AF447 BEA animation
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What is even more sad is the industry response, or lack of one. Still a total failure to acknowledge that raw flying skills are still very necessary in this job. Automation was meant to allow pilots to concentrate on the wider picture. Airlines have instead utilised it to dumb down the cockpit with often tragic results.
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777300ER
Perfectly said...I completely agree! The evidence is not anecdotal....its conclusive, the accident statistics bear this out....yet the industry remains in denial.
Perfectly said...I completely agree! The evidence is not anecdotal....its conclusive, the accident statistics bear this out....yet the industry remains in denial.
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I am sadly with Curtain Rod on this one.
Airlines are nothing more than big corporations like banks and car manufacturers, etc. these days.
The cost of accidents are cheaper than the cost of proper crewing, training, rest and rostering.
Safety is not the number 1 priority. It is barely a priority. Safety has been shown to be cut to meet the minimum legislation, in the same way that rostering practices and FTL's are not limits but goals to achieve maximum efficiency.
Until passengers stop traveling and lawmakers/ regulators actually oppose the cuts and hold the big bosses accountable, the lack of care and race to the bottom will continue.
Cathay is becoming just another Asian LCC.
Airlines are nothing more than big corporations like banks and car manufacturers, etc. these days.
The cost of accidents are cheaper than the cost of proper crewing, training, rest and rostering.
Safety is not the number 1 priority. It is barely a priority. Safety has been shown to be cut to meet the minimum legislation, in the same way that rostering practices and FTL's are not limits but goals to achieve maximum efficiency.
Until passengers stop traveling and lawmakers/ regulators actually oppose the cuts and hold the big bosses accountable, the lack of care and race to the bottom will continue.
Cathay is becoming just another Asian LCC.
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The companies have done the math and made their decisions.
Accidents happen too infrequently.
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The airlines are not in denial: It is simply cheaper to accidentally kill a few hundred people a year, occasionally a few thousand, than it is improve or even maintain the very high pilot standards of experience, training and competence that customers believe still exist at airlines like ours. The companies have done the math and made their decisions.
I wonder how Cathay and the CAD will deal with it when we pull an AF447.
All the pieces are in place really, just a matter of when.
1 - Automation dependency - check
2 - Lack of diverse non-FWB experience - check
3 - Drop in standards to keep seats warm - check
4 - Non-existant regulatory oversight - check
5 - Stressed, fatigued, and distracted crew - check
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Another bus et al...all very true..if the regulators had any balls, Malaysian, Air Asia, Trans Asia and even Air France would have been closed due WIP..a proper due diligence completed on all aspects of Flight Ops...I won't even go into Lion, Garuda etc...but then again..the various thickness of corruption that exists in most of the above somewhat lubricates the regulators and therefor the share holders to boot..sad and bad....
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I would have to agree, everyone knows that airline flying is more about system management rather than piloting 99.9% of the time. Unfortunately the 0.1% that requires piloting is not the time for inexperienced PILOTS as apposed to system managers to again experience. Basically the PILOTING experience you need to fall back on in an emergency does not exist and can not be gained in a airline flying environment (ie. cadet scheme)
Imagine when the CFO is forced to say in Court "Safety is our Number Two priority". None of our Dear Leaders can show any true grit and stop this slide into incompetence. They simply haven't got the guts. 
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I think you rather over estimate where safety lies on the priority scale Arfur.
It always makes me grimace when I watch the safety briefing and I hear the quote "safety is our priority ....". I then mentally finish the sentence for them ".... well after profit, bonuses, a nice rebranding exercise, fighting court cases against our employees, etc, etc"
It always makes me grimace when I watch the safety briefing and I hear the quote "safety is our priority ....". I then mentally finish the sentence for them ".... well after profit, bonuses, a nice rebranding exercise, fighting court cases against our employees, etc, etc"
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On the Airbus, I have done around 20 actual nitty-gritty sectors in the past 30 days.
Not saying it is ideal, far from perfect by a long shot, but as the present system enables complete lack of experience to be promoted through the ranks without gaining much experience on the long haul fleet, why not promote the junior ranks onto a regional fleet?
Keep junior F/Os and Captains on the A330 only for a minimum time - 3 years, 5 years, whatever - at the same time, run a parallel training system that allows a true "freebie" non marked sim, for handling, max crosswind, stalling, looping, playing, more often than once a year.
Experience cannot be gained sitting in back seat watching or sitting in the cruise operating radios on a long haul flight in any way more than if I watched Top Gun 1,000 times and expected to rock it on an F-16.
