much of each safety gain should we bank and take the cash savings, and how much should we take as safety savings and no financial benefit?

For example, re EROPS (please don't let this degenerate into an EROPS debate saga) - we say engines are about 40 times more reliable than in DC-6-era. So we will permit you to to fly further from a single-engine div. That's purely financial - you could say, "fantastic, so transoceianic crossings are 40x safer and the operating cost has to stay the same". What's reasonable?

[410]

On the previous page, Jw411 says Incidentally, the longest sector I ever did sans autopliot was LGW – LAXI’m assuming that was in the days before RVSM. And at what altitude did you fly the sector, 411? I thought it was a requirement to have an operable Alt Hold function to be able to flight plan at levels above FL210? Or is that just an Ozmate rule? (Can’t say I’ve ever needed to check the MEL on that point in recent years.)

Myself, I’ve done SIN-DRW-RIC (Sydney) without an AP – below F210 – and have to say it would have been an absolute *** drag for the two of us (6+ hours each sector) but for the fact that we just happened to have an old ex-Spitfire pilot RAF Group Captain among the pax who was tickled pink to be invited to hand fly the aircraft for an hour or so in the cruise on each sector to give us (=me, the co-pilot) a break. Have to say that the old bugger had it nailed, too. Hardly wavered in heading or height. (There are probably rules preventing a captain from doing that today.)

Back to today, I have to agree that the automatics have undoubtedly improved safety, just as the procedures that today allow (insist) you engage the autopilot quite soon after suffering a major failure allow the pilot to concentrate more on resolving the problem rather than using a goodly percentage of his brain function to hand fly the non-normal, (as we always had to demonstrate in PPCs for the first 20 years of my career).

Going back to my very early days of flying, I remember an incident that clearly illustrates how much things have changed. (As I resist sounding like the Three Yorkshiremen), in those days, the autopilot was considered a luxury (looxuuurry!), and we mere co-pilots very rarely got a sector. Prior to doing my Herc endorsement, I was supernumerary on a Butterworth service and the captain, the USAF exchange officer, gave the co-pilot the sector northbound out of Darwin. The co-pilot did the takeoff and plugged the autopilot in at around 2,000’ (that’s 2 thousand, not 2 hundred feet). The captain told him he was taking over, saying that if the cojo didn’t want to fly the sector, he’d do it himself.

It was the last sector the co-pilot was offered on the trip.

[chuks]

Re: 410's post

My sentiments exactly! I have been on empty sectors when it was the FO's leg and I have watched him sat there slumped in absolute boredom, autopilot on and nothing happening. 'How about trying some hand-flying?' just gets me THE LOOK.

I find that very sad, somehow. 99% of the time everything goes very well but then there is the odd night, cross-wind landing at dear old Murtala Muhammed with no centreline lighting when it suddenly becomes noticeable that 'someone' has not been keeping up their handling skills. I am caught in a trap of not wanting to pre-judge the situation and say that I will do this landing 'just in case' and, of course, things only go to rats in the last 20 feet or so, when it's a little too late to take it away. Then you get into a situation where to the PF things didn't feel all that bad while the PNF thought that was not at all a good landing.

When you have this exhaustively-cited trend away from pursuing hand-flying skills (not to the exclusion of keeping up skills in using the automatics) then there is often very little one can do to sort out this sort of problem. Someone doesn't want to learn a skill that's taken to be outmoded and you cannot change their mind.

I was flying with a Training Captain once, when I noticed he had set the MDA to 80 feet AGL. This was in clear weather, so that it wasn't a case of 'busting minimums' but why the low number. The explanation was that this way he could leave the autopilot in as long as possible, just taking it off to flare and land, since he didn't like to hand-fly. Another one of those, 'The auto-pilot can do a far better job of flying this airplane than you can, so always use it!' guys, I guess.

I wouldn't mind this approach so long as they were able to tolerate my own pursuit of expanding my skills envelope as far as possible without either frightening the FO or else spilling someone's coffee. The day when the wind suddenly shifts or there's a big, fat rainstorm just short of the threshold and you need to break off to do a circling approach to the other runway, well, it's a little too late then to think of all those missed opportunities to keep your hand in.

For someone to cite his grandfather's skills in doing repairs to a buggy by candlelight in this context says rather a lot.

[JW411]

410:

You are quite right; RVSM had yet to invented. We flew at normal levels. The Flight Guidance System was working perfectly but the autopilots were u/s.

[greek-freak]

I agree that automation has improved flight-safety, however an increasing number of recent accidents with highly automated acft appear to be due to a failure to monitor/understand the plethora of automatic systems and what they are doing.

