Automation does it lead to complacency?

[Chuck Ellsworth]

I have been thinking about the jet that flew past its destination at cruise altitude and tried to imagine us doing that back in a time before automation became the norm for flight.

The conclusion I arrived at was it would have been very difficult for this to happen as we had to constantly work at determining our position so as to know when we would arrive at our next check point.

What do the rest of you think?

[SNS3Guppy]

I think automation has lead to complacency, but I also think that the ease with which we navigate today, the advanced displays, the nav systems and GPS, and it's presentation tends to make many lazy. When one has scarcely but to press a button to see the minues of fuel remaining, time to an alternate, landing weight, and any other parameter of a given flight, the mental process numbs and becomes weak.

Automation itself doesn't cause complacency, any more than advanced nav equipment reduces one's skills or thoughts process. Rather, it's the giving one's self over to the automation and the advanced displays, equipment, and capabilities, and allowing one' self to become complacent that leads to the demise.

In the end, the ability to operate with the sophistication that many aircraft and operations do today doesn't of it's own accord make one complacent, but it does open the door and make it a lot easier to get that way.

[rocco16]

Didn't the head of Airbus training recently express concerns that long haul pilots hand fly without automatics only 3 hours a year and that their skills in some emergencies may not be sufficient?

[poss]

I don't think that pilots are getting complacent with their skills, infact quite the opposite, I hear more and more go on about how they wish they got more hands on time because they feel they are getting rusty. It's aimed more at the aircraft been able to carry out all the tasks and the pilots just letting it get on with what it's doing without monitoring what exactly is going on.
I certainly agree that when you are manually flying, navigating etc, you are more in the loop because you are constantly calculating track errors, times and making the appropriate corrections. With the intergration of the almighty FMS we don't need to do any of that, push a button and go... oh look we've arrived. Of course it's no way as simple as that but compared to star navigation etc it is a lot simpler.
I think in the past few months there has been a dramatic increase in awareness when it comes to automated air travel, pilots have seen what mistakes can happen by making an input error on the FMS. Airlines are forever striving to get their aircraft to their destinations on time, with as little cost as possible, which is why I'm not sure what can be done on the situation.... I doubt they will allow their pilots to hand fly as much as is probably necessary to keep their skills upto scratch.

[SNS3Guppy]

In the airline environment, various policies and regulations don't permit the pilot to hand fly all the time. In most RVSM airspace, for example. With advanced levels of approach and landing capability, many aircraft are landed on autopilot, as most pilots will agree that the airplane does a better job than they do...to a point.

That said, I've always preferred to hand fly where I can, regardless of what I fly. Some aircraft and some operations are always hand flown, of course. In other cases, I have to make myself use the automation in order to stay proficient with the automation. It can add another level of safety to the operation when used properly, and one should stay just as proficient at automated operations as hand-flown operations...otherwise one might handicap one's self.

I've met pilots who engaged the autopilot as soon after takeoff as possible, and who disengaged it at the last possible moment before touchdown, or in the case of category III landings, not even then...pilots who didn't want to hand fly at all. I actually saw a pilot panic and consider diverting and landing once because the autopilot failed and he had to hand fly. I've also seen more than a few pilots who became uncomfortable at the idea of having to navigate without a magenta line to follow.

I recently was involved in an operation that required the pilot to make a series of mental calculations while flying airborne patterns in the dark above a target, mostly on instruments. The head work could become taxing after a while, and with four or six or more hours of this, hand flown, the effort could become tedious. A display on board would draw a track on a moving map. If the pattern was flown correctly, after a while, the pattern would be depicted on the map. Then it became a matter of simply following the picture on the map.

What I learned after speaking with other pilots was that they usually did this very thing. I also learned that using the math formula was nearly unheard of among many of the pilots, even though that formula became very important when doing various types of required actions in flight. Essentially, they'd become complacent because they had a colorful picture to follow, rather than maintaining the elemental skills involved in that job. Ultimately, they were able to do their job very well, so one may say that their choice didn't impact performance...but I think it does give some insight into the effect of automation, displays, systems, and so forth, on an individual's tendencies in the cockpit. Like water and electricity, pilots tend to take the path of least resistance.

The problem arises when these inconveniences become inoperative or malfunction, leaving the pilot worse off than before, as now essential skills have eroded.

[polyfiber]

I couldn't agree more. The proliferation of autopilots and lowcost GPS nav systems has created a generation of pilots that would have a hard time flying with a map, compass and watch. Last year a Malibu pulled it's wings off because the gyro driving the autopilot failed. The TSB layed part of the blame on pilot ability. Yes the plane was overgross at takeoff but he would have burned off enough by the time he augered in to be within the C of G.

