Article about lack of hand flying skills - FAA concerned [Archive]

AOB9

30th Aug 2011, 23:10

I find the whole subject of Automation vs Manual very interesting. I'm not a commercial pilot, only a mere (43 yr old) PPL trainee. However, I joined the pharmaceutical industry as a process operator in the mid '90's. We were trained to understand everything about the equipment we operated. Every valve and switch was operated manually and the working day was one of constant decision making and "qualified judgement". Generally speaking it took five years to properly train as an efficient/safe operator and I believe this fact entirely having been there. As time progressed automation became more and more built into the system and we were no longer to required to "make decisions". Processing was done by computers,not humans. Not only did the job become incredibly boring but our skills eroded to the point that when a potential safety critical event occurred we we were under pressure to deal with it due to lack of practice. In short I ( speaking for myself) believe I was converted from a skilled, finely tuned individual to a dormant button pusher in period of less than 10 yrs. I wouldn't dream of applying the same label to the fine men and women that fly us safely from A to B every day, indeed I don't know much ( if anything) about their workload. However, based on a different type of experience I firmly believe over-relying on automation reduces the human capacity to react appropriately when put under unexpected pressure.

MountainBear

31st Aug 2011, 02:21

Opportunities to fly manually are especially limited at commuter airlines, where pilots may fly with the autopilot off for about 80 seconds out of a typical two-hour flight, Coffman said.The whole issue is a silly subterfuge. A two hour flight is 7200 seconds. At 80 seconds the industry already has automated 99% of the flight. The amount of design necessary to automate the last 1% is a baby step.

The airline manufactures don't give a **** about safety, pilots, or hand flying. What they care about is liability. Removing the pilot from the flight deck effectively removes the airline operator from the liability equation.

If you take a step back it's preposterous. There is this huge canopy of tens of thousands of commercial pilots, their training, the simulator manufactures...even an entire area of academic study (human factors management)...built upon the thin reed of 80 seconds of human activity. What a farce!

The airline manufacturers would kick the pilots to the curb in a heartbeat if they got some type of liability protection.

EW73

31st Aug 2011, 02:49

As a result of some of the earlier comments here, I would say that the autopilot systems only improve efficiency, not safety.

I believe hand flying a departure or an approach is no less safe than any auto system.

Also, I remember when the pilots managed their time so that the pilot flying the approach would have some suitable short time for some 'rest' prior to the descent/approach, to partially offset the effects of 'the 14 hour day'..
...and don't think for a minute that I haven't been there!

Cheers.....:)

LFFC

31st Aug 2011, 02:51

A lot of you are missing the essential point; a few minutes of hand-flying a departure or arrival isn't going to solve this problem! The real issue is that young pilots of today have so little experience of handling aircraft at the edge of their performance envelopes that they have nothing to fall back on when things go wrong.

The emerging thought is that Upset Recovery Training during initial training and at regular refresher training afterwards - relevant to the aircraft that they operate - is now vital.

Gretchenfrage

31st Aug 2011, 04:01

True. The problem must be solved right from the beginning: serious basic training. Too many FBOs (even big carrier academies) are not qualified and dilligent enough, spit out pilots too fast and they are sucked up by less than thorough small (or morally cheap) operators who very much like such cheap output selling their own grandmother just to go flying.

If we try to counteract once these pilots made their fast ascencion (through self paied ratings) to big airliners, it will be not only be a almost unsurmountable task concerning resources, but hit the resistance of the greedy and unscrupulous managers of today.

By the way, we warned of this erosion of skills some 20 years ago, just to be belittled, called cavemen and then duly ignored by the same fraction who now cry us down when we criticise the abscence of tactile feedback in modern aircraft.
We'll see each other again in a few years when another bunch of researchers, surveyors or other very intelligent and prevoyant men and women will have discovered these flaws! They will act just as surprised, sell their discoveries as absolutely revolutionary, take a lot of credit for that, the industry will resist as it does todays, citing costs. The protectionists of this kind of overautomation will first go into hiding only to emerge and pretend they always pointed out that danger, but the pilots, the only ones really capable and responsible of bringing up such problems as they operate the systems, did not speak up loud enough.

So once again they are to be blamed.....

Lyman

31st Aug 2011, 05:20

If one is taught proper to fly, one needn't worry about "Single Channel Cognition". Comes natural, and that's the idea.

The hands are not the problem, gents, tis the cabeza, and innate skills, with experience.

No one can fly w/o cueing, whether visual or dial. And with sufficient cueing, it ain't even hard....

Let us stop confusing "poor stick" with lack of repetition. Then there will be no need to "Train" for stuff that is not happening.

Sully had "0" time in the sim or real in 320 water landings.

The only resource a pilot will always have and the autos will not, is "Innovation". And that does not atrophy.

Desert185

31st Aug 2011, 06:03

As a retired airline check airman with sim instructor duties, I noticed a definite erosion of hand flying skills when a pilot came from a highly automated aircraft to an aircraft where automation was only an autopilot connected to a VOR or INS. It was very obvious that flying skills erode when one is over-dependent on automation.

I always required two, hand flown approaches, one with the FD off in the sim and one leg with the FD off during IOE. Those who regularly turned off the autopilot below FL180 were much better "sticks" than the children of the magenta line who regularly gave the leg to the automation. Simple facts...

Use it or lose it.

Madbob

31st Aug 2011, 08:20

Desert 185

As someone who did my flying training with the RAF I may of course be biased, but I can tell you that the training aircraft I flew didn't have autopilots. All the flying was by hand in the Chipmunk, Bulldog. Jet Provost and Hawk and by then all those that didn't have the aptitude to hand fly well had been chopped.

Also, we all had to fly at the limits of the performance envelope, in terms of aerobatics and also at high level when close to mach and other limits.

When I did fly multi-engine (the Jetstream) on the IHT (Instrument Handling Test) for the award of a procedural IR the examiner "failed" the autopilot early in the test and all of it had to be hand-flown.

All that need to be done I think is for sim examiners to "fail" an autopilot from time to time so forcing pilots to fly manually more often. That would soon sort out those than can and those that can't hand fly an aeroplane.

BarbiesBoyfriend

31st Aug 2011, 10:26

What's actually needed is for 'hand flying' skills to be recognised as 'important'.

At the moment, they are not.

It's really as simple as that.

Centaurus

31st Aug 2011, 15:13

A lot of you are missing the essential point; a few minutes of hand-flying a departure or arrival isn't going to solve this problem!

Agreed. However hand flying to 10,000 on a SID using raw data is a good start. Same with descent. No one ever suggested hand flying for ten hours.
Many years ago I was chided by the chief pilot of a German IT charter airline using 737's for daring to hand fly departures and arrivals. The reason he gave was the first officers were not trained to monitor hand flying by the captain - they were only trained to monitor the automatic pilot.

That was 20 years ago and nothing has changed. Blind reliance on the marvels of automation inevitably makes some pilots lazy and complacent.

Lyman

31st Aug 2011, 16:08

It's deeper than merely 'polishing up' on manual control. Manual control carries with, especially with the Bus, an inference of OFF NORMAL a/c behaviour, relative to many conditions. Becoming complacent with too much autoflight is not the problem per se. Any rare event needs be addressed by a PILOT who is familiar, stop.

Training, yes, but in with familiarity are many Human attributes that get neglected in the rush to defend a particular format. First things first?

How about confidence? Spatial awareness, this having been seriously challenged in Simulator?

A Type rating as the be all and end all of a career is a dangerous thing. Awarding a type rating to one who is not fluent in Principles takes away the latitude an airman must have to respond intuitively to an emergent event. A human pilot who is without intuition borne of experience makes a (very) poor robot.

The last most egregious example of Airline HUA is the inability of a crew to transition from autopilot to Manual Control.

And that was NOT the result of a lack of "Training" Unusual attitudes.

Keylime

31st Aug 2011, 17:23

Another point in this mix is with the shortage of experienced pilots becoming a bigger issue the manufacturers are selling the airlines "automation will save you". Take a look at the majority(not all) of accidents. Many are on the A320 series and B 737 series aircraft. The common thread: junior aircraft and first captain/f/o aircraft flown. The shortage is causing many airlines to push low experience pilots into these seats. The automation will save you about 98% of the time.

TacomaSailor

31st Aug 2011, 17:51

Automation and the loss of human technical skills are wide spread throughout the industrial arena. The problems suffered in a cockpit are time sensitive and news worthy but those same problems occur in many industries. I’m not sure that any industry has a good answer for keeping humans in the loop and their skills up to date while the computers handle most normal operations and procedures.

I am very familiar with two non-aviation technical industries where the promise of using automation and then hiring less educated, lower skilled, cheaper technical staff has resulted in many problems similar to those discussed on this web site..

A prior message described the concerns of a process operator in a pharmaceutical facility. I have had the identical experience in very large, very dangerous, petroleum processing facilities.

When I started as one of many computer systems engineers responsible for computerizing the processes I spent years learning how the systems worked. I learned those details from highly skilled technicians who had helped build, startup, and operate the facility. They understood every little nuance of pressure, temperatures, flows, voltages, etc. They did not need my computer – but it sure made the day-to-day operation easier. They could monitor the computer and consistently take over and out-perform the computers when anomalous events occurred. Over the years our computer automation became more sophisticated, quicker and more accurate but I never once felt we could do without highly skilled and proficient operators.

That generation of technician/operator has retired and the new techs are just computer operators, screen watchers, and button pushers. They do not have the in-depth, intuitive knowledge of how the very complex parts of the processes interact. When process X mis-behaves, or monitor Y shows impossible data; they do not have the ability to quickly and easily determine what other processes and equipment will be affected and how they will react.

The first and 2nd generation operators were not allowed in the control room to work with the computers until they had spent years manually running the processes from the field. The current operators have not spent years and years climbing towers to turn valves, measuring depths, and monitoring temperatures. All they know is what the computer tells them and when it doesn’t tell them – they are confused. Usually, unlike a cockpit at 34,000’, there is time to figure it out or to call someone on the phone – but those skills will soon be unavailable.

Another example

My wife is the senior operator with 30+ years experience running a very large and complex municipal water system. She started as a field hand manually operating pumps, chlorinators, filters, test equipment, and valves. Over the years she pretty much learned how each and every connection and control interacted. When they automated EVERYTHING, after she had been there 12 years, she was very comfortable running the system from a control room with nine video screens and 60’ of wall space with gauges and displays. She still knew how it all worked – she had touched those parts and watched them operate. She knew in her gut what a change on a flow meter displayed on a computer would mean an hour later for the pressures at a standpipe 30 miles downstream. .

She has been responsible for training new operators. She uses a curriculum developed by engineers and educators who have never actually operated the equipment. She now has five techs working for her, none with any real hands on experience, and not a one of them can sit down and tell her what happens to the pressure at valve Z when the pump at location A fails. When the police call to say a 36” main is flooding the street; those new techs don’t instinctively know that a 70’ tall standpipe 5 miles away is draining thru that ruptured pipe.

And, the computer sure can’t tell them! Eventually the computer sees the standpipe reaching critically low level and displays an alarm but by then 5,000 people do not have enough water pressure to flush their toilets and it takes four hours to rebuild that pressure.

In both situations I described – management was able to hire less skilled technicians, spend less time training them, and pay them less money because they are easier to replace.

I guess things worked out OK because in neither case am I aware of any disaster caused by the lack of skill. But, I am well aware of a lot of lost product, poor product, and inefficient operation because the technicians did not have the experience to correct unusual situations for which the computer was not programmed as well as possible.

In both my experience in the refinery and her experience with the water system – the computer does a near perfect job 99%+ of the time. They are great for trending, remembering when to do something, displaying checklists, and bringing up procedures.

But – when a truly unusual event occurs that I as a systems engineer did not anticipate – then only a human with a lot of detailed knowledge, experience, and current proficiency can make the leap from specific knowledge to a new process or connection.

I’m not sure the commercial aviation industry should expect any other technical operations to help them understand automation and humans.

But, as a 40+ year computer professional, and SLF, I hope pilots can convince automation experts that skilled and CURRENTLY PROFICIENT pilots will always out perform computers in those truly rare situations that can not be anticipated.

Phantom Driver

31st Aug 2011, 18:26

Gents,

I thought this subject had already been thrashed to death on previous threads.

I will say again--Today, we operate in RVSM/RNP/RNav STARs and SIDs (even in China), all of which require maximum accuracy in flying which only automation can supply. Regrettably, manual flying in todays ATC environment is not only undesirable but is actively discouraged by enlightened management, and quite rightly so.

However, with regard to erosion of manual flying skills-undoubtedly this problem has to be addressed. I would suggest we start from basics. Not everyone can kick off flying fast jets where manual flying is the order of the day. But even that background offers no guarantees; (my oft quoted favourite--"The older I get, the better I was").