Not saying it is ideal, far from perfect by a long shot, but as the present system enables complete lack of experience to be promoted through the ranks without gaining much experience on the long haul fleet, why not promote the junior ranks onto a regional fleet?
Keep junior F/Os and Captains on the A330 only for a minimum time - 3 years, 5 years, whatever - at the same time, run a parallel training system that allows a true "freebie" non marked sim, for handling, max crosswind, stalling, looping, playing, more often than once a year.
Experience cannot be gained sitting in back seat watching or sitting in the cruise operating radios on a long haul flight in any way more than if I watched Top Gun 1,000 times and expected to rock it on an F-16.
Elegant idea busman but it requires appreciation of the situation, forward planning and proper leadership so it's not going to happen. New DFO might understand though, having studied basket weaving at their beloved Oxford Uni. (Sorry Anna - you actually might get it but will you speak up??).
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I think there has to be something with Boeing's decision to keep a control column in preference to a side stick . It is much easier to see what the other pilot is doing with the flight controls
Without any disrespect to the Bus it would seem that in some recent accidents a common thread seems to be a lack of understanding what the other pilot is doing with the opposite side stick . Coupled with an almost total reliance on flight control computers .
Basic flying skills of pitch and thrust are slowly being degraded with automation, which is designed to make operating an aircraft safer . but when it goes wrong basic flying skills are the only thing that are going to keep you out of trouble
Sorry Arfur but AT has no understanding of what skill flying a crippled air requires and she wasn't chosen because management thinks that she is going to take the pilots side in anything
Without any disrespect to the Bus it would seem that in some recent accidents a common thread seems to be a lack of understanding what the other pilot is doing with the opposite side stick . Coupled with an almost total reliance on flight control computers .
Basic flying skills of pitch and thrust are slowly being degraded with automation, which is designed to make operating an aircraft safer . but when it goes wrong basic flying skills are the only thing that are going to keep you out of trouble
Sorry Arfur but AT has no understanding of what skill flying a crippled air requires and she wasn't chosen because management thinks that she is going to take the pilots side in anything
Last edited by oriental flyer; 13th Feb 2015 at 11:59.
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I heard that we will be doing PC, three months later the RT, three months later the PC and so on.
The reason they want to split them up is so that they can remove the N Sim, which is probably the only real bit of training that we do!
The reason they want to split them up is so that they can remove the N Sim, which is probably the only real bit of training that we do!
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When I joined CX, there were 3 sims in a row: a recurrency, followed by IR, then the PC; all twice a year, with a full LOFT once in that year. This was to train and maintain the pilots' skills who joined at the time - none of whom had less than fast jet, military transport or medium/ heavy airline time and joined as direct entry F/O.
They had been recruiting S/O's on the "fast track/ slow track" system too, whom at least had turbine command time, or spent a longer time in the training machine if "slow trackers", before upgrading to F/O. The training courses were all full P1 courses, and for S/O, the only difference was the aircraft base training session.
Now it is an abbreviated course.
No training, all checking, for which people HAVE TO use Vol 8's to - make sure their careers are not affected - so any real training value is lost as it becomes a canned exercise.
And now, no Handling sim??... And no actual on line handling??!! All the holes are definitely lining up in the CX Swiss cheese model. Scary times.
I would not want to be the DFO inheriting this problem. All of those before her (and as pilots mostly themselves really did sell their soul to the devil) have sliced and diced and walked away with a tidy sum, but left a big stinky mess. Good Luck Anna, I do hope you do not become the scapegoat for those greedy sods before you, who really did know better.
They had been recruiting S/O's on the "fast track/ slow track" system too, whom at least had turbine command time, or spent a longer time in the training machine if "slow trackers", before upgrading to F/O. The training courses were all full P1 courses, and for S/O, the only difference was the aircraft base training session.
Now it is an abbreviated course.
No training, all checking, for which people HAVE TO use Vol 8's to - make sure their careers are not affected - so any real training value is lost as it becomes a canned exercise.
And now, no Handling sim??... And no actual on line handling??!! All the holes are definitely lining up in the CX Swiss cheese model. Scary times.
I would not want to be the DFO inheriting this problem. All of those before her (and as pilots mostly themselves really did sell their soul to the devil) have sliced and diced and walked away with a tidy sum, but left a big stinky mess. Good Luck Anna, I do hope you do not become the scapegoat for those greedy sods before you, who really did know better.