The A320 crash near Strassbourg comes to my mind, the pilots completely failed to notice the high descent rate they had programmed (I think it was 1800 ft/min in a non-precision approach). I wondered that nobody has mentioned that yet.

[A37575]

Maybe the reader thinks that all of the previous posts are from oldies who have nostalgic memories of hand flying and that you personally prefer to plug in the automatics and sit back and ding for the coffee? In other words you are quite satisfied with your hand-flying raw data skills and have no need to prove it?

Next time in the simulator try this simple test of your scan and hand-flying ability. ILS to Cat 1 minima breaking out at 200 ft with the simulator set up with 35 knot cross-wind, no FD, no AT, no autopilot, and on HSI/ILS mode. If you can do a reasonable job of staying within one dot on full scale LLZ and GS and a good landing after becoming visual, you ain't half bad.

[DozyWannabe]

The A320 crash near Strassbourg comes to my mind, the pilots completely failed to notice the high descent rate they had programmed (I think it was 1800 ft/min in a non-precision approach). I wondered that nobody has mentioned that yet.

They've since re-designed the interface to that particular system to avoid that kind of mode-confusion as I understand it. Though what the designers were thinking when they allowed a push/pull system on a single knob to switch between descent angle and descent rate I'll never know...

My lecturer on Software Engineering & Reliability was Peter Mellor, who's quite a well-know talking head in aviation circles, as I understand it. The Habsheim and Strasbourg accidents were used as examples of how software can be doing exactly what it has been told to do, but that the system is not communicating to the user exactly what that is.

As I understand it, the AA 757 at Cali was at least as much down to an out-of-date Jeppesen chart as it was the automation. Offered a straight-in approach rather than the pre-programmed flight plan, they were told to head to Rozo beacon, which was indicated on the chart as 'R'. When 'R' was punched into the FMS, it deleted the previous route completely, including the reference to the 'Tulua' beacon mentioned earlier. The mistake was that as far as the FMS was concerned, 'R' was not Rozo, but the Romeo beacon near Bogota - and unfortunately the mountains lay inbetween the two locations and the rest is history.

I'm a programmer by trade, but I have always felt that automation and manual handling skills are complementary rather than exclusive in nature. The computer should be there to help, *not* to replace. I guess one of the major problems was Airbus's (and to a slightly lesser extent Boeing's) marketing department aiming their sales pitch over the heads of the pilots, hoping that the cost savings of the automation would sell the plane alone.

[FullWings]

Several points here:

1) Modern automatics and electronic enhancements have definitely made aviation safer overall. Think TCAS, EGPWS, envelope and assymetry protection, etc.

2) The current man-machine interface in the cockpit is still a long way from perfection. The fact that many incidents/accidents on contemporary aircraft have involved mode/spatial confusion bears this out.

3) Those who trained on/flew older tech' machines developed the ability to create a fairly accurate mental map from not much raw data. Now we have an excess of filtered input but Situational Awareness doesn't seem to have been greatly enhanced in some cases.

4) Even for the eager/dedicated, it can be difficult keep current in handling/raw data flying. With the best will in the world, busy TMAs in bad weather at unsocial hours are not the ideal practice ground.

5) The pilot skillset demography is changing as the old give way to the new - not that one is better than the other but just different in training and experiences.

Interesting times.

[RMC]

Yes automatics has improved the accident rate overall but three questions.

1 - Since say 1985 how many accidents have been caused by people keeping current with hand flying skills (I cant think of one). Please dont use people taking the auto pilot under totally inappropriate high workload situations (a la Kegworth).

2 - How many accidents have there been with people relying EXCLUSIVELY on the automatics (Several have already been mentioned).

3 - This cannot be answered numerically as there are no stats but how many accidents have been avoided by at least one of the two guys up front being able to cope? Be this with a landing on standby instruments (electrical emergency), exceptionally strong crosswinds (in compact old Europe most destination alternates will be affected by strong crosswinds and it is not that easy to avoid them). Not f/o bashing btw as in my company I know of a situation where the Captain bottled it and insisted the f/o to make the approach and landing. F/o subsequently bullied into keeping quiet. Yes I know he should not be flying...but he keeps passing in the sim.

No it does not hapen often; but a professional needs to be able to say that if it does hapen once in 45 years I will be able to deal with it without stress levels going ballistic and all that this entails.

We all passed an IR but flying is a degradeable skill and, as I said earlier, the CAA are now very concerned that ths skill is being lost. Just because you can jump through hoops and fly a single engine ILS with a flight director every six months does not make you a competent pilot.

Bottom line be good at both. Practice manual flying in appropriate conditions.

[Bigmouth]

To all the "increased automation is the future, get used to it" guys: While the comparatively ancient space shuttle is close to 100% computerized, Burt Rutan's spaceship is virtually hand flown.