So for those following the civilian route, general aviation is the way to climb the ladder (rather than stepping straight into the cockpit of an A320). However, we all know the problems of "Parker Pen hours" and the lack of proper oversight when compared to military aviation (no disrespect intended).

But once in the airline environment, one should easily be able to weed out the incompetents, and I believe the system works well today in established companies. Unfortunately, this may not always be the case.

I would suggest that we start with modifying recurrent training in the sim. Let's cut down on lengthy LOFT exercises, programming MCDU's, (use the fixed based trainer), 10 minutes of low vis taxi, etc, etc. Not saying cancel altogether, just spend more time on important stuff such as manual flown raw data approaches in cross winds.

The simulator is the place to do this, not line flying with revenue pax on board in challenging ATC environments where all hands need to be on deck monitoring what is going on, not monitoring whether the flight path is being accurately flown, be it by young F/o or crusty old (fatigued) Captain.

"The older I get, the better I was....":cool:

Craggenmore

31st Aug 2011, 18:55

1. Get rid of lawyers.

2. Get rid of insurance premiums.

Bingo..!

Gretchenfrage

31st Aug 2011, 18:57

Thank you safety for so prominently confirming my points

The reason you are called cave men is quite simple and your own fault.

Didn't I said so: it's always the pilots fault, isn't it? QED.

NW 6231 and Buffalo both stalled. They had tactile feedback and stall warnings yet both sets of crew pulled back on the stick when they should have pushed.

Please read carefully before you post. This mishap was created by the first mentioned effect: Irrational cost cutting, cheaper training, over reliance on automatics and their protections. Nobody here was connecting this with feedback, only you now. So combining the two is a self serving distortion (I mentioned that on another thread .....)

Interestingly this happened too with AF447. You need to have an IQ of about 17 to realise that feedback will make no difference. The problem lies elsewhere.

Well, with an IQ of 18 you would by now have realised that many professionals (I guess you do not belong to the airborne ones) do in fact think that there would have been a difference. Just who do you think is slightly better entitled to have an opinion? I do not pretend to be right, it's my opinion I throw in and always begin with "I think", but you definitely and exclusively pretend that feedback makes no difference. That's arrogant.

You undermine your own profession by creating 000,s of posts criticising airbus design philosophy in some mistaken crusade to shift blame for poor flying skills.

If you throw a stone into a herd of sheep, the one will yell that's hit. -> In my post I never singled out Airbus! I talked about modern aircraft. But you yourself sort of identified the one more prone to it .... Määääääähhhhh

Lyman

31st Aug 2011, 19:00

Tacoma. Perhaps a bit arse about. "The decline of Technical skills"? Technical skills are improving, continually. Aviation wise. There is a concomitant degradation of Airmanship, is that what you meant? Airmanship is not technical, in spite of the engineers who insist it be seen that way. Arguably, Autoflight is not technical either.

The day Technology replaces what a Pilot can do has nothing whatever to do with land bound technical Industries. Hire cheap Help? Fine. Put them in the cockpit? Are you Mad?

Mechanization is nothing if not basic. Logic is a fancy way of saying prior calculation.

The challenge in Aviation is not mechanization, but devolving what is an ART into ones and twos. For my dough, it is impossible.

In a wildly chaotic airborne environment, one seeks to inject prior calculations into SURVIVAL? NO, and that is why the BUS gives up when the stink is fresh into the FAN. :ok:.

This whole deal is an illusion, at least in the way it is framed here.

Safety concerns. You might be misunderstanding the nature of 'feedback', in both technical and physiological dimension.

Tactility is CUE. CUE is survival, lack thereof is dangerous. Parsing as if a strictly environmental and parochial "bias" exists is not helpful. There is no such argument.

Both autoflight and Manual control are CUE DEPENDENT. Who is the caveman? Without sensing, Aviation doesn't exist.

Dimlightbulbs

31st Aug 2011, 19:48

So what is the FAA going to do about it other then be 'concerned'.

It took congress to bump new hires to 1500 hours...not the FAA.

JW411

31st Aug 2011, 20:31

Phantom Driver:

"The simulator is the place to do this, not line flying with revenue pax on board in challenging ATC environments where all hands need to be on deck monitoring what is going on".

I find this just such a fascinating comment. Why would the revenue passengers have any problem with you hand-flying in (what you call) a challenging ATC environment?

In any event, I always reckoned that those of us up the front were more important than them behind.

Are you admitting that hand-flying in (what you call) a challenging ATC environment is too much for you and your Capt/FO to deal with?

In addition, are you suggesting that your attempts at handflying would seriously upset the well-being of your passengers?

If so, I am extremely glad that I retired five years ago.

I was a TRI/TRE for many years. I did not like the ethos that came from JARS where almost all of the Base Check/IR was conducted with the automatics engaged. It quickly became obvious that "stick" values were on the decline.

I respectfully suggest to you that "stick" values might just be in the ascendancy again because too many people are dying under this so-called technological progress?

Now don't get me wrong; I have always welcomed technology where it made my job easier. I always taught that if the automatics are still working, then use them but we should NEVER EVER lose sight of the basics.

By the way, those of you who have exchanged views with me in the past will know that I am a fan of the DC-10. I first met the DC-10 with Laker and we had the "Deck Angle" indicator on the glare shield. It was great fun; we spent the whole flight from London to LAX pushing the button and worked for a deck angle of 3.0 to 3.5 degrees up for that was the optimum.

It was the same for the B747, L-1011, and the BAe 146.

And so it is that I find it quite fascinating that AF never found it necessary to teach such simple survival lessons to their aircrew on AF447.

Which takes me back to the beginning; I have mentioned this before on pprune but I once took a DC-10 to LAX with no autopilots (the MEL allowed this) and it was a relaxed affair and not one of the 345 passengers was sick).

Before you get carried away, I do realise that nowadays RVSM requires automatics...................

Which doesn't say much for modern poling abilities!

gatbusdriver

1st Sep 2011, 06:36

Apologies if I got the wrong end of the stick. I appreciate there are many out there who know the requirements for RVSM.

I have copied this from our MEL with regards autopilots. B is obviously the rectification interval, 3 is the number of autopilots installed on the 757, 0 is the number required for dispatch (sorry for those that knew that). It is a popular misconception that you must have autopilots engaged to be able to fly in RVSM airspace. One occasion when hand flying to the top of climb I was informed by the f/o, as we were passing FL280, that I should have the a/p in to remain RVSM compliant. I duly engaged it, then showed him the books at the top of climb.

I did laugh at the hate mail article yesterday about pampered pilots that can't fly. I am very fortunate to work for a company that actively encourages hand flying. Why on earth do we sign up for the job? It certainly wasn't because I enjoy pushing buttons and watching the automatics fly the aeroplane (let me point out that there is clearly a time and a place for everything). Admittedly, not every pilot will take the opportunity to hand fly, but the company runs manual handling sims to cater for them.

B 3 0 (M) Except for ETOPS operations, all may
be inoperative provided:
a) At least one FCC power circuit breaker
remains in,
b) All three FCC SERVO circuit breakers
are pulled and collared, and
c) Number of flight segments and segment
duration is acceptable to flight crew.
NOTE: Any mode that functions normally
may be used.

OPERATIONS NOTE
3 Autopilots must be operative for LAND 3 status.
2 Autopilots must be operative for LAND 2 status.
An Altitude Hold function is required for RVSM airspace.

Dream Land

1st Sep 2011, 07:03

Yes I think most of us actually understand that in RVSM it is the altitude hold function that is the requirement.

I agree with many of the experienced instructors comments, but there are a few that I disagree with.

1. Hand flying to 10K does nothing IMHO, I have crew members doing this all the time, it's funny, they simply do not engage the A/P and follow the FD's up to 10K and think they've accomplished something, when in fact I could go in the back and get any 10 year old kid on board to do the same thing, holding the aircraft symbol on the big cross takes no talent.

2. Yes I do believe that hand flying can overload a crew in some of the busier terminal areas, much different than when I was flying full procedures from an IAF, it's simply too busy in many areas with very complicated STAR's.

3. Now we then move to sim world where the A/P is - often U/S with the multiple emergency scenarios.

4. Now many of my colleagues have less than 300 hours flying a real airplane, then they go straight into the computer, so how can you lose flying skills they never learned in the first place?

irishpilot1990

1st Sep 2011, 07:31

1. Hand flying to 10K does nothing IMHO, I have crew members doing this all the time, it's funny, they simply do not engage the A/P and follow the FD's up to 10K and think they've accomplished something, when in fact I could go in the back and get any 10 year old kid on board to do the same thing, holding the aircraft symbol on the big cross takes no talent.

2. Yes I do believe that hand flying can overload a crew in some of the busier terminal areas, much different than when I was flying full procedures from an IAF, it's simply too busy in many areas with very complicated STAR's.

3. Now we then move to sim world where the A/P is - often U/S with the multiple emergency scenarios.

4. Now many of my colleagues have less than 300 hours flying a real airplane, then they go straight into the computer, so how can you lose flying skills they never learned in the first place?

Hi mate, good post. In addition to your 4 points.

1) Turn off the FD on the STAR!!! Simples. Then the pilot at least learns to scan. FD/SPEED/FD/SPEED is not a scan you are correct 10 yr olds can do it. Do a few STARS and learn the real scan, then fly some approaches.Still plenty of RNAV sids around

2) Knowing when to fly raw data is the most important thing about doing it, not how good you are. High workload, difficult or busy departure, bad weather. Do not do it. Plenty of good opportunities to practice at quiter times or low work load approaches. Request a visual and fly.

3) So many pilots/button pushers kid themselves that they can fly because they do it for 15 minutes twice a year in the simulator. Again typically with FDs.

4) If you are not one of the rookie 3,000 hour Cpts who do not know how to fly either teach the FO. Obviously again comes back to point two, knowing WHEN to fly!That comes down to airmanship and common sense, two things that the industry is also losing, mainly down to the reason people stopped flying....treating the OPS manual as the bible and making poor decisions as a result of not factoring in the individual circumstances around events.No SOP for every scenario.

Denti

1st Sep 2011, 09:08

An Altitude Hold function is required for RVSM airspace.

True enough, however one is not required to use it, it is just recommended. One is still allowed to hand fly in RVSM if one is confident enough in his skills to do it within RVSM limits. Of course it becomes kinda boring after some time and that is where an autopilot has its use. But there is nothing preventing us to fly a SID or STAR to/from cruise level manually without a FD. Yes. even if it is PRNAV, it is not really all that difficult.

Good memories

1st Sep 2011, 10:05

Have we already forgotten the great decision making of :

The crew of the BA 747 at JNB
The crew of the BA 777 at LHR
The crew of the A 320 in the Hudson river ditching.
The crew of the A 380 in SIN
And probably many others we don't know about.

I never hand flew above Fl 300 apart from trimming the acft.

What about the Canarsie approach at JFK with x-wind or getting a 747 in at SMX at night and many other difficult airports .

Let's not overreact like the media and authorities. Enjoy the flying auto or manual and if I could choose a new profession I would be pilot again.

iceman50

1st Sep 2011, 13:04

Denti

nothing preventing us to fly a SID or STAR to/from cruise level manually without a FD. Yes. even if it is PRNAV, it is not really all that difficult.

Please explain how you can do that without FD's!! What exactly are you tracking?

Denti

1st Sep 2011, 13:27

First of all you still have the navigation performance scales displayed in your PFD of course which show very precisely where you are in your RNAV corridor. Secondly you should be able to check your ND every now and then which shows you how far of course you are in 0.01NM steps (and yes, you should be able to fly that exact manually). And of course you still have the dreaded magenta line. FD off does not mean you have no other data available which can be used to fly.

Jonty

1st Sep 2011, 13:37

My 2p worth.

I think we operate modern aircraft much closer to the edge of the performance envelope than we used to with first or second generation jets. Modern jets fly higher, further, carry more payload, for less fuel than ever before. The whole sale installation of computers and the increase in computing power has made this possible. The aircraft need to be flown with much more accuracy than ever before to achieve the required performance, where 1 or 2 knots could make all the difference.

This step change in aircraft performance has, however, not been followed up with a change in pilot training. Everything is fine while the computers are working correctly, however its only when things start going wrong that the pilots realise just how close to the edge of the performance envelope they are. And being able to handle a big jet aircraft at the edge of its envelope while stuff is going wrong around you is not something civilian pilots are trained for.

It is the training that needs to change not the aircraft.

When I converted to a 3rd generation jet about 3 years ago, one of the first things the instructor said was "its impossible to stall this aircraft". Well tell that to the crew of the Air France 330. That phrase still plays on my mind every time I look at the Unreliable Air Speed QRH checklist.

chrisN

1st Sep 2011, 14:35

Why would there be no need for training in hand flying above FL 300?

