What do you want from this Forum?

[Captain Stable]

PPRuNe has an enviable position in the Aviation community.

We get more hits in one day than CHIRPS gets in one month. We can provide a significant service to aviation - to cabin crew, to ground staff, to professional and private pilots.

I would like to see this Forum be a very positive contribution to all in the industry, promoting good practice, safety, and continuous improvements of standards and operating procedures.

We can also change the mind of those managers in aviation who see PPRuNe as undermining their status and authority by allowing their staff to communicate freely. We can make PPRuNe far more respected throughout the industry, world-wide.

What do you think would help us to achieve that?

[mcdhu]

I think that all of us with an interest in learning more about how to improve safety in our complex environment would like this Forum to be one where, with this aim in mind, informed, thoughtful, and civilized debate is welcomed and encouraged and where uninformed, trivial and unpleasant posting is actively discouraged.
The Techlog Forum manages this very successfully and I see no reason why this Forum should be any different in this respect.
Cheers,
mcdhu

[Captain Stable]

I would hope that, with the possible exception of JetBlast, that could be said of the whole of PPRuNe.

My question rather is aimed at the sort of facilities that could be available here.

For example:- What would people think of PPRuNe providing some sort of CHIRPS service - not, obviously, in competition with CHIRPS, but, since that is aimed specifically at UK aviators, providing contact on direct issues across the whole PPRuNe readership? Would it be useful to have downloadable copies of standard forms - such as Flight Plan (CA48), MOR, Bird Strike, Airprox, Wake Turbulence, etc.? How about the METAR/TAF decode? Runway state report decode? Conversion Tables? Bearing in mind the frequent complaints about use of English/French @ CDG, would people like a brief glossary of aviation terms? Most companies should keep a library of flight safety-related books. I don't know of anywhere that has a list of such useful publications. Would some sort of catalogue be handy (Starting perhaps with "Handling the Big Jets" and "The Naked Pilot") How about a brief digest of the latest AIC's? etc. etc.Any other suggestions?

[Mowgli]

Capt Stable

It would be useful to have the definitive answer to the many speculative ramblings that follow the posting of an incident. Eg: on "reporting points" there is currently a post about the Monarch 75 which has suffered damage following a landing at Gib. By reading the thread you can summise that it was either a technical problem or a pilot problem. I want to learn from other peoples experiences, and then if I land a big jet at Gib I will be in a better state to do so having read about what happened there to someone else. The trouble is, that by the time an inquiry has taken place, it is old news, and the definitive cause hidden in a report which can be found elsewhere but only after a lot of time consuming searching. What would be really useful, would be a listing of the mishaps which occur, which you could click on, and be given a status report on the investigation. If the investigation is complete, then a click to read the findings. A further click to take you to the original post on PPRUNE so that you can see the background and how the eventual report compares with the thread as it unfolded.

Thanks!

[BOAC]

I like your ideas for down-loads, Cpt S, but I cannot see how that will fit into a forum like this. Sounds like buying Danny and Pprune Dispatcher lots of beer and persuading them to open a 'library' section might be in order? Then you could link to various download sites with ease. That could include the request for 'final' accident reports.

[Captain Stable]

Sounds like buying Danny and Pprune Dispatcher lots of beerAlready done that! :p

I'm also planning a link section with as many safety-related sites as I can find - I have a fair few already among my favourites!

The linking of final AAIB (or NTSB or whatever) reports to original PPRuNe threads (if I've understood your suggestion correctly, Mowgli) would be a LOT of work for someone. Since I have a fair idea of who would be left standing there when everyone else takes one step backwards, I can't say I'm terribly keen! Let's face it - when an AAIB report comes out, ploughing through PPRuNe for one particular thread which may have "died" several months ago ain't easy.

The other point about this is that whilst others may love it, the endless pointless speculation about incidents does absolutely nothing for me at all. I don't believe it does anything for the crews involved either. When it comes to using others' misfortunes to improve Flight Safety, I START with AAIB bulletins (or whatever other authoritative source) and work only from there.

If I've misunderstood you, please explain further...?

[Mowgli]

I see your point Capt S. Your idea about having links to various flight safety related sites would be very useful. And I agree that going through endless speculative ramblings is not time well spent and not helpful to the people concerned. My suggestion was not very well thought through. Does the AAIB produce an interim report which comes out well before the final findings?

Keep up the good work.