Back to the future.

[SR71]

Bigmouth,

That was kind of the point I was alluding to back on Pg 6 of the thread.

FullWings mentions:

The current man-machine interface in the cockpit is still a long way from perfection. The fact that many incidents/accidents on contemporary aircraft have involved mode/spatial confusion bears this out.

RMC says:

...the CAA are now very concerned that ths skill is being lost.

I'm suggesting the inexorable progress of technology might now need to make a sideways/retrogressive (to the futurists?)/progressive (to the luddites?) step to improve the presentation of huge amounts of information to pilots.

Be it HUD or EVS or some new-fangled technology it ought to

...be there to help, *not* to replace...

In addition, a constraint needs to be placed on the design process along the lines of "this technology shall not further degrade pilots raw handling skills".

Whilst system architecture need not necessarily suffer a constraint on its development as a result of this quest for simplicity, the design of the man-machine interface, IMHO, should indeed, be subject to Occam's Razor.

Great thread.

[bullshot]

The Pilots that hand fly when it's appropriate do so because thay enjoy it. Why do they enjoy it? Well, because they are usually quite good at it. So they stay good at it.

Those that engage the AP as soon as poss after departure and leave it in until the last minute often lack the confidence to hand fly... and sometimes for good reason! If they did hand fly more then initially, safety margins would be eroded slightly because their s.a. is reduced whilst they struggle with some sort of instrument scan. The passengers would probably suffer an uncomfortable ride while all this is going on.. so it is quite understandable why some pilots argue that the AP is safer. They probably just about struggle through their proficiency checks so who cares?

Well, I care actually. I just hope that some of these guys don't suffer (for example) a left AC bus failure on a 757/767 on a dark night.

I know that it is sometimes dangerous to generalize like I have above. There will no doubt be exceptions. I also find though that those that enjoy handling, and are good at it, inevitably are also better at operating the aircraft using the autopilot as well.

Remember though, there is a time and a place for hand flying - there are also times when it is appropriate to use the AP. It's simple common sense.

BS

[sonicdodo]

Federal Aviation Administration
Human Factors Team
Report on:
The Interfaces Between Flightcrews
and
Modern Flight Deck Systems
June 18, 1996

•Regulatory standards. Current standards for type certification and operations have not
kept pace with changes in technology and increased knowledge about human
performance. For example, flightcrew workload is the major human performance consideration in existing Part 25 regulations; other factors should be evaluated as well, including the potential for designs to induce human error and reduce flightcrew situation awareness.

It is anold one but Good report. Some one missed it .... The sound of the 60s was prefered. Now dressed with new procedures....and meaningful - "SET"

[Slickster]

Another point missed is that manual flying is good (at times) for the non-handler too. It forces them to monitor much more closely, and obviously ups their workload too. This can only be a good thing in the long run, subject to weather, airspace etc.

So whenever I get a theatrical sigh from the other seat ("if you must"), I just chuckle to myself, and think, "Yep, you can earn your money today, you idle ......!"

The reason a lot of people don't handfly, is laziness, leading to lack of confidence, leading to comments such as, "the automatics are there to be used", SOP excuses, "I'm always too tired". I've heard 'em all, and just wonder what old Ernest K Gann would think!

[Kilo-club SNA]

Having recently come online after training on my first jet a/c I thought I'd give you my two cents

I have always been encouraged to handfly when it is suitable and I find it amazing how rapidly you imporve your ability to scan to include everything you need and after a while I found that I could even enjoy the sceneries out of a nice greek island.

Regarding previous notes on increased workload I must say that in my opinion that's compensated by the increased awareness and less trusting and assuming. Of course there are departures where it is NOT suitable to handfly but those are probably challanging enought that there is no risk of being complacient. If the departure is easy and workload expected to be low.....increase the workload by turning of some aids, it keeps you sharper and prevents compacency.

But maybe equally important, it's fun fun fun!

[chuks]

If hand-flying is 'fun' then it would have to be classed as 'serious fun' I guess. 'Serious fun': something inherently enjoyable which demands due care and consideration. Simply calling it 'fun' would go far in confirming the anti-hand flying group's basic suspicions about what is going on when the autopilot comes off.

As the multiple thousands of hours pile up the 'gee-whiz' factor fades, the wonder of how one can make an airplane obey your will with just a little pressure on the controls and all that sort of thing. Something of that remains but more important is simply maintaining this essential skill and not being afraid to use it when necessary.