In AF447, the PF was given the aircraft, as the computer gave up, to hand fly at about FL 350 (from my memory – can’t easily check at present).

Nothing in the thousands of posts on the various AF447 threads, nor anything in the BEA reports AIUI, shows that PF (or PNF for that matter) had ever hand flown at high altitude, for real or in a simulator, at Mach 0.8 or 0.82; nor at slow, close to stall speed at high altitude; and certainly not at a high AoA in a stall.

PF’s movements with the side stick shortly after the incident started caused the PNF to try to persuade him to use less coarse movements and be gentler, which again suggests little or no training in hand flying at high speed and high altitude.

The graphic on one of the AF447 threads shows SS movements described by some as “mixing mayonnaise”, and included pitch commands as well as roll. People have speculated why he ever commanded nose up in the first place, to climb from FL 350 to about 380 – but a very early poster suggested it might have been inadvertent, while trying to do coarse roll inputs. Nobody made a better suggestion that I saw.

PF’s references to “crazy speed” and his persistent holding nose up suggested to some that he confused mach buffet with pre- stall buffet, and high noise with high speed rather than high AoA, which kept him thinking all the way down that he had an overspeed problem.

In my own limited sphere of aviation, I have long been concerned at accidents that happen because “we” thought we were training people well enough, but some accidents showed we were not – people had forgotten, or not known in the first place, things we thought we had taught well. To that, I fear we can add things people thought did not need any tuition – like what being in a fully developed a stall is like, and how to recover from it by hand flying, in an “unstallable” airliner.

(no experience of flying airliners, but interested in safety and training in GA, particularly gliding.)

westhawk

1st Sep 2011, 15:29

Please explain how you can do that without FD's!!

Very funny! :ok:

For those who might actually have serious doubts regarding a pilots ability to "hand fly" PRNAV, RNAV1 procedures or RNP1 route segments with or without FD guidance:

It's really not that challenging folks. It's just basic instrument flying proficiency. You control bank so as to control heading so as to control course so as to keep the CDI centered. You control attitude and thrust so as to control altitude and speed. Basic stuff learned in the beginning. It's not that demanding. If you maintain your skills that is. When over reliance on automation takes hold, then confidence in your own abilities decreases. Greater reliance on automation results. The insidious cycle of over dependence is perpetuated. Pretty soon even experienced and formerly skilled pilots find themselves rationalizing their dependence on "the magic" as being "normal". A great many airlines and other organizations actively support these excuses with policies and directives encouraging or requiring such reliance. An ill advised approach and a case of throwing out the baby with the bath water in my considered opinion.

It's been my personal experience as an instructor and former check airman on bizjets that hand flying these procedures is one of the few opportunities available to exercise the instrument scan and aircraft control skills associated with basic instrument flying proficiency. The airline arena must surely provide even fewer opportunities.

Sim time doesn't cut it. Owing to cost and scheduling considerations, sim time is cut to the bone and practicing for a few minutes every 6 months is entirely insufficient to maintain basic skills. This can only be done in the airplane on regular flights. In any case the bulk of sim time is reserved for operations which either cannot be done in the airplane or would be highly cost ineffective.

Again according to my own personal observation and experience, those who regularly utilize their basic instrument skills tend to be among the more proficient pilots overall. They handle the airplane with greater precision and smoothness in all phases of flight. While any reasonably tech conscious trained individual can memorize rote procedures and learn which buttons to press in order to cause the automation to execute programmed procedures, not every individual has gained sufficient overall and recency of experience at using lesser levels of automation to develop or maintain the required level of proficiency. Losing use of the autopilot should not be considered to be such a big deal as so many seem to think.

While mastery of the automation is also necessary in today's flight environment, it does not stand alone as a method of safely and efficiently conducting flights. Whether it's fly-by-wire or not, inappropriate automation dependence will continue to be a factor in accidents unless attitudes are modified. Nor are these skills mutually exclusive. In fact they are complimentary. A more balanced approach to the use of automation is clearly necessary given the evidence I've seen.

It should go without saying that proficiency at all levels of automation use is the ideal. As pointed out by others, the appropriate level should be utilized in consideration of workload and weather. Whether it's a nice day in ideal conditions or a tight approach in crap weather at the end of a long day, the situation demands some command judgment in selecting which level of automation is most appropriate. I'm just advocating for basic proficiency being one of the things considered when deciding.

Opinions may vary, but I like to think that most pro pilots believe as I do that better pilots produce better results. And just as an aside, I consider myself to be just as vulnerable to the insidious effects of automation dependence as anyone else. It takes considerable introspective awareness and self discipline to keep stock of and maintain one's own skills. It doesn't help when the system works counter to these objectives by encouraging complacency.

jpsingh

1st Sep 2011, 17:14

I personally feel that a lot of sensible things have been said on this thread. All accidents are being blamed on automation and lack of flying skills when the actual reasons for the accidents have been failures that went unnoticed.
Incase of the Turkish Airlines, the malfuntion in the Radio Altimeter led to the Auto throttle failure which should have been monitored especially when there was a training Captain on board.It was a failure to monitor the Flight Mode Annunciators.Also probably lack of knowledge. The event lasted a long time with the speed decaying.
The stall recovery procedures, wind shear escape manouvres, EGPWS Warning ,TCAS manouvres and upsets should be mandatory procedures and included in Simulator checks. The simulator time needs to be increased and taken more seriously. I have observed that a lot of times the crews reduce their 4 hour slots to practically 03 effective hours especially during graveyard shifts in order to get back to catch up on sleep or make it the nearest bar for Happy hours!These 4 hours were good enough in the old times when all the above manouvres were not included. Also hand flying approaches during line checks and inflight monitoring by Instructors and Examiners is not a bad idea ...although an unpalatable one for a lot of us.

iceman50

1st Sep 2011, 23:27

Denti and Westhawk,

So you may be flying manually but you still have "computer" guidance then!

Presumably you are both flying Bizjets?

Denti

1st Sep 2011, 23:52

Actually, just a normal 737NG. And of course you have computer representation for RNAV navigation (actually, for everything except an ILS), hardly possible to do it raw data if it's not an overlay procedure. But that is not the point, the point is that it is perfectly possible to keep your basic manual flying skills up while doing your everyday job.

bubbers44

2nd Sep 2011, 02:16

westhawk explained it very well. Automation is good as long as the pilot doesn't need it because of his lack of basic flying skills. The only way to maintain those basic flying skills is to practice them in the airplane when conditions are right. We all know the sim check is filling the squares with 10 minutes at the end to play.

I always flew up to 10,000 and down from 10,000 manually and so did most of my FO's in a 757. If you give up your basic skills to let the autopilot do it for you, you have given up as a pilot, and have let your employer take over your career for good. Don't let that happen to you. Yes, they can hire cheap pilots with low experience to fly with automation but what happens when the automation fails? How many more examples do we have to show everybody?

iceman50

2nd Sep 2011, 03:33

Denti

Thanks for the explanation as it is now clearer what you mean. The problem is there are some big jets that do not have that presentation and there are also a lot of procedures that have no overlay.

dc10fr8k9

2nd Sep 2011, 17:31

on the matter of why the AF 447 Crew as well as the Buffalo crash Crew desperately and incessantly pulled back on their yoke in a stall rather than simply jamming the yoke forward as they should have and as one is taught in the primary aspect of flight training, I offer this to ponder:

During my initial training, I was taught to recover from the stall by pushing forward on the yoke. Back then, in the "practice area" in the good old Skyhawk, you weren't "busted" for losing some altitude in order to recover from the stall. The objective was simply to recover before hitting the ground, of course minimizing the altitude loss, but that was secondary in consideration to breaking the stall. But throughout my decades of advanced initial and recurrent training, in order to comply with "training objectives" or "practical test standards" or pedantic check airmen and examiners, I was admonished not to lose a single foot of altitude during a simulated stall, for fear of "busting the ride". Certainly if I am on short final or immediately after departure, not losing a single foot in a stall would be of the essence. But when one is at altitude, then I would rather lose a few thousand feet if necessary and break the stall rather than hopelessly yank back on the yoke in the desperate hope that I might somehow maintain my altitude with application of power alone.

We are thus creating pilots who in real scenarios revert to simulator mentality of desperately trying not to lose a single foot, or achieving some other arbitrary standard of measurement rather than simply use up some of the ample altitude they have and trade it for airspeed in order to egress from the stall and recover. The objective has become "don't lose a single foot" during the check ride and don't dare "bust an altitude" in real life, rather than reinforcing what should be the real objective, which is to stay alive at all costs, and in the process, try to minimize damage to equipment if that is possible.

Just my thoughts. In any case, though there has been much success in increasing safety due to automation, the pendulum needs to swing back the other way a little, and allow pilot involvement in the art of flying airplanes once again. It's essential, because as we all know, that when the s**t hits the fan, then the Autopilot and Autoland and computers by the dozen are of very little help.

Lyman

2nd Sep 2011, 17:48

dc10

Howdy. 447's pilots were familiar with a "recovery" at the time they crashed, that was from "Approach to Stall". This does NOT involve PUSHING FORWARD on the 'YOKE' (Stick). Neither does it require "PULLING BACK" on the Stick. Required is "Maintenance of Altitude." Clearly, the pilot pulled back on his Sidestick, it is in the report.

Why? There are reasons NOT addressed here, that may have played a part. It is not completely understood, and especially in light of the minimal data released, an open mind might be a handy tool.

Why this is yet unclear is a mystery. These pilots were not familiar, nor had they been trained, to recover from STALL in this aircraft.

And that is for the most part, irrelevant. As per rudderrrat, an uncorrected ROLL may have led to a spin, and an even earlier demise.

This accident happened in a sequence, and focusing on downline issues is not helping understand what happened in the 20 seconds surrounding the loss of autopilot, (and AoA Vane #1?)

Is it absolutely necessary to keep up the comparison to ColganAir?

Dream Land

2nd Sep 2011, 17:51

Well I think one of these systems must be in order on the new computerized third generation aircraft being flown by the new third generation pilots. :ok::E

http://t1.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcRzHow_PPOtbtVK50D3k2qWcPaCv5wfj1p8_u2iCpY sGa026Epifg

westhawk

2nd Sep 2011, 18:40

Good points dc10.

In addition to the "don't lose any altitude" mentality imposed during sim training, the stall recognition and recovery demos also tend to be under what I'd categorize as "overly favorable circumstances" to begin with. First, they're usually performed at 10-15K' and at light "training weight" where engine thrust to weight ratio invariably allows the airplane to be "blown" out of an incipient stall with the nose up 10 or more degrees. Typical pilot response times to first stall warning indication are very quick when the demo is fully briefed and hands are tensed on the yoke and T/Ls, ready to react. It seems to me that real world stall events aren't so well planned!

The induced drag associated with flight at or near CL max is easily overcome in a lightly loaded jet at low altitude. This is highly unlikely to prepare a pilot for a more real-world incipient stall event, let alone a more developed stall or while at at max cruise altitude.

Unfortunately, the sim probably won't have reliable data for AOA beyond critical values so training in that regime would be impractical. But I think that after practicing the demo at low or mid altitude, it might be instructive to try
it again at near maximum altitude, perhaps while simulating a climb into warmer air or an increasing tailwind component with the AP engaged and "nobody minding the store". When the AP lets go, you'll see your trade of altitude for airspeed or you'll see something which would be marked as a failure to recover. Either way it would be most instructive. I thought this matter should have been settled following the Pinnacle "four-one-oh-it dude" episode.

The forgoing represents my personal experience at each of the major bizjet training providers in three different types. I'd be interested in comparing how airline sim training treats stall demos.

westhawk

overun

3rd Sep 2011, 23:00

chrisN.
l`m surprised that nobody picked up on what you said, l suspect because of the reference to "mainly gliding".
We are talking about hand flying skills after all.
You will know of the K23 - for others, a first solo glider advertised as being unstallable - and the problems caused by pilots going on to fly "gliders" that could and would stall.
l don`t want to make a big thing of this but there is a connection.

bubbers44

4th Sep 2011, 01:09

I think now we allow some altitude loss to recover from a stall that doesn't involve wind shear near the ground to do what we did 40 years ago and lower the nose and add power. It is so simple and works so well.

40 years ago this accident wouldn't have happened because we all knew how to fly. Now It is a different story.

chrisN

4th Sep 2011, 01:39

Overrun, yes, and there are other examples.

Another thing that strikes me about AF447 training for (lack of) is push for stall recovery. In gliding, we realised that for donkeys years we had taught that push means nose down/go faster, pull for nose up/go slower, for probably 90% of training flights for the entire sortie; and even for the stall/spin awareness training flights, only a tiny proportion of the time was showing that in a stall, pull does not yield nose up.

There is a move towards demo and practice on every pre-solo flight that when too slow, pull keeps nose down; and then push will get the aircraft flying again.