[IO540]

The proliferation of autopilots and lowcost GPS nav systems has created a generation of pilots that would have a hard time flying with a map, compass and watch.

Yeah, the same argument over and over. We beat the Germans in WW1, we beat them again in WW2, and the great men who did that are still running the CAA and never realised that if the Russians had decided to invade they would not have picked a VMC day, so the RAF's fantastic post-WW2 daytime precision map+stopwatch nav capability was luckily never put to the test ....

Last year a Malibu pulled it's wings off because the gyro driving the autopilot failed.

No, I don't think so. The slew rate of an autopilot is limited to a lot less than you could drive the yoke manually. What really happened (if indeed there was anything wrong with the AP at all, and reliably thus determined post-accident) is that the pilot lost the plot / did not monitor his systems / etc.

Always use the best tools for the job.

[polyfiber]

Of course the gyro failure did not rip the wings off, it was the spiral dive the pilot went into after he uncoupled the failed auto pilot. He was relying on the auto pilot to do the work.

[Tee Emm]

While we don't hear of aeroplanes crashing all over the world because of automation complacency there has been a relative increase in loss of control accidents in IMC due to the pilots showing marked reluctance to disengage the automatics and recover manually from an unusual attitude. This is a direct result of lack of pure flying skills which can only be retained if the pilots are allowed to hand fly when suitable opportunities permit. I think there is little doubt that many airline pilots are simply too lethargic to disconnect the automatics for practice hand flying in IMC even though the conditions permit.

I have often observed the astounding ineptitude of many four bar experienced airline pilots to rapidly fix their position by reference to an RMI/VOR/ADF/DME position line. This is primarily because their entire airline navigation career is based on the the infallible (?) MAP and Magenta line. An ATC request for their present VOR radial and DME is often met with a a stunned look between the two pilots up front. For instance they find the DME part is easy - but reading an RMI? - now they are confused trying to remember is it the head or the tail of the needle that gives the radial? During manoeuvering in IMC within say within 20 miles of a navaid equipped airport you freeze the simulator and say "Excuse moi, chaps- could you please point to where we are right now on your Jepps chart - and are we currently at a safe altitude with reference to the published MSA?"

You would laugh at the much pursing of lips as charts are turned upside down and even sideways and frowns are directed at RMI needles and people wonder why they cannot get a cross-bearing fix because they forget they are still on a localiser frequency and not a VOR frequency. Situational Awareness is a much hackneyed phrase, but believe me there are a lot of so called professional pilots that quickly lose the plot without the security and comfort of radar vectors.

[IO540]

it was the spiral dive the pilot went into after he uncoupled the failed auto pilot.

Has this been verified by a video recording of the cockpit?

I say this because AP disconnection is done by a red button in the yoke and normally one holds the yoke when the button is being pressed - partly because that is totally normal and partly because most GA APs don't fly with perfect elevator trim so when you disconnect it, there is a bit of trimming to do manually.

But everybody who flies (for real, not in a sim) with an AP knows all this anyway....

One doesn't disconnect the AP and without taking even a glimpse at the AI starts to rummage around on the back seat

He was relying on the auto pilot to do the work.

Rightly so - that is what it is there for

While we don't hear of aeroplanes crashing all over the world because of automation complacency there has been a relative increase in loss of control accidents in IMC due to the pilots showing marked reluctance to disengage the automatics and recover manually from an unusual attitude.

Hang on... you are saying that the AP (not the pilot) puts the plane into an UA (which generally means an AP failure) and the pilot just sits there? Did you get this from some CAA leaflet on proper airmanship, written by an ex RAF navigator?

One can stall a plane by doing a low power setting descent and when the AP levels off at the preset altitude, the airspeed bleeds off (Turkish 737 at Amsterdam kind of thing) and a pilot who is well behind the plane might not notice. But that is not an "UA" in the normal sense, and a recovery from that isn't going to pull the wings off.

I agree one needs to be able to fly a plane manually, because automatic controls do fail. But the general way that cockpit automation is persistently tarred with a big brush shows a lack of understanding of how modern avionics work and how they are used in real flight.

[G-SPOTs Lost]

IO540

Its extremely possible that an auto pilot in GA can put you in a UA, the AI will no doubt be pointing straight and level at the time.......

Hang on... you are saying that the AP (not the pilot) puts the plane into an UA (which generally means an AP failure) and the pilot just sits there? Did you get this from some CAA leaflet on proper airmanship, written by an ex RAF navigator?

One can stall a plane by doing a low power setting descent and when the AP levels off at the preset altitude, the airspeed bleeds off (Turkish 737 at Amsterdam kind of thing) and a pilot who is well behind the plane might not notice. But that is not an "UA" in the normal sense, and a recovery from that isn't going to pull the wings off.