[Bumz_Rush]

Yesterday was a bad day...I have been nurturing a good Co-Pilot, on a very automated aircraft.....empty sectors, I encourage hand flying...I made a big mistake..I told my fleet captain....he went ape....how dare I encourage hand flying....there is no benefit in this...the aircraft is fully automated, and I should encourage his learning of the automation.....B0ll0cks....If you had seen the co pilots face, after a hand flown approach into Nice, and a no AT take off.......As a previous poster stated it improves my skills as well.....

Also, he has undergone Sim training, in both left and right seats, but as he is only a co-pilot, he is not permitted to handle empty legs from the left......"it is strictly NOT permitted". Can anyone confirm this is the JAA's view or just a company...I think that the pre JAA was more tolerant in this area....

So lets all revolt and remove the game boy from the loop and just fly the aeroplane.....
Bumz

[Ignition Override]

Bumz Rush-it looks like the manager has lost the big picture.

Flying can be fun?

The common impression, whether mostly true or not, that pilots tend to enjoy their work under the right circumstances, contributes to resentment among many laymen and upper management.

Many of them, not to mention the common perception that automation can make the job easier (as they disregard, or are simply ignorant of the stressful, intense training and learning curve), feel that good pay is not justified, when there can be some enjoyment.

Many of these same types might often pay lots of money to watch (highly trained) professional athletes throw balls into a net, and seem not to complain about the prices.:hmm:
They can manage costs (forget actual leadership at some US airlines), or damage an airline and leave with a quite lucrative bonus. A CEO can receive hundreds of thousand$ each month-even after he leaves! Salve lucrum! Cave aviator.

[16 blades]

ALL airline managements, right up to CEO level, should be current or former pilots. That's they way the RAF does it (it's VERY senior ranks have for a long time been open only to pilots and navigators) and it gives the advantage that when policy is formed, the people forming it have at least SOME idea of what they are talking about.

Any manager that discourages hand flying needs to be shot. Bumz-Rush, you need to tell this tosser to wind his neck in. At least in my organisation, if one of the minions disagrees with a decision, the grand fromage can turn round and say "look, sonny, I did three operational tours on Harriers, so shut the f**k up and get some time in" - not something your lot can fall back on, unfortunately. Somehow the line "look, sonny, I once did an extremely hostile H&S seminar at which I actualy had to shout, so wind your neck in" doesn't command the same level of respect.....

Of course there are departures where it is NOT suitable to handfly
Such as......?

Think of yourself as a TRE / TRI monitoring the autopilot (a trainee / new F/O) - would a checker / trainer insist that a stude fly a procedure / exercise that they feel is too difficult for THEM to attempt? Bottom line here is, if you can't do it yourself, you have no business monitoring the autopilot doing it. Simple professionalism.

On my current type, there is virtually NO automation - the (obsolete at delivery, in 1967!) autopilot is a simple height / heading / track hold device. ALL procedues are flown manually. Why do we get away with it? because we practice it, we have no choice. If you practice it, you will become good at it. If you rely on the automatics all the time, you will be sh1te at it, because you don't have to think about it whilst performing another complex motor task. If you cannot walk and chew gum at the same time, you have no business being a pilot. NO autopilot can fly an aircraft as well as a competent human can. PERIOD.

16B

[Bumz_Rush]

I hope ALL departures are capable of being flown by hand.

I still find it worrying that the other guy, will not set the ADF to the OM, or the NAV backside to the GA, or similar. We have so much access to information that it is so easy to call a halt at overload. Remember the suggestion when EFIS first appeared, " if you dont like it turn all selctor switched to OFF", and fly the aircraft.

If not we are now on the slippery slope, of making a dead FMS/FGS a NO GO item.

What about the less fortunate brothers who only have round windows......not 14in LCD screens.....

Totall agree, Gum chewing should be part of the IR check ride...

I for one do this job because I like flying...and not playing with game boys.

16B you can be my wing man any time....Bumz

[chuks]

Even though I am firmly in the 'hand-flying' camp I can see the other side's point, within reason.

I did a few weeks' exchange with a UK regional airline once, about 35 hours flown between southern UK airports and Amsterdam and Paris CDG. All I was used to was Nigerian flying, with no SIDs or STARs at all. Well, we would get a few on a (very rare) ferry flight, but all I had left was theoretical knowledge. Suddenly it was all Compton 3B this and Brookmans Park that, when I was just, 'Say whut?' like some fellow who just rode into town on a wagonload of turnips.

To be able to insert the SID into the FMS and then just follow the cues in quick succession made a lot of sense. I didn't fancy my chances of maintaining SA in such a situation if I had to hand-fly such a dense procedure. A 'bust' of some very densely populated airspace was just a matter of being off by a thousand feet or a few degrees of heading.