Clearly, if AB330 is believed unstallable, and training for it never goes there, only other training if any will have any chance of teaching F/Os about this. Will they recall it in a high stress situation? There is enough evidence that too many ATPL’s. at many levels, not just low hours, have not known or recalled it - Colgan, Staines Trident, and various others. The training for recovery from approaching stall described by others on these AF447 threads included TOGA power and not losing “a foor of height” – but only in lowish altitude recoveries, where air is dense, TOGA gives a lot of extra power AIUI, and it can work.

I too don’t want to make a big thing about gliding read-across to CAT. But human factors read across all accident scenarios, in aviation and elsewhere. We humans don’t always work perfectly. The right training, and frequent reinforcement, can overcome many of our deficiencies. If we don’t get that training, is it a deficiency in the trainees, or in their training organisations (and those who lay down what the latter should be doing)?

Chris N.
(written before I saw Bubbers post)

Safety Concerns

4th Sep 2011, 08:27

40 years ago this accident wouldn't have happened because we all knew how to fly. Now It is a different story.

bubbers nw6231 did happen 40 years ago and the pilots pulled back on the stick in a stall just as on AF447. It wasn't an A330 though it was a 727.

ap08

4th Sep 2011, 08:58

Unfortunately, the sim probably won't have reliable data for AOA beyond critical values so training in that regime would be impractical.
This point comes up again and again in various posts, in an attempt to explain why stalls are not trained in the simulator. But I keep asking myself, is it really a valid reason?

Yes, I understand that no one has ever test flown the big jets in stall regimes and the exact numbers are not available. But we know what should happen, we know the direction where thing should be going when the pilot just keeps pulling the stick, and we can replicate this behaviour in a simulator. Yes, it will drop at a somewhat incorrect speed, some nasty effect may be overlooked, some extreme situations like going down at 60 knots with AOA 40 degrees will not be covered. But that is not the point - the idea is to provide the pilot with a training/evaluation tool that responds to clearly incorrect inputs (stick back) in a generally realistic manner (airspeed drops, cabin shakes, controls don't work, aircraft goes down) and requires basic corrective measures (stick forward) to fly again.

Wouldn't such a crude tool be better than having no tool at all, relying on mantras that "this aircraft cannot stall", on "computer protections", and a manual stall recovery procedure that is never trained in realistic conditions?

westhawk

4th Sep 2011, 10:08

I agree ap08! :ok:

And said as much further down in the post you quoted from IIRC. :cool:

ads1001

4th Sep 2011, 11:22

As a cross country glider pilot I have experienced the great contribution to our sport made by the significant numbers of commercial pilots flying in our ranks.

Maybe this relationship could work both ways.

ironbutt57

4th Sep 2011, 12:06

I agree, and yet disagree with all of this, these "modern airplanes" are designed to be "flown" (operated) at the highest level of automation as is consistent with the phase of flight, to be monitored and managed.....however when the wheels come off, then the workload is increased exponentially....so while the regulators are finger pointing at the pilots, they also should be looking at aircraft design and redundancy....it amazes me the long list of inop systems that arise on the status page after what should be relatively benign failure....these didn't use to affect the aircraft handling, but now.....????:ooh:

JW411

4th Sep 2011, 16:57

What really interests me in this discussion is what the button-pushers are going to do when, one night, they turn up for work and are presented with an aeroplane that they might actually have to fly because it has no working autopilots or FDs for example. (This has happened to me but I only had to do 5 sectors at night before it got fixed).

They then consult the MEL looking for an excuse not to go and discover that the MEL says they can go.

The passengers want to get to their destination.

The management want the passengers to get to their destination.

So are you now going to admit that you can't actually fly the aircraft to any competent standard and refuse to go?

If so, how can you call yourself a professional pilot?

I know that if you are using at least one of the usual modern-day excuses not to practise your basic art such as "the passengers won't like it", then some of you are quite likely to end up in deep sh*t one day. You are fooling yourself if you think you can ace it when it all goes wrong and your entire poling experience actually consists of 250 hours on a Cessna 150.

Most of all, speaking as a professional pilot who stayed alive and never hurt a passenger for half a century, how can you actually live with yourself?

I couldn't and I never did.

ReverseFlight

4th Sep 2011, 17:12

JW411, reminds me of a time when I was stuck in an airliner on the tarmac for 3 hours somewhere in China. The captain repeatedly said he couldn't continue to our destination due to weather issues. An irate passenger starts screaming in the cabin threatening to sue the airline for potential losses to his business schedule. So the airline organises another captain who promptly announces he is able to continue. I was paxing as part of a delegation and it wasn't up to me to decide whether to go or not.

At least I survived to tell the tale. Should I criticise the first captain for being a coward or the second captain for being a fool ?

ap08

4th Sep 2011, 18:07

If you remember the date and time and origin and destination, then one might try to look up the weather and see if it was bad enough to delay the flight. Otherwise there is no way to answer your question...

barit1

4th Sep 2011, 18:12

From a local field known for airplanes with wood, fabric, and tailwheels:

Lee Bottom Flying Field is announcing the first ever "Teach an Airline Pilot to Fly" Day. Held everywhere in America, on September 17th, this day will be an occasion where taildragger pilots nation wide share the knowledge of basic flying skills with their airline buddies.

After years of making it impossible for airline pilots to keep their flying skills up to par and encouraging the expansion of 141 schools with their process-over-skills approach to flight training, the FAA and NTSB believes airline pilots are "forgetting" the basic skills they once had or were never taught. This day was created to address that concern.

If you know an airline pilot who has forgotten more than the FAA or NTSB will ever know, please show your concern for them with this gift of basic flying skills. Your contribution will go a long way towards saving these wayward aviators.

(Note: FAA regulations may prohibit you from participating in this event. If you are not an FAA certified flight instructor, you may not be smart enough to demonstrate basic flying skills to another pilot. Although, despite having forgotten everything he or she ever knew, if the airline pilot is a certified flight instructor with a distant tailwheel sign off, the flight may be legal.)

JW411

4th Sep 2011, 18:15

You as a paying passenger should not have a worry in the world that the crew are highly qualified to look after you and should have no concerns.

Nowadays, I think we are involved in a lottery and I am very happy that I have discovered the joys of cruising on large ships.

Let's face it, we didn't lose too many Titanics!

Did we?

bubbers44

4th Sep 2011, 20:36

After many years of flying Twin Beaches, twin Cessnas and dozens of other aircraft single pilot with no autopilot IFR being dispatched with a B737 with no autopilot and an FO to handle the radio and checklist was a cakewalk. From what I read here it can't be done any more. Tell me this is not true.

Prober

4th Sep 2011, 21:54

Just for the record, I have 13k+ hours, mostly military and shorthaul plus training with a major airline. I converted to the B757 virtually at its introduction and was delighted to find a flight director which was actually of benefit (as opposed to the extraordinary instrument which used to dance all over ones AH). My colleagues and I were extremely skeptical of a TV presentation as opposed to the old steam driven panel but we were converted almost overnight.
At my next sim check, the awful truth struck home. F/D was turned off and A/T was available only at the training captain’s whim. Bearing in mind that these had only been an occasional addition up to the conversion (only 6 months previously), the abrupt degradation of my (and the other crew member’s) skills was an appalling eye-opener and one which I have impressed just AS HARD AS I CAN on the younger generation I have had the honour to try to teach. I have always begged them to turn off both F/D and A/T at least once a week (captain permitting –and I hope he would) and also to practice non-precision approaches as often as vis permits. I know that modern teaching rather sidelines NDB’s etc, but there are plenty of strange (to our Authority) parts of the world where such approaches are very necessary. Without an instinctive knowledge of how to conduct (and maybe even, heaven forfend, actually FLY) such an approach, disaster will soon bite your b@m!
Happy handling, Prober

Denti

4th Sep 2011, 23:02

@bubbers, of course you can still dispatch a 737 with an inop autopilot. You just can't enter RVSM as you need automatic altitude holding capability. So everything up to FL280 (in europe) is fair game.

@Prober, flying a non precision approach is nowadays exactly the same as an ILS, both in presentation and basic procedures on the 737. Read up on IAN which i believe is also standard in the 748 and 787. Apart from that i can't agree more. Regular manual flying is the only way to keep basic flying skills up, and i'm grateful that my companies OPS manual recognizes that and promotes raw data manual flight.

Harry Ainako

4th Sep 2011, 23:53

Sadly most airlines now aren't in favor of pilots flying without the FDs and A/Ts...the SOP is to use the automation to the fullest to achieve the most economical and efficient operation. God forbid if there is a FOQA and it is found that the pilot had been operating non SOP by not using the automation to the fullest. Most chief pilots are now yellow bellied fellas who are not going to risk supporting any line captains who run into trouble with their f/os inadvertantly making some excursions ( whether related or unrelated ) through not using the automatics.

Plectron

5th Sep 2011, 12:25

I may have mentioned this before.....

IF you hire people with no experience at all in airplanes, you CAN train them to very high standards. The military does it all the time in some countries. Some airlines do it quite well.

BUT:
If you chose your candidates based on intangibles such as docility (ie doing what they are told and not being a s*** stirrer), who their parents are, ethnic background (OUR airline is piloted by kids from OUR country), or a past that involves no problems at all - in other words, the candidate has never learned risk assessment

AND:

You train (and haze) them for 300 hours in a 172, put them through an intense GROUND school, and then stick them in the right seat of a B777 or other large airplane.

Do not allow them to make cross wind landings.

Use a fear based program so that they are terrified of making mistakes, so much so that when they near Captain upgrade they decline landings.

Give them 10 years of twiddling the heading knob on inter-continental flights hand-flying perhaps 5-6 minutes on each of their legs - maybe an average of 3 per month. You figure how much actual flying time that gives them.

Fire them if anything happens.

Never let them fly with the autothrottles off.

THEN:
Upgrade them to Captain and give them an equally well qualified FO.

What do you think is going to happen the night an engine tanks on a winter Pacific Rim flight when the only en-route alternate is some windswept, desolate, and forbidding ice-covered Siberian "airport"?

The only option is to continue to destination because neither pilot can hand-fly the aircraft. Don't think it hasn't happened.

Non Zero

5th Sep 2011, 13:07

@Plectron

you got it!

... and this will be the only good reason to get rid of us (or at least one of us) and to remotely control/monitor the airplane from any GCS (Ground Control Station).

misd-agin

5th Sep 2011, 13:18

A/T and A/P on??? Oh, no, for the last 24 yrs, for some funny reason, the A/P disengagement seems to trigger the A/T disengagement. :ok:

AviatorJack

5th Sep 2011, 19:02

Having just read the whole of this thread, I must say that a few years of stick and rudder commercial flying would be so advantageous for all pilots before jumping into a modern airliner.

I myself have been flying the stick out on the dark continent for several years and I am currently (and still) attempting to make it into the airline industry, mainly for stability and the better assurance of a paycheck each month.

Many pilots out here (and other places similar) manage to fly unautomated machines into some of the worst weather on the planet without the aid of WXradars and other equipment and encounter problems and emergencies frequently. NDB approaches are common for annual checks and I myself only the other day did a couple because I felt like it.

This is not an ego post or looking for sympathy but to show there are still pilots carrying out this work before making the 'jump up'. It is not directed at anyone either.

I find it shocking that worldwide there are programmes inplace putting fresh pilots from school into the RHS of a automated jet. I remember the day I got my CPL and being told its a license to learn. Well there hasn't been much learning for many pilots in that case (in terms of stick and rudder). :eek:

However some of us stick and rudder guys are frowned upon when applying for jobs in the airline field as we don't have '1000 hours on type' or '2000 hours greater than 20 tonnes'. I actually find this quite insulting. By the end of say a TR course and eventually been released to the line, there is little differnce between someone like myself and a newbie CPL aprt from one thing. My manual skills and will be much more honed and refined than the latter, and when s**t hits the fan, I know which one I would trust more.

So to sum it up I completely agree that more effort needs to go into manual flying training and personally believe every pilot should go and actually FLY for a while before hitting the big birds . If your company doesn't allow this then next time you find yourself on leave, why not go and rent a 152 (maybe take the wife or kids too for fun) and go get some stick practice. If the airline doesn't want to be responsible then YOU must be. At the end of the day if something goes wrong up there you might find it could save your life and everyone elses.

This is just my opinon and not intended for any slanging matches. :ok:

BarbiesBoyfriend

5th Sep 2011, 21:04

Jw411

Good point

I once showed up late for an early EDI-CDG-EDI as I 'd crashed me car.#

Our illustrious Capt (I was a humble FO) said 'no worries, we ain't going anyways as the AP is u/s' "anyways" he says " you've been in a crash"

We flew the sectors by hand and it was no problemo (ERJ-145)

Plectron

5th Sep 2011, 21:09

Jack - I suggested that many times- politely phrased, of course. Something like: Next time you go on vacation why not go to Arizona or Florida and get a check-out in a C180 or a 310 instead of buying another $15,000 watch or treating yourself to all that expensive "entertainment" on overnights? You might just save your job or even your life some day...