I agree one needs to be able to fly a plane manually, because automatic controls do fail. But the general way that cockpit automation is persistently tarred with a big brush shows a lack of understanding of how modern avionics work and how they are used in real flight.

If I recall you fly a well equipped TB20 on an FAA IR, to pontificate about

one needs to be able to fly a plane manually

having never done a JAA IR test in a green needled RBI equipped aircraft is a little rich and adversely commenting about RAF Navigators and then unfortunate crew at AMS does not improve your flying stature. You are a child of the magenta and suggest you realise your own limitations before commenting on others. Your unwillingness to consider that an AP can f*ck up your day shows an over reliance imho

[boofhead]

I would fly an approach in the airline environment with weather down to CAT1 minimas by hand, but it was always a risk if I had to go around since the company would have been angered at the cost. They would say, correctly, that if I had left it to the automatics I could have gone to CAT2 or CAT3 and thus gotten in without the chance of a go around.
Going around, especially at busy airports, could involve an hour or so of extra flight time, and consequent missed connexions, lost gates, etc, as well as delayed schedules down the line.
I admit it was a risk, but how else do you train for actual approaches without flying them? In the real world that is, not the simulated one. Only in the real world do you get real winds, instrument and approach aid errors, distractions and the like. Nothing like a bit of pressure.
Not all airports report accurate weather, and it was always a risk, but I got away with it for many years and never got caught out.
I did not know any other PIC who did the same, they all, to a man (or woman) would leave it to the auto pilot, even if a CAT2 was not available, since they could then blame the auto pilot for the go around. No question of their skill or lack thereof.
Those same people were loathe to give a landing to the FO as well, for similar reasons.
A lack of skill or a lack of responsibility?

[DFC]

I was going to use IO540's regular posts about no one should fly without a GPS etc etc and most flights can not be done without a GPS and others such as;

This is why most people fly NDB approaches using a GPS, checking the ADF at the FAF or whatever but ignoring it afterwards.

Which makes me wonder why they are ignoring an approach aid that they describe as being;

Originally Posted by IO540

In principle the system is as accurate as a VOR.

But IO540 has proven the point I was going to make for me.

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Many pilots these days can not fly unless they have serviceable electronic crutches to aid their handicaped flying abilities.

If they find that the GPS is u/s, they cancel the flight. So all safe there.

However, what happens when something fails mid-flight is ignored on their part and often the cause of at best an incident and at worst an accident.

For example, thinking that ADF is as accurate as VOR and basing one's minimum safe level on that is a recipe for CFIT.

I say this because AP disconnection is done by a red button in the yoke and normally one holds the yoke when the button is being pressed - partly because that is totally normal and partly because most GA APs don't fly with perfect elevator trim so when you disconnect it, there is a bit of trimming to do manually.

But everybody who flies (for real, not in a sim) with an AP knows all this anyway....

I can think of a good 10 or 12 ways to disconnect the autopilot in an aircraft I fly without ever touching the "red button" disconnect on the control column.

I can think of 10 to 12 more reasons why it will disconnect (and not reconnect) no matter what I do.

With something basic like the typical GA autopilot there is 4 ways that instantly come to mind.

Over reliance on automation and not knowing the full capabilities / operation of that system are a killer.

Problem is that often those shouting loudest these days are the ones who say that only an idiot would try to fly from A to B without some electronic kit showing how and anyone who can make an IMC flight from A to B with in navigation terms nothing more than a compass, stopwatch and map and a VHF comm radio is a relic of the past.

I fly aircraft with 3 GPS, 3 IRS and lots of other lovely modern electronic kit. That is why when I pass 54N 30W I note the time on the clock (plog and chart) and 10 minutes later plot the indicated position on the map...........all because there is absolutely no chance of having 3 GPS and 3 IRS all fail at the same time - is there????????

The problem often is that small aircraft pilots try to be airline pilots by using their version of EFIS etc etc but don't realise that airline pilots always have raw data back-up (when available) and several back-ups including watch and heading to crosscheck everything..........the difference being that the airline pilot is not operating at max and has the capacity to crosscheck.

Isn't it lovely using GPS - IFR flight, all programmed in there. Just like the airline pilot's FMS. Get a direct to a waypoint 300 miles away and punch it in and away you go.........except that the airline pilot will make several crosschecks and record abeam planned waypoint times to check that the plan is proceeding correctly.......the average TB pilot with an IR is going to sit there doing didly squat for 300 miles.

Perhaps it is time to make single pilot CRM a mandatory addition to the IR course?