And then going into Paris, say, the controller would suddenly switch from one STAR to another, when, again, the ability to input this change rapidly and accurately was critical.

It wasn't as if I could say, yeah, but look at how I can hand-fly! Who cares about automation? No, it is 'horses for courses' and I will be the first to admit I had something to learn there. Well, I learned it! And, on the other hand, one of the ex-RAF guys also enjoyed watching me do a short landing one day. His idea and I guess he just wanted to see if a 'bush pilot' could really get to grips with this (new to me) large aircraft. Call it 'mutual respect' if you like, or 'tolerance'. It is something like that I am looking for in this discussion, and I think it has been arrived at.

Something just touched upon, the mindset of senior management, is part of this, I feel. To a certain sort of senior manager it is as though we are being overpaid just to push a set of buttons. Something like putting a coin in a vending machine and getting a cold can of Coca-Cola, it is 'something anyone could do.' So why have these expensive, whining, troublesome and overpaid pilots anyway? Dumb the job down to a certain level that consists of passing a canned simulator check every six months and life will be much simpler. It is not as though you need someone who can get out there at midnight with a cotton bedsheet, a gallon of 'dope' and a lantern to repair a hole in the fabric fuselage so that the night mail to Patagonia can go on time.

[Milt]

Aviation Safety
Airline Pilot Training and Hands On Experience

The current (2001) emphasis on aviation safety presents the opportunity to raise an aspect of safety which has been suppressed for far too long.

Having spent a lifetime in flight testing aircraft and aircrews I have observed the gradual transistion of the training of pilots from hands on the actual aircraft to the almost total use of simulators.

The paucity of experience and abilities of pilots flying the real aircraft in abnormal conditions is now emerging with increasing frequency and can only get worse until some authority without vested interests calls a halt. The whole merry-go-round can be attributed to cost cutting and competition which have been permitted by the regulatory authorities around the world. The situation remains under reasonable control in the military because of a different emphasis on the costs involved.

You may recall the time when Qantas conducted its pilot training on the early 747 aircraft at Avalon near Geelong in Victoria. This training faded away as better simulators emerged. Now most airline pilots are certified on type with simulation. This has become satisfactory for the regular, no problem flying that is the norm for the average airline pilot.

BUT any airline simulator instructor, if approached OFF the record, will tell you about the shortcomings of the present system which the regulatory authorities have been pressured into approving.

Look at how this has happened.

Whenever a simulator manufacturer developed yet another simulator with better bells and whisles airline accountants and management saw the opportunity to cut further the enormous costs of hands on pilot training. Any pilot objections were stifled and useless once the new simulator was installed and pressed into service.

Regulatory authorities could only reluctantly give acqiescence to the gradual loss of hands on training with many of the participants having themselves come from the simulated methods of training.

Any airline not electing to join the rat race of cost cutting would be left behind in the inevitable rush of doing so to retain or enhance competetiveness.

Now we have a generation of pilots who secretly know of their lack of skill in handling most unusual situations or who have convinced themselves that they have these inadequately tested abilities with the real aircraft.

This has been a worlwide evolutionary process and the whole thing has gone too far. Someone very powerful needs to call a halt and get things back into balance.

The present incumbents of the airlines and the regulatory authorities are too steeped in their own vested interests to acknowledge the problem in the hope that it may go away. They will be reluctant to discuss the problem as few will wish to draw the line between cost effectiveness and safety concerning pilot training and their adequate skills. And just listen to the screams of the simulator manufacturers.

Apply the same thoughts to that obscure line drawn between adequate car driving skills and public safety with motor vehicle operation. Somewhere there has to be an acceptable balance.

Written April 2001 and the situation continues to deteriorate.

[Ignition Override]

16 Blades (+ Allisons, but no standby horizon??): the technology on "our" fleet ( among several, the oldest) is the same vintage :uhoh: . Our autopilot only holds altitude, as we find VOR frequencies and radials on a crammed chart. So many cities are served from three hubs, that we still must look up all of the routes, along with the STARs and SIDs, to verify or become 're-acquainted'. On a few SIDs, a certain altitude must be reached by a certain DME (O' Hare is one), depending upon the initial heading. None of this is accomplished by pushing (FMC) buttons or opening (MCP) mode control panel windows etc.

By the way, world-famous Southwest Airlines had the Boeing company create the Southwest 737-800, only for them :suspect: , with flight instruments which depict information with ROUND Gauges, as with the older 757! I don't know about the US Navy Reserve's VR squadrons which have retired the DC-9 :{ . SWA did this in order for safety to be the priority. I have no idea how many 737-200 or -300s are left. If the newer displays are indisputably better, then why did Southwest choose the older, STANDARD flight displays, and train pilots to use only a PORTION of the available automation :ooh: ? There must be a reason which improves flight safety, no?