Zero interest. They thought I was out of my mind.

Flight Safety

5th Sep 2011, 21:09

This problem is not really as hard to solve as some believe, except getting the airlines to go along with it and to put up the cash to fund it.

TacomaSailor is dead on correct. As an IT professional for over 30 years, I've participated in automating a number of different physical processes (including some aviation processes), and his description of skills erosion due to automation could not have been stated more succinctly, and this clearly applies to aviation as well.

Pilot's are being trained to understand and respond to the automation system's hardware and software that they manage, but not enough training is being provided for the pilot to understand and correctly operate the "physical-ware" the automation is controlling. In my opinion if you don't understand and can't operate the physical-ware, you don't really understand the automation system controlling it either.

The solution lies is the airlines owning a very small fleet of low cost (to acquire and operate) suitable aircraft, where line pilots can hand fly and practice various hand flying skills such as stall prevention, stall recovery, upset recovery, and high altitude work to name a few. These aircraft could also allow some basic interaction and failure mode training between various on-board automation systems and the physical-ware of the aircraft. This would keep the hand flying skills current, and unexpected systems and physical-ware interactions specific to a type could then be practiced in that type's sim. In other words, the low cost aircraft would focus training mainly on hand flying the physical-ware and some basic automation failure interactions, while a type's sim would focus training mainly on that type's specific system failure modes and aircraft interactions.

Getting the airlines to go along with this kind of solution and funding it is the hard part of this solution.

BarbiesBoyfriend

5th Sep 2011, 21:10

Aviator Jack
Great post.

The last thing our recruiters want is actual 'stick and rudder' guys.

In fact, the less their pilots fly the plane, the happier they are.

Remember this at your interview.

Plectron

5th Sep 2011, 22:20

Flight Safety is correct. The automation is not understood. The FOs are landing in crosswinds, albeit using "outside procedures", with the Captain's acquiescence IF an autoland is made. The fact that the autoland feature is for low visibility and NOT strong & gusty crosswinds is not part of the "briefing". It isn't really necessary to say that that point will clearly be made by Boeing at the hearing.

AviatorJack

6th Sep 2011, 00:21

Barbiesboyfriend,

If and when I get that interview, I will pledge not to touch a thing and in the event of an emergency let Mr Airbus (example, could be any manufacturer) take over my human and bush pilot instict to save my own bacon.

OR I could send a robot/android, a physical replica of myself of course, to do the interview for me. Infact I think I might stand a better chance that way.

A friend gave me something to think about last week. Burn all your logbooks, paperwork and change your name. Apply for a cadet program and then you might be in with a chance! :ok:

bubbers44

6th Sep 2011, 01:36

AJ, I retired 8 years ago at 60 and it wasn't that way then in my airline. We handflew a lot to be proficient at our jobs. We knew we couldn't trust the autopilot so when it threw us the airplane in a bank 100 ft above minimums we were not surprised but just recovered and landed the airplane. If you maintain your flying skills life is good, if you don't, good luck. Air France and others apparently don't agree with that logic.

bubbers44

6th Sep 2011, 03:30

Barbiesboyfriend

Do what I did. We got acquired by a major airline so they had some pretty lame procedures so when in training I did their lame procedures but in the air knew I would never do them because they were not safe and I could endanger my passengers and crew. They had a major accident using those procedures years earlier. I retired at 60 using this technique with no problems so they were happy and I was happy. It is kind of screwed up to train differently from what you would do but I felt it was necessary to keep my job and protect my crew and passengers. Your experience puts you so far ahead of anybody getting hired now. You could move into the left seat of any airliner in a year with your experience. Good luck.

Plectron

6th Sep 2011, 11:02

I believe there are two completely preventable accidents coming.

1 - Airborn Fuel exhaustion due to the current company rules about FOD mixed with 1-timid 2-inept and 3-unlucky crews.

2- An attempt to land in conditions beyond the capability of either pilot but well within the aircraft's.

bubbers44

6th Sep 2011, 12:49

CNN had an article today about pilots losing their hand flying skills and new pilots never having them. Maybe the industry will wake up and insure these skills will be restored to what they were 20 years ago. You can not do this in a brief sim session. We need to encourage hand flying so we can return to the talent we had 20 years ago.

Centaurus

6th Sep 2011, 13:32

I well remember my first trip in a 737 Classic simulator. The simulator instructor was shouting "Follow the flight director" when it was bloody obvious the FD was giving erroneous information. Decades later where loss of control in IMC has become the major cause of aircraft accidents, it seems to me blind reliance on the FD has probably killed more people than it has saved.

bubbers44

6th Sep 2011, 14:03

Getting my initial IOE check out with a check airman out of San Jose, Costa Rica in a 757 transitioning from a 727 he had the FD all screwed up showing a left diving turn and I did a right climbing turn following the SID using raw data.
I didn't care because I did not rely on automation. He finally caught up so we were on the same page. We had to maintain 250 knots to 13,000 and he set in normal climb out of 10 so ignored that too.

Flying dinosaur aircraft keeps you in the loop so you don't blindlly follow automation. I am sorry those wonderful old 727's went away.

galleypower

6th Sep 2011, 16:15

Everyone is writing about that FAA study. But has anyone sighted the original study published by the FAA? It would be far more interesting to read the original source than just newspaper stuff...

grahamcalder

6th Sep 2011, 17:33

I'm just a simple PPL (1973) and came across this discussion.

I am a dental/oral surgeon who must totally rely upon training/knowledge/experience/and hand(digital?) skills to be successful.

My airborne exploits are really little different (RV6) enjoy!!

However on a recent Airbus flight we had a medical emergency which needed a "soon" landing at Munchen. The plane was expertly flown to a smooth landing - rapid loss of height and 30* bank.

The pilot (like me) had a head of grey hair.

Question: was this hand flown (as I suspect) or a/p ?

overun

6th Sep 2011, 18:06

The next question would appear to be who should be responsible for one`s own handling skills ?
lf a plumber only ever works with plastic pipe connections and then stuffs up my copper pipe work l would blame the plumber, not his boss, for attempting the job.
Get`s interesting, doesn`t it ?

el commandante

6th Sep 2011, 19:49

@grahamcalder,

The descent until final approach was most certainly flown on automatics.

Sky Wave

6th Sep 2011, 20:43

Question: was this hand flown (as I suspect) or a/p ?

Agree with el commandante.

A medical diversion is the last time that you'd want to be hand flying.

It would almost certainly have been flown with A/P & A/T in until established on final.

You're probably high on profile with ATC giving you short cuts towards final approach, you have to programme MCDU, find the plates, brief the approach and G/A, tell the passengers what's going on, advise the company (time permitting) all whilst trying to manage the energy associated with the short cuts and ensure that you're stable and "in the grove" when you need to be. The last thing you want is the PNF working like a one armed paper hanger whilst this is going on.

BandAide

7th Sep 2011, 02:22

Question: was this hand flown (as I suspect) or a/p ?

Much better to let the airbus fly in NAV around the sharp turns so you can watch your speed (avoiding the low speed hook) and engage the approach in stable flight after the rollout. Mexico City 05R is a good example.

The autopilot wants to fly at 30 degrees of bank.

With a good, smooth pilot you generally can't tell whether the pilot or autopilot is flying. If it's really, really smooth it's probably hand flown.

Harry Ainako

7th Sep 2011, 02:53

Oh boy, this thread is gonna give all those insufferable braggarts who go on and on about how great their hand flying is. Face it, the world has changed! Aviation philosophy has changed. There is certainly a place for hand flying...where no PRNAV procedures required and with planes without the modern automation, or bush flying.

Most modern busy airspace require precision flying which the auto systems are required. I need not go into the details.

Anecdotal evidence; I did sim checks with old farts who swore on their great grandfather's names that they are flying aces who are 100% precise in flying manual.......most busted the limits of PRNAV SIDs and holding patterns. They screw up the proper use of automation and blame the whole world for it.

Come on folks; a delicate balance is required. There will always be situations beyond the capabilities of the automatics but there are also situations well beyond the self proclaimed perfect proficiencies of the manul flying aces.

wingstwo

7th Sep 2011, 16:28

If we can't fly it ourselves, let's not expect anyone else to do it for for us. Being honest to oneself. Anyways, guess this has been spoken enough. Wake me up, when the show is over.

Montgolfier

7th Sep 2011, 19:18

SLF question if you don't mind: If we accept the premise that hand-flying skills are on the wane across the industry, what options do we the travelling public have besides buying a ticket and hoping for the best? Do you think it's possible to identify airlines where the pilots - for whatever reason, be it amount/type of experience or company operating procedures - are IN GENERAL likely to have better (or less degraded) hand flying skills than at others?

For example, I soon need to fly between Manchester and Copenhagen. I have two options: SAS, operating their classic MD80 series, or easyjet (with the recruitment policies well-discussed on this forum) operating their A319s. Would I be justified in feeling, as a passenger, that I might be in better hands, should anything go t1ts up, with the old school SAS guys on the old school aircraft, than with easyjet and its relatively young, low time pilots in the glass cockpit? Or is that just a totally unfair and unjustified feeling?

I'd love to know what choice you industry guys would make if you were putting your wife/kids on the flight. If you tell me there's no real difference, I believe you. But I think if there is...even a marginal difference in favour of the legacy pilots, then it ain't worth that £20, £30 you save to go orange.

westhawk

7th Sep 2011, 20:45

Every day in life is a craps-shoot. You never know when your number will come up! :uhoh: Even Sully could have a bad day.

Seriously though, I think the difference in actual risk to your safety between riding on one Western European Airline versus another is probably rather insignificant. I'd ride on either if I had to because of work. But I understand your concern after reading some of these threads. I'd still feel better if I knew pilots with skills like Sully and Skiles were at the controls too. So I suppose you could find out all you can about any airlines you were considering riding with, then decide which ones make you feel more secure. It's the right of any consumer to vote with their wallet.

Plectron

7th Sep 2011, 21:44

HOLISTIC SAFETY RATING 2011
Published on 08/31/2011
From a dataset of the 100 most important airlines, exhaustive information (2009) was found in 44 companies in 2011. The top ten airlines 2011 (2009 data) from the holistic safety profiles are...
From a dataset of the 100 most important airlines, exhaustive information (2009) was found in 44 companies in 2011.

The top ten airlines 2011 (2009 data) from the holistic safety profiles are (by alphabetic order):
Air France-KLM
AMR Corporation (American Airlines, American Eagles)
British Airways
Continental Airlines
Delta Airlines
Japan Airlines
Lufthansa
Southwest Airlines
United Airlines
US Airways

Full details of the 44 airlines holistic safety rating are presented in the 2011 ATRA competitive report (see Solutions for professional)

Centaurus

8th Sep 2011, 00:17

Seriously though, I think the difference in actual risk to your safety between riding on one Western European Airline versus another is probably rather insignificant

Agree in principle. Except when it comes to that one in a million event where something goes seriously wrong and requires the captain to fall back on superb airmanship and pure flying (not automatic pilot) flying skills.

goldfish85

8th Sep 2011, 00:27

Sully had "0" time in the sim or real in 320 water landings.

Yes, but he had lots of landings. A water forced landing is a lot easier than a land forced landing -- no obstacles. The basic drill is keep the wings level and land as you would normally.

bubbers44

8th Sep 2011, 01:24

Airlines with seasoned pilots would be my first choice. The new startups might be fine but no one knows how much experience they have, especially the FO. They could be fresh out of flight school flying your airplane. The more established airlines probably don't have any pilots under 45 with tons of good experience. Air France obviously has low time pilots and the Buffalo, NY commuter crash did and we saw what happened.

If a Sully type qualified pilot had been in those cockpits they would not have crashed. The inexperience did both of these flights in. Pay a few extra bucks for your loved ones tickets and maybe it will send a message to Airlines to hire qualified people.

westhawk

8th Sep 2011, 09:27

Agree in principle. Except when it comes to that one in a million event where something goes seriously wrong and requires the captain to fall back on superb airmanship and pure flying (not automatic pilot) flying skills.

I agree! Hence my hedge later in the above quoted post that I too would feel better flying behind skilled pilots like Sully and Skiles. I'd prefer to share the skies with experienced and dedicated professional pilots who know their craft well. But even the typical product of the training mill manages to get the plane from A to B without incident often enough to satisfy almost everyone. Until something happens that is...

bucket_and_spade

8th Sep 2011, 11:47

Bubbers44,

You could argue that the fresh-from-flight-school FO has been exclusively hand-flying for 1-2 years before the jet job and so has no qualms about flying pitch and power without dribbling over the lack of FD and AP/AT...