Ask the pilot who insists that one is never going to have to use map and compass if one has dual GARMIN panel mounts, 2 VOR, DME etc etc etc what they do with an electrical fire and how they are going to keep everything safe while they figure out which box is putting out the smoke?

I can point the finger at quite a few pilots who faced with smoke from behind thre pannel in IMC on a bumpy day would not immediately switch off all electrics (master off)........because they can't cope with not having their crutch.......and will risk poisioning themselves and their passengers with the fumes while they try one item after another to find the source of the ever growing smoke.

IO540?.........would you (could you) turn off the master and continue the flight with watch and compass?

Doubt it - would rather die than become one of those old farts who use such things.

(Sits back and waits for the "I always have a handleld GPS in my case")

[polyfiber]

Hello IO540,

I just checked in my first log book the last sim I "flew", it was an ATC 810 almost 20 years ago when I was doing my Multi IFR. The last time I flew behind an IO540 it was bolted on a Pitts S2B. The reason for that is that my plane doesn't have inverted oil and fuel and I wanted to practice inverted spins. So if you want to allude that I am not a pilot I could care less.

If you are a proponent of electronic flight aids good for you. I see nothing wrong with them. I do see something wrong with guys who depend on them to a degree that they have lost the ability to fly without them.

[Chuck Ellsworth]

I have been thinking about navigation using different methods to determine where you are and where you are heading and got to thinking about all the thousands of hours we flew in the Arctic using the astro compass and an ADF as our only source of aids for determining our position.

Then as we progressed to GNS then to Loran we thought we had died and gone to heaven...then came GPS which was even better.

My first over water intercontinental ferry flights were done without any electronic aids except an ADF with B.F.O. capability and there were moments when we were really not sure where we were.

All this talk about failure of electronic aids such as GPS is fine but would I choose to go back to the days of the radio range and the astro compass...no.

I am curious if there are many of you here who flew when the radio range was the prime means of flying airways?

[DFC]

If you are a proponent of electronic flight aids good for you. I see nothing wrong with them. I do see something wrong with guys who depend on them to a degree that they have lost the ability to fly without them.

Agreed.

Would add "or those that could never fly without them in the first place".

[IO540]

the AI will no doubt be pointing straight and level at the time.

Yes, if it is an AI failure (KI-256 e.g.) but any appropriately equipped plane will have two AIs; one vac and the other electric, and one keeps an eye on both of them.

Plus the TC.

This forum is always great for raising the blood pressure of the predictable types but one would expect nothing less from its title

Time to move forward to the 20th century.

[G-SPOTs Lost]

IO I fly kit that makes your aircraft look like a Nintendo....

Notwithstanding that, instead of spouting off about crew flying twins that will fly in excess of 150knts in a disparaging manner, it may be worthwhile opening your ears to those professionals who have nothing to prove on here....unlike your good self.....

Magenta is indeed a wonderful thing, an hour or so in a sim will bring you down to earth with a bump and maybe make you a little more receptive to a more pro-pilot attitude to avionics and automatics.....

PS if you're monitoring both AI's which ones failed, you quote the TC which is about as much use as tits on a bull and will kill you in an unusual attitude.

But you knew that already.....

[boofhead]

Chuck you forgot Omega.

Yes I flew using radio ranges, but to be fair they were not primary by then.
I also used the old B&W (or B&Y) radar for approaches, being able to adjust sensitivity and gain allowed us to identify coast lines, runways, control towers and the like for very accurate guidance. Can't do that with the modern colour radar.

Loved the old ADF with aural nul ability too. Was a very accurate bearing over almost 1000 miles if done right and the high power NDBs were available.

I doubt any pilot nowadays could do a proper plot, neither are good plotting maps carried on most airline aircraft.

I just saw the Amelia movie and it brought back memories. I doubt the sight of Fred Noonan holding his head in despair was accurate. I would bet he was drawing lines on his charts right to the end.

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G-SPOTS I don't understand your reference to the TC. It tells you what it can and if you know what it is saying it is not going to kill you at all. Very reliable piece of kit to have, and easier to use than a turn needle. Not prone to fail, so long as you have vacuum or electrics to run it. I notice the new G1000 does not have a turn indication, apart from the red radial, which has to be interpreted to be of value. Or have I missed it?

[G-SPOTs Lost]

Hi Boofhead

Classic demonstration on the first or second IMC rating sortie was the approach to the stall with a wingdrop one way and then one induced the other way, quite easy to lock up a TC - a good demo in non reliance of one instrument and how important a composite picture obtained from a good scan is.

Not trying to score cheap points, theres a great video by AA entitled "Children of the Magenta" that some people need to watch. It shames magenta pilots into having a good old think................