Of course many Ppruners "drink the manufacturers' 'poisoned' Kool-Aid" about aviation's future, ignoring the past which produced aircraft whose higher demands were placed upon constant attention to power settings, heading, altitude level-offs and VOR tuning+watching course drift, and a much higher workload to operate hydraulics, APU, cabin press. and anti-ice etc. (no holding page). Comparing storms on weather radar to two additional, different gauges, in order to determine just where the VOR and airport should be is added to the above...And the past was not built upon modes and NASA's control laws, nor condensed "glass displays".
Boeing did not design those into the original 737 New Generation aircraft.

If the Lowest Cost were the only King (besides the advantage of ordering many aircraft at once) , then would the airline not have forgotten the entire concept of using the older style displays?

Southwest pilots seem to use only a small part of their actual automation in the newer 737s, which seems to enhance safety. If fully-automated lateral and vertical navigation systems are always safer, then why do their Flight Operations bosses NOT allow their pilots to use all of the automation? It can't just be standardization. Some airlines flew the 737-2 and newer series, which have numerous differences in equipment. The Southwest policy is a totally unique situation for any airline-they seem to be the only airline in the world which makes standard displays the highest priority, not to mention having only one fleet type (rating, also). And Boeing pilots can watch the throttles move, in order to quickly notice what the engine power trends are, along with MD pilots (or pilots must always move them full-time, in "real time", in X-GenerationSpeak :8 ).

[electricjetjock]

16Blades

Amazing comments - you must walk on water!

Being ex-military I only ever flew one aircraft that had a partial autopilot and that was a Wessex Mk 1, doing night decelerating transitions to the hover over the sea, the rest were hand flown. When I left the military having spent my last 8 years flying a F***ing Harrier mate and transitioned to a B757 I was very glad of the Autopilot at times. I was behind the aircraft initially at 250 kts even though I had been used to flashing around the sky in my 500+ bona jet.

I am now flying Airbus A330 and A340 in the far east and most of the flying is NOT manual, for many various reasons, pax comfort, fuel economy, weather avoidance, ATC etc etc and not forgetting the poor PNF whose workload trebles if I am having FUN!!

I am surprised that you have not advocated assymetric training to be done on the "real" aircraft again and with pax on board to show them how good we "hand flying GODS"are. Let the RAF loose another in the circuit shall we? Or why not have the charter boys fly the whole 12 hour sector manually.

Unfortunately this topic seems to have developed into who has got the bigger w***ie (apologies to our female pilots) or b**ls. The "real" world has moved on! :E

[DozyWannabe]

If the newer displays are indisputably better, then why did Southwest choose the older, STANDARD flight displays, and train pilots to use only a PORTION of the available automation ? There must be a reason which improves flight safety, no?

*Or* could it be that using their considerable clout within US Aviation to get a glass cockpit to mimic the older instruments gave them a significant cost saving when it came to cross-training time? I also wonder how much money was spent lobbying Boeing to implement these displays vs. the money saved by requesting less automation...

There are arguments for both sides, really... it's easier to 'scan' dials than it is reading off a display, but it could be argued that the information that some of the more esoteric dials display has been superseded by things like the EGPWS map display.

Swings and roundabouts mate, isn't it?

[nugpot]

it's easier to 'scan' dials than it is reading off a display

I strongly disagree, but I think that is a matter of preference and exposure.

I see a lot of posts mentioning simulators as a contributing factor in the lack of hand flying skills. Nothing stops you from hand flying the sim. In fact I find hand flying the a/c a lot easier than hand flying the sim.

I completely agree that basic flying skills (no automation) is the foundation of our profession and it is a fact that this needs to be practised to maintain proficiency. I do however have a problem when the first action when anything unusual happens, is the AP disconnect switch.

In my opinion if you want to fly airliners, you have to demonstrate and maintain a high level of skill/proficiency using full manual, full autoflight or any combination of the two.

Yes, the manual handling skills of the average airline pilot is probably lower than 20 years ago.
Yes, the autoflight skills of the average airline pilot is probably higher than 20 years ago.

I have never seen a pilot beat a proper autopilot in precision flying over anything longer than a few minutes.

A professional pilot will regularly practice his manual skills due to his professionalism and will use the autopilot when required. If you are in a situation where you need the manual skills of Chuck Yeagar, your manual practice on the odd approach or departure probably would not be enough in any case.

The most important consideration should be to avoid the situations where your superior manual flying skills are needed to save the day.


Jus som spellun currecsions.

[JW411]

I have already stated that I have always embraced automation but am an equal enthusiast for stick and rudder skills.