Denti

8th Sep 2011, 13:15

The more established airlines probably don't have any pilots under 45 with tons of good experience.

Negative on that. The likes of Lufthansa or British Airways either used to have or still have their own flight schools and train young pilots from walking to flying their precious jets in a pretty short time. Same as the military does actually. The problem of manual flight is not with those young pilots just entering the line, it is a much bigger problem for those flying only longhaul for a long time with only 1 or 2 landings every couple months. Shown both by inhouse and by NASA safety studies.

RAT 5

8th Sep 2011, 14:48

Yes, but he had lots of landings. A water forced landing is a lot easier than a land forced landing -- no obstacles. The basic drill is keep the wings level and land as you would normally.

If I land my jet with 11 degrees NUp there will be a load scraping noise, followed by Oh S*&t, followed by tea & biscuits. What I find disappointing is the airlines who discourage visual approaches. The reason quoted is becasue so many, even captains, screw them up and either make glide landings or hopefully G/A's. One is consdiered a no-no, the other a waste of time & money. There's no time to train the most basic manoeuvre, so don't let them do it. In answer to "why is it a problem when they'v e passed base training?" is that an on line visual is never a level circuit. It's the descending circuit, or dare I say straight in without ILS, that causes the probs. All this wizardry and it's difficult. I can't remember being trained to do visuals around the Greek islands, it was just bthe way it was. That was the norm, and Mk.1 eyeball and an altimeter was all you had. A DME near the rwy was a luxury. No night landings without PAPI's etc. No wonder they want to pay us peanuts. They think we are useless, but who's fault is that?

Plectron

9th Sep 2011, 14:59

I'm really confused why there is any serious discussion about this subject.

Outside of the carriers (and their minions who will defend them) who have let their zero time FOs languish in the right seat for thousands of long haul "hours', many logged in the bunk, and have done nothing to improve their flying skills - ie set up a commuter for them to earn their bones or encourage or require some flying in an airplane where you can't memorize the PFD picture in the sim to get a desired result, I can't see how anyone can argue this.

Almost every military hot stick started out as a zero time cadet. Starting as a cadet is not the problem.

Lufthansa does not have this problem. Neither does BA. I don't work for either and could not if I wanted to.

If you don't know how to use the automation you can't pass the sim checks anywhere- that isn't really an issue, so it isn't what is better or more desirable- hot chops or good automation skills. The issue is that there are thousands of so called pilots sitting in big jets who never really learned to fly and, with the program they are in and the amount of hand flying the will get in their career, probably never will.

Do you really want to divert into KEF February 4 with a 30 knot crosswind and patchy ice with a Captain with less than 400 hours total actual flying experience in his entire life? A guy that was picked for the ab initio for reasons other than aviation interest and aptitude in the first place? Keep in mind there are plenty of people worldwide of all ethnicities and nationalities who would love to do the job. Besides 4 or 5 star service of whatever ridiculous claim they have in the back, what is the airline's priority? It ain't putting the most capable person in the left seat that's for sure - and I am not advocating DECs here, just to quell that squawk. You can't upgrade a great Captain if you don't start with a good FO. Cr** FOs make cr** Captains. Always have and always will.

Flight Safety

9th Sep 2011, 17:19

This is an interesting article from Aviation Week:

High-Altitude Upset Recovery | AVIATION WEEK (http://www.aviationweek.com/aw/generic/story_generic.jsp?channel=bca&id=news/bca0711p2.xml&headline=High-Altitude%20Upset%20Recovery)

This is a quote from Sully in the article, that illustrates part of the current over reliance on automation:

Training also needs improvement. "Currently, to my knowledge, air transport pilots practice approaches to stalls, never actually stalling the aircraft. These maneuvers are done at low altitude where they're taught to power out of the maneuver with minimum altitude loss." In some aircraft, they're taught to pull back on the stick, use maximum thrust and let the alpha floor (AoA) protection adjust nose attitude for optimum wing performance.

"They never get the chance to practice recovery from a high-altitude upset," he continued. "At altitude, you cannot power out of a stall without losing altitude." And depending upon the fly-by-wire flight control system's alpha floor protection isn't the best way to recover from a stall at cruise altitude.

There are several fundamental problems with the development of specific procedures like this one (powering out of a stall using AOA protection), that Sully describes.

The procedure WOULD NOT EVEN EXIST without the automated AOA protection.
The procedure RELIES upon the automated AOA protection to work.
The procedure ASSUMES the automated AOA protection will ALWAYS be present.
The procedure IGNORES the possibility that the automated AOA protection might not be present (as in AF447)
The procedure IGNORES the physical-ware aerodynamic fact that you cannot power out of a stall with minimum loss of altitude, at higher altitudes.
The procedure ERODES basic flying skills by teaching pilots to perform flight maneuvers contrary to good basic airmanship (in stall recovery).

This is a fundamental failure of the proper design of procedures, that results from a confused over reliance on automation.

PW127-B

9th Sep 2011, 20:01

Hi,
The real enemy here is not the experience, but the company, that have SOP's so restrictive and punishing that encourages pilots not to hand fly the aircraft, but obviously if something goes wrong be it an automation fault or a pilot fault it will be punished hard.
The SOP for the aircraft that fly recommends to hand fly the aircraft at least once a week, at captains discretion, and I really enjoy that, and I'm gonna miss that for sure when I go up to the Airbus, cause its the complete opposite, don't mess with it just let fly alone policy.
As for the fresh out of flight school topic, I understand that you only acquire experience through flying and the more experience you have the more criteria you get, but being a F/O I think that you need to be given the chance to get experience, in some way you have to start somewhere.

Flatface

9th Sep 2011, 20:39

What would the outcome have been if they saw the stall and recovered before impact on the water, would this incident ever get out? Would Airbus have studied this incident to help them understand the human/machine interface?

I guess the passengers might have a few comments after landing.

RodH

9th Sep 2011, 20:41

Back in 1965 I was an F/O on the brand new B727-100 series Jet.
This was the first Jet Aeroplane most Domestic Airlines had in Australia and we did not have any simulators for a few years and even then they were only fixed base so there was one hell of a lot of learning to do.
I used to fly with some very wary old pilots who got their wings long before WW2 and really had to fly by the seat of their pants.
These guys had some incredibly interesting stories to tell.
One old chap used to make me hand fly this "new fangled beast " all the way until cruise and then all the way from Top of decent .
When I asked him " why " as we did have a good auto pilot , although with no Mach hold , he said " If you keep using that thing you will lose a lot of your hand flying skills after a while ".
So you see this concern about losing hand flying skill is not that new albeit modern aeroplanes do require more use of the autopilot .
The Old Dog was quite right in his assertions and it certainly enabled me to keep my skill level a bit higher for longer.
This was something I used to do wherever possible even up to my flying the A320 & 330.
It is a very wise Pilot who does listen to those who have been around long before they started flying.
Experience does not only come just with hours , it's coupled with what happened during those hours.

Plectron

9th Sep 2011, 22:49

Daniel - you are right. Everyone starts with 0 hours. But, IF your company allows it - try to get as much hand flying as possible including FD off raw data autothrottle off. It may save your bacon.

overun

9th Sep 2011, 22:50

l will ask again.

Who is responsible for ones own hand flying skills ?

Denti

9th Sep 2011, 23:02

In the end each pilot. However if the company rule framework simply does not allow it anymore because of whatever silly reasons its very hard to do it on the line without endangering ones own job or promotion prospects. Those companies do exist, but there are others that do not really like that kind of restriction.

overun

9th Sep 2011, 23:22

ln the end.

So what is the remedy ?

Yankee Whisky

9th Sep 2011, 23:35

Many pilots, such as myself, who enjoy the actual stick and rudder stuff, take up recreational flying as an outlet, but it also keeps the skills up. I fly gliders. I notice that Captain Pearson of Gimli glider fame, and Capt Sullenberger, of Hudson river fame also kept their skills up with glider flying.

This quote says it all ! I knew one of these fellows and can assure everyone that flying was in his blood and he loved it. Sure as G'd made little apples, his experience in hands on judgement saved his bacon and a load of passengers when the sh't hit the fan.
Maybe todays "managers" of aircraft no longer have the love of flying
"pilots" enjoy! Otherwise they, too, would follow the example of the two fellows mentioned in the quote.:ugh:

overun

9th Sep 2011, 23:52

l would suggest that they acquired those skills years before they were needed.
The remedy is plain.

Stop producing aircraft that inhibit flying skills ......... no, wouldn`t work.

Companies that suck in the reduced operating cost of such aircraft bite the bullet, and pay for handling sessions in the sim, alongside licence renewal and loft.

lt will have to happen.

Irish Steve

10th Sep 2011, 01:12

Ok, here goes.

Some of the people that don't have good hand flying skills don't know that they don't have the skills until they are faced with a situation where they needed them. That might be blindingly obvious, but it's happened, and smoking holes, or a missing aircraft are too often the result.

It can't be stalled? Oh? I don't have the exact memory of the specific details, but it is very possible to fly the bus into the ground, if the wrong inputs to the sidestick are made, and maintained, as it tries and fails to do what it's being told to, and I'm not talking about AF here.. The specific issue is that it won't stall wings level, but there are scenarios where the decision tree in the automation seems to be in the wrong order of priority, so it goes wrong, very quickly.

I cringed when I read how long it took a heavy and experienced crew to work the check lists on the A380 that had the serious uncontained engine failure. The length of time it took to get through all the issues was scary.

Standard Operating Procedures are exactly that, STANDARD. If something NON standard happens, then there will be occasions when the procedures may make the situation worse rather than better, but to make the call on that requires a level of knowledge of the aircraft and it's systems, and the skills to then use that knowledge to acheive a result that is acceptable given the circumstances. The 748 at Stansted a while back that had the engine fire and landed ahead rather than fly the circuit is an example.

A long time ago, a specific exercise in a large aircraft sim was to fly an exercise that was designed to make the use of almost any procedures impossible. Start from a runway threshold, ready to roll. As the brakes are released, start the stopwatch. Climb at pilot's discretion, in any way that the airframe can handle, to 10,000 Ft. Land back on any runway, full stop, shortest time wins.

To make it easier a good sim, with good visuals, and of course, CAVOK, and no wind.

It was interesting, in the wrong way, when this was tried with a group of type rated first officers. 2 of the 3 broke the aircraft in the air, as they didn't have the underlying raw flying skills to acheive the exercise. The time record was set by a non type rated pilot, in a 747, the time was 6 Mins 25 seconds. A bit of fun, not really too important? Maybe, maybe not. If you have a choice of doing something very non standard, and getting it on the ground and stopped in (say) 10 minutes, or flying a full and "proper" approach and procedure that takes maybe 18 minutes, so what? If there's a major fire that cannot be contained or controlled, 8 minutes is possibly literally a lifetime, maybe for all on board, but to do a quick and dirty dive to a runway mainly visually, requires skills that we now are seeing are possibly no longer there.

Do we blame the pilots, or maybe look more closely.

Was some of the problem the decision by the beancounters that low time first officers would be good (cheaper!) simulator instructors? A human factors researcher that I worked with a long time ago said something along the lines that an instructor cannot pass on more than 80% of his skills and experience. Keep changing the instructors on a regular basis, and the skill level is diluted significantly, espcially if the instructors train the new instructors.

I did my CPL/IR in California, and after the first flight of what was meant to be a month with the instructor, went to the owner and had a long discussion with him about the rest of the course. Turned out the instructor that was meant to be taking me to ME CPL/IR had 10 Hours on type, a Seneca II. I'd frightened the instructor rigid by doing things that were so outside of his experience and skills that it became obvious to me that there was no way it could work with him. Maybe 350 Hrs of ME time, and a lot more unapproved sim time before I did the CPL course had a lot to do with it, but it's another aspect of the dilution of skills. A different instructor with a lot more time and it was problem solved.

Are some of the issues that some of the simulators don't fully model the extremes of the envelope, and that applies to some of the Level D sims used by the major airlines. If the sim can't do it, it can't be trained, or even experimented with. Again, from bus exerience, one manufacturer's sim didn't correctly model things so that a trimmed aircraft that was disturbed in pitch only and then allowed to do whatever it would, didn't recover, and eventually departed, and I won't even discuss what happened when we tried manual reversion! We had to go and use another sim from a different manufacturer to get the information we needed for the project we were doing, and in the process, did something without being aware of it that the trained pilots had been told wasn't possible.

The end result is that yes, you can take just about anyone, train them in the right way, and when everything is going even reasonably OK, no one will be worried. If something does go wrong, with either the aircraft, or the external scenario, then it can change, very rapidly, and possibly badly so. The only way this scenario will change for the better is for each pilot to look very objectively at their experience, and skills, and decide if they are happy with the way that they, and their employer are allowing them to operate, and if they are not happy, something has to change.How that will happen may not be easy, as it's not something that will happen without pain to the entire system. At least it's out in the open a bit more now than it has been for a while, and rightly so.