[Captain Stable]

Quite often (generally when an incident has aroused a lot of general interest and publicity) the AAIB will produce an interim report, yes. But by no means always. Sometimes the final report takes ages if it's a particularly complex investigation - which is often the case if foreign agencies are also involved! :D

For various reasons which I won't go into here, I rarely see the printed versions of AAIB reports that are circulated to most British operators. I am happy to try to keep an eye on new reports as they are published on the web and provide a link here if that would be useful...?

[Genghis the Engineer]

Good luck Cap'n on the forum, and may it give you as little grief as the flight test forum has me.

I'd venture that you should aim not to overlap too much with other forums. Now to my mind this means that the primary item under discussion in this forum should be what's known as "human factors", varying from ergonomics, through CRM to training and currency issues. I would also point out that these factors mean as much to me as an Engineer as they do to me as a Pilot, the different may use different terminology to describe them but we live or die by it just the same.

With regard to AAIB reports, I agree with others who point out that they generally come too late for currency in Pprune discussions. Mowgli is right, they do publish interim reports, as it happens I have one on my desk at the moment for a fatal accident last June that I've been working on for AAIB. It says on the cover "The report ... is to be published in AAIB Bulletin No. .... It will be placed on the AAIB website on the same day.... Please note that until publication the content of the report is to be treated as confidential". Or in other words, those of us privileged to have sight of these interim reports, and rather hampered (and generally for very sound reasons). For similar reasons, detailed uninformed discussion in a public forum can often be harmful, and I feel should be disuaded.

Two other areas are mentioned in the heading. One is safety, the other is QA. I'd venture that all the Pprune forums have a large safety element (even Jet Blast on a good day, jokes are often there to say something you don't want to say straight). So, this really goes without saying.

QA is about the procedures that manage how any aviation professional work. Like HF, it's very much a cross-discipline subject, and although it gets occasional mentions in "Engineers and Technicians" or "Tech Log" particularly, it's not a glamorous subject and perhaps doesn't get the discussion it deserves.

So, in conclusion I think...

Human factors - YES
Discussion on current accidents - TO BE LIMITED
QA and procedural issues - YES
Safety - GOES WITHOUT SAYING.

Good luck,

G

[Mowgli]

Capt S. Yes, I think it would be useful to have links to reports when they are made available. I have read Gengis' post that interim reports have limited circulation due to confidentiality. It seems that hard earned knowledge takes a long time to be shared across the aviation community. It would be a travesty if an identical accident occured before the report had been published but from what Gengis has written I can't see a way around the problem. Could an interim report which has any identifying references (company, place, date etc) removed be published which could protect confidentiality whilst broadcasting any lessons learnt? Or is that too impractical? Would lawyers have to get involved?

It's obviously a complex problem. I just feel that if there's something to learn I need access to it ASAP.

[Genghis the Engineer]

At risk of turning this into a thread about accident reports (if you'd rather Cap'n, I'm sure that Mowgli and I would be glad to start another thread).

I'm the design signatory for a number of aircraft types, if (as sadly happen once in a while) one of these types suffers a fatal accident, I get pulled into the investigation by AAIB. On this, as previous occasions I've been very involved with the AAIB and the formulation of their report. This means that by the time the AAIB report and it's recommendations are issued, I'll already know what the recommendations will be, discussed them with the CAA, and probably issued necessary guidance to all operators of the type. In the case in question, the timescale was something like this...

Late June - accident
Early July - first meeting with AAIB
Mid July - preliminary conclusions with AAIB, write to all owners advising them of possible concerns (and imposing a temporary operating restriction).
August, agree with AAIB and CAA a test plan to investigate possible problems, arrange use of an aircraft. They formally issue recommendations to me.
January, complete test programme.
February, issue my report to AAIB, agree with them and CAA all subsequent actions.
March Final report in draft, make detailed comments
May , I see final report.
June, final report is published

So my point is that those directly affected are informed very quickly - within a month. A similar recent incident was the Queens/NY/A310 accident, I saw a quite detailed signal Airbus put out to all it's operators within about a month of this accident. The final report is the "closure action".

Secondly, AAIB reports are all online already at http://www.aaib.detr.gov.uk/ The immediate stuff is under "special bulletins", and the main reports that we're used to seeing in the red-tops is in "bulletins". The "formal reports" bit is reserved for the really high profile cases.

Genghis,

Who has assisted in the writing of about half a dozen AAIB reports and appeared in one.