Nugpot makes a very valid point when he says that using the autopilot in a problem situation can be an absolute Godsend. As a TRI/TRE I teach pilots to ALWAYS use the autopilot if at all possible when things get difficult. This is especilally important in the 2-man cockpit. It takes so much pressure off the PF while the PNF is dealing with the problem and managing the situation.

There have been quite a few instances where the tendency to disconnect the autopilot whenever something catastrophic happens has turned out to be the nail in the coffin.

For example, it could be argued that if the automatics on the Turkish DC-10 at Paris had been left in then it may well have been able to do an auto-land back at Orly. (Without getting too involved, the hydraulics ran underneath the floor - which was catastrophically damaged - whereas the electrics for the autoland ran along the roof which was intact).

Now I absolutely do not criticise the captain for taking the automatics out when he had such a catastrophic failure for it was in those days the instinctive thing to do. Sadly, as it turned out, it was not the best solution.

Now then, the closest I have ever got to dying in an aeroplane happened one night over Northern Canada when the automatics in my aeroplane (Triplex) threw out and left me very close to the stall and a control column that was frozen in pitch.

We hand-flew the aircraft for 7 hours on the elevator trim wheel before it was possible to get the automatics back in. During those 7 hours it was just about possible to keep the rate of climb and descent between 700 ft per minute. I was very glad that I had good hand-flying skills otherwise we might all have died.

So; what am I as an old dinosaur saying? I am saying that you should use ANY working automatics to your advantage when things get nasty but, when the fancy stuff fails, if you do not possess decent hand skills to deal with emergencies which are simply not covered in your beloved QRH, then some of you are statistically going to die.

[A-FLOOR]

For example, it could be argued that if the automatics on the Turkish DC-10 at Paris had been left in then it may well have been able to do an auto-land back at Orly. (Without getting too involved, the hydraulics ran underneath the floor - which was catastrophically damaged - whereas the electrics for the autoland ran along the roof which was intact).If I recall correctly no hydraulics=no control in a DC-10, electrics or no electrics.

So even if the crew used the automatics to try and raise the nose, it would have been equally useless as the main flight controls still wouldn't work.

Although I'm not sure if the DC-10 has an AC backup motor for the elevator trim like the 747 has, the only thing they could do (and which to my recollection they did), was try and raise the nose by increasing power on the number 1 and 3 engines. To no avail, I'm sad to say :(

Edited for correctness: The floor collapse following explosive depressurization jammed all of the control cables to the tail, including those for elevator trim and the number 2 engine. No mention of a hydraulic failure, which might suggest they still had roll control and control over their flaps/slats.

link (http://aviation-safety.net/database/record.php?id=19740303-1)

[JW411]

Not strictly true if my memory serves me right. I freely admit that my manuals are up in the attic and that I am 20 years out of date but I seem to remember that we had reversible and non-reversible motor pumps in the flying control part of the hydraulic systems.

The non-reversible motor pumps had their own reservoirs which still contained fluid in the event of the failure of the main hydraulics.

The theory was that these reservoirs would have contained enough fluid for the automatics to work the control surfaces according to my mentors at AA in DFW.

Incidentally, we used to practice flying the DC-10 in the simulator just by using the engines after the Chicago disaster (a long time before Sioux City). Their biggest problem was the fact that they didn't have No.2 available to control pitch.

We were taught to use Nos 1 and 3 for turning.

With No.2 available it was a relatively easy exercise.

[7gcbc]

Is it not just evolution/modernisation that is driving this ? The fact that the automatics are essentially controlled by mini-computers doing thousands of repetitive [and error free one should hope ?] calculations with minor variations to change pitch, bank, rate(s) and so forth ? A good example is a precision hold.

I'm sure many here remember times-tables ? and indeed I'm one of those old cranky Victor Meldrews who were not allowed to take "calculators" into exams back in my youth ? But what real worth is memorizing times-tables for the modern student, when a calculator is now a fundamental part of his tools ?

Likewise, modern pilots are expected to not only have the basic stick 'n' rudder skills, but also be able to manage the automatics and know [to a fair degree of certainty] what the raw inputs would yield without the computers ? Same deal with modern Jet Airliners, the automatics are a fundamental part of the aircraft.


I guess its the way its going, for example, you'd be hard pressed to find a manual FX trading (excluding futures, because no one can tell the future, not even computers) desk that can do as well as a comptuerised one, the arbritrage (price difference) exists for a millisecond [well a few hours or so at any rate] across markets and the ripple is almost in an instant globally equalized, all of this is done by computers with little or no input from a person, 24/7.


Which is why the banks make lots of lolly on our holiday drachmas!