Steve

Plectron

10th Sep 2011, 11:53

Once upon a time I found that most pilots I flew with were avoiding visual approaches. The company encouraged FOs to do practice sims on their own time. They had the required Visual Circuits wired by memorizing sim triggers - ie at this point do this, hold this attitude exactly, turn here, etc. As all the check flights were done in the sim and always at the same airports under the same conditions that worked swell. No one EVER expected to see a vis app on a line check.

That doesn't work out so well in the real world.

Several times on the line, after I had flown a visual approach, I had FOs confide in me that that was the first time, in their life, they had done one outside the sim. Huh?

It seems to me that the insurance companies would get involved with this as some regulatory agencies seem hopelessly out to lunch in regards to testing real world skills. I cannot imagine that Lloyd's really wants someone wrapping a perfectly controllable airplane into a ball of aluminum simply because they were incapable of doing a night visual approach into an airport with snarky weather. Right. You aren't supposed to do that. But I had a colleague who had to because the turb was so severe on the ILS due to terrain that he had to use the other non instrument runway. At night, with an engine out, in ice, with a bad cross-wind. And he couldn't go anywhere else. It can and does happen that you must be able to fly the airplane yourself.

Centaurus

10th Sep 2011, 13:32

The problem of manual flight is not with those young pilots just entering the line,

I am not so sure about that. Risking generalisation, but a study of relatively recent (last ten years) loss of control accidents have been on 737's or similar short haul types. In many of these the first officers were former 200 hour cadets with no previous experience apart from their first airliner. Most of that experience would have been on the autopilot.

bubbers44

10th Sep 2011, 14:32

Hand flying an airliner should be easy for all pilots. If it isn't easy you shouldn't be in the pilots seat. My sim check for my airline job they put me in the left seat of an Electra and had me do a single engine ILS with three shut down in an aircraft I had never flown in my life. Now they see if you can push the right buttons, apparently.

I felt very lucky to get that job because there were so many equally qualified pilots with many thousands of hours, a lot in jets trying to get that job. I do not know if the Electra had an autopilot but am sure they would not have let me use it. They were looking for pilots, not computer managers.

Denti

10th Sep 2011, 14:41

First off, i was writing about 200 hour (nowadays 80 hour) wonders out of in-house flight schools or company supervised flight schools. Usually the money spend on training those even if they pay part of it themselves is quite high, as is the effort in selecting them in the first place. It is not a way to get cheap pilots, it is a way to get the highest quality and best trained pilot and costs a lot more than just getting some out of work guy from an unaffiliated school or even some experience guy, even though a company has to retrain the latter one at cost between both prior possibilities. And those companies usually have a longer than normal and very hands on supervision phase on short haul operation which means a lot of landings and manual flight each day. Unlike those long haul guys that do around one or two landings a month (3 long haul rotations a month with 3 or 4 pilots per rotation).

Besides, you mean the likes of THY in amsterdam? The FO had gained around 4000 hours on fast jets in the turkish air force, still didn't help his handling qualities.

Anyway, you can't really generalize, as cadetship pilots are a different thing than your run of the mill flight school graduates. Even companies running their own cadet scheme will have to take on occasionally external direct entry pilots and you usually see a big difference in training right away.

@bubbers, i haven't been in a screening where any automatics was allowed. And yes, my initial screening was done in an MD80 simulator for a 737 company. No chance to train for it as they changed the type of screening aircraft each time, using especially older generation jets. And of course completely manual flight including an engine failure even for us 200 hour wonders.

Non Zero

10th Sep 2011, 16:02

Besides, you mean the likes of THY in amsterdam? The FO had gained around 4000 hours on fast jets in the turkish air force, still didn't help his handling qualities.

Unfortunately that was a basic CRM problem ... not an handling one ... which is not a rare case to encounter in airlines like TK and KE ... but you know that!

bubbers44

10th Sep 2011, 18:16

Denti, thanks for sharing that. It gives me a little more comfort sitting in the back knowing the right seat guy can fly too. What went wrong with AF447?

Denti

10th Sep 2011, 21:27

Good question, and one the whole aviation world either waits on holding their breath or allready has a fixed opinion about.

Anyway, just reread part of the last interim report and lack of experience in manual flight is something i cannot really see there, but probably lack of recent experience as that is not mentioned. The captain hat extensive experience in a lot of types without much automation, the youngest FO had a glider license and should have known about aircraft energy states and how that changes in a dynamic situation. The older FO renewed his SEP rating (in europe its only valid for some time and has to be renewed) in 2005.

All in all not that bad, and still it wasn't enough.

beachbud

12th Sep 2011, 21:33

Hi all, trying to locate the FAA draft of this report if anyone has the link.

rottenray

12th Sep 2011, 23:51

Desert185

14th Sep 2011, 16:03

Bubbers44: Hand flying an airliner should be easy for all pilots. If it isn't easy you shouldn't be in the pilots seat. My sim check for my airline job they put me in the left seat of an Electra and had me do a single engine ILS with three shut down in an aircraft I had never flown in my life. Now they see if you can push the right buttons, apparently.

I felt very lucky to get that job because there were so many equally qualified pilots with many thousands of hours, a lot in jets trying to get that job. I do not know if the Electra had an autopilot but am sure they would not have let me use it. They were looking for pilots, not computer managers.

Old school capability and evaluation. Nice job. Hoorah.:D

Desert185

14th Sep 2011, 16:20

Denti: First off, i was writing about 200 hour (nowadays 80 hour) wonders out of in-house flight schools or company supervised flight schools.

How times have changed. I had ~5,000hrs when I obtained my first heavy/jet job (B-727 in the Middle East). Too many Vietnam vets to compete with back then.

The irony prior to that was that I was a CFI for one of those in-house pilot mills. They had the airline job I was aspiring to, and I was their flight instructor who was teaching them from scratch for the career I wanted. Decades later, I bumped into one of my early students on a Yokota train station. We were both captains. I was proud of both of us for our success and the effort expended by both of us to get to where we were. It was very gratifying to see that one of my students had done so well for himself.

Never give up...and pray for luck. You don't want your karma to overcome your dogma.

galleypower

14th Sep 2011, 16:24

I'm amazed how much is being discussed about te issue without anyone having seen the real report from the FAA. How come the newspapers get it, but not the targeted crowd.

overun

14th Sep 2011, 22:07

Desert185.

That is inspirational, what a story. For my part l rely on God looking after his idiots, and it`s worked so far ! :)

bubbers44

15th Sep 2011, 05:32

desert185, I sympathize with you. My friends in the 70's were trying to get an airline job but couldn't because the military pilots we were instructing through Cessna Citation 500 type/atp courses were getting them all with us nursing them through the check ride. We finally all got those jobs too and are now retired. Persistence pays off. It is frustrating for a while.

We are now at the Reno Air Races and seeing the finest fly because they are great pilots, not because they fit a mold as before.

overun

18th Sep 2011, 02:30

lf, as suggested, there is a lack of handflying skills - Airbus lnd. we`re talking about - what is to be done ?

Tee Emm

18th Sep 2011, 05:42

we`re talking about - what is to be done ? Dead easy. Pilots should be encouraged to hand fly climbs and descents on line as well turn off the flight directors and manually fly visual approaches. In addition, where practicable, switch off the autothrottles, especially on approach.. . That is all that is needed to restore pilot self confidence in their ability to fly the aircraft without the automatics to lean on. Of course this doesn't mean hours and hours of manual flying at high altitude. But disconnecting the automatics at 15,000 ft on descent or up to 15,000 ft on climb will do wonders for improving instrument scan and situational awareness. And don't give me that bollocks of manual flying overloading the PNF who simply has to keep his usual eye on the flight path and work the radios. If the PNF can't handle that work without panicking then he is in the wrong job.

The majority of keen pilots would welcome the opportunity to keep their hand in. Others who are just plain lazy will always find reasons not to.

dkz

18th Sep 2011, 06:43

@Tee Emm

It all comes to the area, you cannot go raw data at 15000 ft in FRA or MUC ... how can you perform a raw data rnav star ?!?

Also it may not be such a good idea in marginal visibility to do a raw data non precision ... :=

Tmbstory

18th Sep 2011, 06:49

Tee Emm:

In days gone by in the Falcon 10, we had an exercise to hand fly from take -off to top of climb (FL 410 ) and the reverse, from top of cruise down to the approach and manual landing. Sometimes I would cover the HSI with my hand and ask "what heading are you steering", some of the replies were nowhere near the actual heading. The exercise could be done easily, with little effort and some of the crews who originally were against the idea, came to like it and improved greatly.

One side effect that came home was that to get the required performance, to obtain the cruising level you had to be able to fly a constant heading and keep the wings level.

If an autopilot can do it, so can an ordinary pilot (with a bit of training ).

Lets hope the industry can get Manual flying skills to a level that is higher than at present.

Tmb

Denti

18th Sep 2011, 06:53

Of course you can not fly a true raw data rnav departure, but you can fly a non-FD manual rnav departure of course, even in MUC or FRA although if that is a good idea is somewhat different question. By the way, visual departures are still normal and every day used procedures in MUC, just listen in on clearance delivery instead of using CPDLC clearance.

And yes, low vis might not be the right place to fly raw data approaches, but to be honest, how many true low vis situations per year does a normal pilot encounter? Besides, manually flown CAT III approaches are a normal procedure as well, just not raw data.

But there are more than enough chances for any pilot to train his flying skills on the line in good conditions. both weather and traffic wise.

overun

18th Sep 2011, 09:06

Job done. Who`s going to tell the FAA ?

usualguy

18th Sep 2011, 09:38

airlines should give a free cessna 172 to each pilots they hire plus a house with a garage where they can park their plane. outside the privat runway. with all the money they saved with low salary, i think it s pay back time...

they may even ad a swiming pool and jaccuzy for parties and relax, the only thing they don't pay is the BBQ and ladies!

at least it would be fair that one day pilots see some money in their miserable life of regional pilots living like gypsies.

Microburst2002

18th Sep 2011, 12:38

ICAO should intervene, by means of an ammendment to Annex 6 part I.

If ICAO makes a recommendation that companies encourage hand flying, (under given circumstances and with a given frequency) so that pilots can maitain a reasonable skill, and also recommend that this skill is checked during sims, then the problem would be greatly solved, including any liability question.

Because ICAO would be the source, and hardly liable for any crash blamed on pilots unduly hand flying, Right?

What I know is was decently skilled in flying a jet (because I had the knowledge, the training and some practice) and it is difficult to keep it when They don't let me hand fly without having to beg and look like Tom Cruise in Top Gun.

When months have passed since my last raw data ILS and then I have a chance, after landing I feel OK because it went reasonably well. But then later I realise that I had to ask if we were cleared because I did not recall the clearance, and also I hadn't thought of many of the many variables I usually think of when I make automated approaches.

Situation awareness is greatly reduced when you have to hand fly and are not used to it. Meaning that the day an airplane loses automation it has a crew with reduced performance.

Desert185

18th Sep 2011, 20:20

MicroburstBecause ICAO would be the source, and hardly liable for any crash blamed on pilots unduly hand flying, Right?

Does a professional pilot really need a regulatory mandate to maintain the proficiency required as part of the job description, i.e. being a professional instrument pilot when systems fail? In fact, it's a sad state of affairs that this question even has to be asked.

Not a rhetorical question...

Plectron

18th Sep 2011, 22:58

Folks, first of all I was not talking at all about flying RNAV approaches or CAT IIIb approaches by hand - I am talking about getting an airplane on the ground in adverse circumstances such as a single engine diversion to a less than desirable alternate or landing in gusty crosswinds without resorting to the Autoland feature.

I am also not talking about rehabilitating someone who has lost his skills due to laziness or lack of opportunity. I am talking about "pilots" who never did learn, have no intention of doing so, cannot land in crosswinds, legally or otherwise, or competently shoot a visual approach. These are basic skills that should be mastered by anyone in any cockpit. Sadly, the worse the pilot is in the airplane, the more the strut and arrogance on the ground.

Grizzled veterans of the right seat of the longhaul B777 who object to talking about manual flying skills, you will probably get away with it for the most part. Jets are pretty forgiving and reliable. I just wonder how you sleep at night.

RoyHudd

18th Sep 2011, 23:12

Some people here seem to be mixing visual flying skills with manual flying skills. Manual in IMC with an engine out, (or two), a hefty x-wind, and approach to minima need to be able to think, scan, AND handfly on instruments until decision. I am not sure handflying up to 15000 and down from 15000 is a great help. Sim checks my skills every 6 months, and needs to be passed.

Denti

18th Sep 2011, 23:43

Keeping your manual flying skills up by regularly using them is the easiest way. If you need to do it in a non-normal situation and haven't done it in the last few years it's a bit late to start training it. Of course flying manually to 15000 and back down is not very challenging for those that do it, it is however very challenging to those that don't. Especially in IMC. And it trains basic skills which one might need in a bad situation and frees mental capacity to deal with other stuff.

Legally you can get away without any real manual flying in the simulator event every 6 months. It is legal (at least in europe) to do the OEI pattern on autopilot, the required non precision approach on autopilot and so on. Passing SIM checks doesn't mean anything as the legal requirements are way out of date. SIM checks are there to tick boxes, not to check skills. Which is one of the major problems right now and has ultimately lead to the current mess.

Plectron

19th Sep 2011, 00:23

The regulatory agencies will not take care of this problem for a variety of reasons, not the least of which is that many of the inspectors could not now, if ever, hand fly a jet around the pattern, acquire a visual picture, and land in a crosswind with a 50% power failure.

Additionally, many agencies are pretty cozy with their national carriers and will hardly stand up to them on the issue of non-flying FOs. This is a big and endemic problem for some pretty big and successful airlines.

To make matters worse, the traditional sources of hands-on, already trained pilots, military or otherwise, are drying up at the same time as the working conditions of the jobs sour. It is expensive to learn how to fly these days - even as far as getting a private license to see if you like it, and keeping a light airplane at your local field is hardly within the reach of most folks.

Frankly, I don't know how to correct the problem - I am well out of it. I think the best chance for a functional cure is for the insurance agencies to get involved. The flight offices are drinking the Kool-Aide so don't look to them. The BODs are clueless. The public makes their choice of airline by price and how the cabin crews groom themselves.

I don't like standing in line for 30 minutes to use one of the two latrines the airline thoughtfully provides 140 passengers. Nor do I like having to wipe off the seating area before I sit down or eat. I doubt if anyone else does either. But, right now it seems to be the choice with a few notable exceptions. Not my place to advertise I suppose but LH is a hint for one.

wiggy

19th Sep 2011, 06:02

SIM checks are there to tick boxes, not to check skills. Which is one of the major problems right now and has ultimately lead to the current mess. :ok:

Good point IMHO.

Over the years the training time seems to have been swallowed up by the requirement to teach/check another automatically "flown" item which has been added to the list... CAT III approaches needless to say but now we have PRNAV approaches in various forms, then of course there's the assessable LOFT exercise .... etc, etc.

With luck, with a time efficient trainer on a good day you might get time to fly a couple of circuits at the end of the detail.

Mr.Bloggs

19th Sep 2011, 07:07

I can't imagine that the contributors above have flown a sim in the last few years. Talk about queues for toilets give their pathetic game away.
In my airline, manual handling sim details are standard for all pilots, over and above LPC/OPC and LOE's. As are large chunks of practice hand-flying in IMC under such conditions as dual hydraulic failures, emergency elec config, dual fmgc failure, etc.
Hand flying with 2 engines working properly is easy, and performing this on the line in busy airspace such as JFK, MIA, and the like is just stupid; it reduces the level of monitoring required by both operating pilots.
As for cruise pilots, (not non-handling FO's), these folk get far more frequent sim checks.
What is the beef of these SLF people on this thread? They are clueless, in any event, as is usually the case. They seem to love to pretend to be commercial pilots. Sad people.

wiggy

19th Sep 2011, 09:42

Bit harsh Mr Bloggs, especially as I suspect many of the above have plenty of simulator time over the years and have seen the emphasis shift from manual flying to automatics over the years.....:hmm:

manual handling sim details are standard for all pilots, over and above LPC/OPC and LOE's

FWIW are you saying your company rosters you for extra simulator time above and beyond that required by your regulator or are the handling details you refer to thrown in as part of the recurrent exercises?

Microburst2002

19th Sep 2011, 11:51

find it easier to carry out an ILS approach in IMC, crosswind, one engine out with no FD nor A/THR in the sim than an ILS with zero automation in a slightly turbulent and gusty day with a fully operational airplane in the real airlplane.

Simulators can't simulate atmosphere nor its effects on the airplane that well. In most of the cases all you have to do is establish early on LOC and G/S and then continue down while smoking a cigar. Even in dual hydraulic, with A/THR and FDs it is easier...

In real atmosphere the LOC is not so easy to keep till 'minimum', even with all the good information coming from the PFD, with its expanded scale and the green diamond and all. Even if very light, real turbulence in IMC cheats my body making me feel the inclined other way, treacherously inducing me to steer the airplane away from loc and glide. If my scan rate is slow due to lack of practice then I have to regain the glidepath too often. Specially with A/THR OFF. If my scan rate is good I can handle it, but this requires practice.

And practice, make no mistake, requires authorization. At leas nowdadays.

Landings are always worse in the sim, though, because the feeling is definitely wrong, no matter what they say.

Sims are easy, or maybe I am specially gifted for them...

ammending Annex 6 would change the trend. Airlines would be free of liability and they would stop discouraging hand flying.

I also think that they should increase the minimum sim training, because its not sufficient for all the additional stuff we have to do.

Plectron

19th Sep 2011, 13:08

Mr. Bloggs is quite correct to criticize my post. What I was attempting to say, and clearly failed at, was that while I do not enjoy flying in aircraft that have neglected the creature comforts in the cabin, I would still prefer that to having 1 or even 2 pilots in the cockpit who are pretty marginal in the areas we are discussing.

My other unclear point was that most passengers are not aware of this problem and blissfully choose the airline on price or the ambiance of the cabin.

There are a very few airlines out there who still seem to keep a balance. Not many, but there are some. And interestingly, when you meet their crews on layovers they seem like they are having fun.

For the record, Mr. Bloggs, I am typed in a bunch of large airplanes from 4 manufacturers, I am still flying, was in management for a few years, have consulted with various agencies investigating accidents, and I have more then enough flight time. Thank you for your comments.

RoyHudd

19th Sep 2011, 21:29

Comprendo, Plectron. Thanks for clarification. Apologies. And yes wiggy, as I clearly wrote, my company rosters additional sim sessions for every pilot to practice manual handling. I have had 2 in the last 36 months, and hand-fly regularly anyway. An RA last week in the USA gave me a spot of extra practice. As did some turbulence at 400, where the autothrust is best disconnected for the duration of the bumps in the road, big ones anyway.

As for the sim being easier than the real thing, I've never heard this before. Sims are usually twitchy in my experience; even when simulating electric aircraft.

wiggy

20th Sep 2011, 05:27

Thanks for the clarification.

There can't be many airlines at the moment who are prepared to roster pilots (and also pay for simulator time) for anything details beyond that required by the regulatory authority...... mindyou I'm sure most of us here have also had our share of RAs and hand flying.....

Microburst2002

20th Sep 2011, 07:58

They should introduce a new kind of simulators, smaller, cheaper and easier to maintain, where pilots could train manual flight in their type.

These sims would have room only for the two pilots (trainee and instructor/PM, or two trainees) would disregard or just mockup most of the systems except those needed for manual flight in different conditions and have limited motion (three axis with not much inclination). you would get inside them without the need of a bridge. they would be small like a car. Visual would be not important, just a cheap screen for the final landing, or even nothing.

We would use this sims without having to leave the homebase, because you don't need a sim centre for that. Crews would have to make a reasonable amount of time periodically.

Some of them could be enhanced so that upsets could be trained in them. these would be bigger and would be better placed in sim centers.

And every six months we would do the usual full flight simulator, with LOFT, CRM, LVO, etc... and upset training (one hour per pilot is enough) once a year

I think that would be a good solution for this dilemma

wiggy

20th Sep 2011, 09:36

I think that would be a good solution for this dilemma

Maybe, maybe not, but playing devil's advocate for a moment with airlines nowadays increasingly trying to work their crews as close as possible to duty limits on a daily/monthly/annual basis when do forsee these devices being used?

bubbers44

20th Sep 2011, 10:20

wiggy

20th Sep 2011, 10:39

I think most of us here do that when we can, but as has been previously mentioned simply flying the hand flying in the aircraft up or down from FL200 is better than nothing but still doesn't really stop erosion of handflying skills if you only do this 4-5 times a month (Long Haul). Like microburst I feel there's a need for more sim time ( with my ex-QFI hat I'm thinking of classic GH stuff such as, stalls, scannexs, circuits, ( oh did I mention aeros :E - )), but to be of genuine benefit it's almost certainly got to be in a full sim, it's going to need to be an exercise done at least every couple of months to be of benefit ( just a guess, other offers accepted). However the costs to the company in terms of sim time, instructor time and costs for taking a crew off line will make Fleet managers and the company accountants turn white so this has to be an issue one for the regulators to rule on, not something that should just be left for pilots to try and remedy in their spare time ..........

Plectron

20th Sep 2011, 11:28

For me, this issue isn't just an armchair exercise or chit-chat on the computer. I care about this issue because I have seen it and it alarms me.

I will say it one more time and then leave this to all of you to hash over. From my perspective, it isn't so much erosion of skills, rather, it is that the skills were never there in the first place. I saw pilots chosen for reasons other than aviation aptitude, placed in an intensive C172 program (and incidentally, subjected to some old school hazing), allowed to languish (often for considerable time) waiting for their slot to open, scheduled into an intensive ground school and sim program, and finally released onto the line in a right seat wide body long haul op. The opportunity on these flights to learn any real handling was non-existent. Company Manual dictated no cross wind landings and in reality they couldn't handle any, especially one that would shift during the flare. They got around all that by using the autoland feature. NO ONE did any visual approaches, hand flown or otherwise. Non-precision approaches were an emergency procedure.

The sims were every three months to the airlines credit. The FOs spent extra time, on their own, memorizing the PFD pictures for each scenario - sharing their information on a very sophisticated web site. I suppose it helped but it didn't solve the problem - they really couldn't fly very well and in their career path probably wouldn't get better.

The real solution is to put these kids in a commuter type program or even a high frequency short haul jet program and use the big jet as an upgrade. Or, dare I say, dual qualify people. (Okay, I hear the knives coming out over this...) Wash out the ones that can't hack it. This was a very real option at this particular carrier but they chose not to do it. Why? Who knows.

Sim handling sessions work okay for guys that knew how to fly once in their distant past but doesn't really do that much for clever lads that just want the expensive watch and layover entertainment.

Denti

20th Sep 2011, 12:08

For me, this issue isn't just an armchair exercise or chit-chat on the computer. I care about this issue because I have seen it and it alarms me.

I can second that, but our background seems to be different. I do fly shorthaul with up to 5 sectors a day and therefore quite a few landings. However even there you can see skill erosion taking place with those too lazy to handfly or too fascinated with all the new automatic stuff. But even our longhaul operation is not exclusively longhaul, it is mixed fleet flying and before you can get trained on the big bird you need quite some shorthaul experience (sadly that is airbus only until the 787 arrives).

Our biggest competitor trains his students through an MPL program, same as we do. And every student entering the company will have to fly shorthaul for at least somewhere betwee 4 and 6 years before going on the longhaul fleets. Both companies by the way still encourage manual raw data flight which is nice, but sadly not enough for some.

We would love to create a career program in our company by taking the Dash operation back into our company (currently it is done by a subsidiary with its own pilot corps) and letting everyone start there, both on the right and the left side to gain experience, however that is one of those battles nearly impossible to win since it would increase the cost for Dash pilots considerably.

Tee Emm

20th Sep 2011, 14:30

Desert185

20th Sep 2011, 16:02

Another less expensive and time consuming way to maintain, or attain, hand flying skills is hand fly the airplane part of the time. I know this is unheard of in this generation because the autopilot can never be shut off without a really good reason per some opspecs.
Agree. But for various reasons there are a breed of pilots who find monitoring the automatics, rather than practicing manual flying, is money for old rope. In otherwise they simply cannot be bothered to fly manually in IMC even though conditions might be entirely appropriate for the practice. Other pilots might be perfectly happy to switch off the automatics and pole their aircraft but are prevented by the captain who becomes immediately apprehensive if the FD is switched off. That situation will not change. So much depends on the individual personality and dare I say his love or otherwise of flying.

Yep. It's a personal and personnel issue. If the pilots really wanted to maintain their professionalism on that level, they (and the unions, instead of protecting the weak) would figure out a way to do it. Unfortunately, in many companies the back-biting weasels in the group are dropping a dime on the folks who go against the dumbing-down company policy of allowing the automation to fly the airplane without regard for personal proficiency. Like many other professions and life's pursuits, we are often our own worst enemies.

Frankly, I'm thrilled to be retired from the airlines :ugh: and working for an outfit (run by pilots who understand) who values technology and human capability as equally important tools. :D Refreshing...