[Irish Steve]

But what real worth is memorizing times-tables for the modern student, when a calculator is now a fundamental part of his tools ?

OK, so what is one supposed to do when standing at the counter of a hardware store with 10 bolts in hand, and then having to wait for ever while the assistant tries desperately to find a calculator to work out what 10 @ 0.45 each is going to be.

Yes, that happened to me not long back, it took close on 5 MINUTES to get past the payment stage, the first calculator had a flat battery, the "spare" was missing, and despite several "suggestions" that it was 4.50, I could not pay for the items until said "assistant" had eventually found the means to work it out for himself.

If the same scenario starts happening in aircraft flight decks, and I seem to recall that's how this thread started, I for one am not going to be too comfortable about the implications. Yes, there is a lot more automation, but that does not remove the requirement to know and UNDERSTAND how the thing works when a normally obscure and minor part suddenly decides to throw it's toys out of the pram and not do what it's supposed to. At that stage, someone has to be able to make sensible decisions about what to do, and how to do it, and if the underlying knowledge and skills are not there, do we all just sit there and wait for the impact? I hope not.

One of the most scary aspects of the disaster in the Gulf of Mexico is that so many of the things that people take totally for granted, like water, food, electricity, petrol, vehicles and roads to use them on, mobile phone services, the internet, ALL of these things are at present not there, and not likely to be for a long time to come, and even the emergency services are struggling to cope because they can't operate in the manner in which they've become accustomed to doing, using facilities that within living memory, have always been there, or at least been mostly there, with gaps.

Now, ALL of the "essentials" have been wiped out over a massive area, and the sytem has suddenly discovered that it's not sure how to work any more.

Apply that same scenario to the discussion here. When it's all working, and doing what it's supposed to , no problem, almost anyone can manage that scenario. Fail increasing quantities of the automation and support systems, and life gets very complicated, very fast. At that point, if the underlying skills and knowledge are not there, the potential for a catastrophic accident is only too clear.

[egbt]

But what real worth is memorizing times-tables for the modern student, when a calculator is now a fundamental part of his tools ?

The worth is that those of us old enough to have been taught to use log tables, slide rules, straight or circular, and those with a reasonable grasp of basic mental arithmetic are less likely to make gross errors with a calculator or computer, particularly getting the answer a factor of 10 (or more) out – it does happen. It also improves estimating skills and interpolation.

Also, as mentioned above, it saves time in the check out queue when you how much is due before the checkout operator. :ok:

A very similar argument to the need to be good at stick and rudder flying to get the most from the automation. :E

[El Desperado]

I am currently flying an Airbus out of my base that has the RDMI inop. It has been thus since we got the thing, and is likely to remain 'thus' for the forseeable future. When I say 'the', I mean 'the only' RDMI because this particular 321 only has 1 fitted. I'm pretty sure that most 32x series only have 1, if not all. Anyway, this is in accordance with the MEL.

If both the FMGSs fail, I would like to know how I could continue a SID or a STAR, hand-flown or automatic, in this situation. If all the screens fail, I would like to know how to do the above as well. As for continuing to fly on airways... don't make me laugh; I could do it on a Boeing, but not anymore.

The simple answer is... I can't. I'm now reliant on vectors and / or my standby instruments (which are glass... they can't fail, can they ?! see below....)

The RDMI is tuned from the FMGS anyway, so perhaps if the FMGS fails, I can't tune the thing anyway... can't find the answer in the FCOM, so it will be a 'can we try this ?' at the next sim.

The underlying argument seems to be - "When it all goes wrong, you should have the skills to be able to continue safely."

I'd like to add another argument - "When it all goes wrong, you should have the KIT to be able to continue safely." I'm not sure I do with the WonderBus... my operator has experienced an all-screen failure (including standby instruments) on this type and luckily it was VMC with subsequently no drama.

Having said that, it does make you look like an airborne god sometimes... FDs off, 'hand-flown' (chuckle) VOR approach into IBZ... on the rails, 3.2 degree continuous slope. Not because I'm great, but because the aircraft gives you tools that other types don't have. I don't fancy my chances on anything else after a few years on this though....

[Ignition Override]

DozyWannabe:
Maybe Southwest 737 NG pilots have a way to put the weather radar returns right onto the HSI (as with the 757 and numerous other aircraft), despite having mostly round gauge displays for flight instruments.

Don't know what swings and roundabouts are, but I tried to drive around some in England...:\

[7gcbc]

QUOTE:

"It also improves estimating skills and interpolation"

Of course it does, and it also gives you the ability to place your answers close enough to the solution.

My point was really that skills erosion is happening everywhere, and yes I agree that logarithmics are very useful, but trying to sell that to modern students, well is a hard task.