Footballer kicked in goolies failed TEM theory exam
 

I have had it up to the eyeballs with this psycho-babble called CRM and TEM, and I strongly suspect the silenty majority of aviators feel the same way.
The latest edition of "Australian Aviation" magazine Jan/Feb issue No. 257, at pages 66 and 67 reveal a perfect example of the gobbly-dook that is forced upon pilots under the guise of important principles of flight safety. The writer of the article is a highly qualified airline captain with a Masters Degree in Risk Management and no doubt an earnest well meaning individual.

But asking pilots to swallow the following extracts and in an earnest attempt to "educating" them in the theory of human factors psychology, is surely in direct contradiction of the eminently sensible adage, "KISS" which is short for for "Keep it simple, stupid".

The article is titled "Dynamic Decisions - Threat and Error (Mis) management"


"We usually have multiple goals which are often competing, hence needing to be prioritised - what we see is dependant on our plans and risk appetite and dynamically changes...the options to manage it appropriately are also dynamic simply by nature of the dynamic environment.........Appropriate Goals + Adequate Situational awareness + appropriate Level of Risk= Quality of Decision....our aymmetric risk appetite - because we feel losses twice as much as gains we have a tendency to be risk averse in terms of gains but risk seeking in terms of losses....this gives rise to what is termed "loss aversion, the status quo bias and the endowment effect which apply to ideas as well as goods....we don't see the world as it is but rather as we are"..

An astonished pilot reading this would no doubt exclaim "Huh?" And he would be right.

The other day I enjoyed a coffee with a former RAAF pilot with whom I flew fifty years ago. He is a retired Air Vice Marshal and a person of great intellect. The discussion turned from the good old days to the subject of CRM and TEM. He had fought in Vietnam so he knew a lot about threat and error management. Fly too low and slow and you get a missile up your clacker. Yet, this didn't have to be explained in words of psycho-babble - because the dangers of flying slow and low were painfully self evident.

The AVM said he could not remember ever flying with a arrogant Alpha-male type captain for whom he thought the original concept of CRM was coined. I must add that I also, had never met one of these mythical characters either in military or civil flying who was alleged to terrify subordinate first officers and thus cause accidents. Did these people really exist or did a sharp aviation psychologist seize upon one or two accidents that involved renegade captains and thought he could do a thesis and maybe make a dollar or two by publishing it.

One thing is for sure - and that is the money spent on buying books on the subject of CRM and shelled out by compliant operators and seized upon by regulatory authorities around the globe, is in the multi-millions of dollars. It is a huge con job and yet because the regulatory authorities have been conned by snake oil salesmen into swearing that CRM and TEM is the answer to fixing the accident rate, pilots have no option except to roll over and accept their medicine. No medicine- no licence to fly.

A few days ago in Melbourne, a couple of footballers had a scrap in front of the media. Very unwise move. One footballer got decked with a left and right combination and then to add insult to injury was kicked squarely in the goolies when he was on the ground. Now that must have really hurt. The description above illustrates the "KISS' principle.

However an aficionado of TEM would describe the incident differently - and certainly in a way that footballers reading his explanation would say "Huh?"

Converted the footballer story into TEM pilot-talk, one could say the victim was operating in an environment that was dynamic and constantly changing. His ability to adequately assess and manage the risk of getting kicked in the balls is termed "frequency gambling." Essentially, this implies that rather than properly assessing the operational risks on their own merit, we use a mental short-cut that since we've been in a similar situation before (for example the victim had insulted the attacker on previous occasions) and "gotten away with it", this time the same outcome could have been expected this time around. Over time this can produce an inappropriate insensitivity to certain risks - familiarity breeds contempt.

Obviously the footballer that got kicked in the balls was deficient in TEM training. :ok:

Methinks you are flogging a dead horse.

The days are long past where the difference between God and a QANTAS Captain was that God did not think he was a QANTAS Captain.

The AVM (rtd) was able to run away at least at "bou or woka speeds from the T in TEM. Some didn't have that luxury.

CRM is all about team, infact it was originally called "Aircrew Team Management".

My memory of the RAAF of 40 years ago is of an autocratic organisation and team by decree was the way it happened. Joining QANTAS I found exactly the same, but the uniform was different.

Times have changed in the mean time and I don't see us in any rush to revert to the ways of the 60's or 70's any time soon.

I agree with your assessment of the Quote in red, reminds me of an old Army saying, "Booll**** baffles brains":ok:

A375....

What a breath of fresh air. TEM........I hear we have to assess threats and error management in every takeoff and landing briefing now?

Well bless my heart and soul. I suppose when I get up in the morning I must assess the threat of those dangerous carpeted stairs. I might fall. Oh well, stay in bed.

Whoa......that's a threat too.

We now have cottage industries in Human Factors. Risk Management TEM. My daughter has a Masters and teaches some of this stuff at Uni. There is a place for it........but in a takeoff brief.

A walk in the park is a place for me to consider HF (Bogans lurk) and TEM........but really........!

Pilots should fly. If they can't.....get out of the industry.

Yippee for some light thrown on the some of the biggest con perpetrated on the industry.........(Maybe like totally fly by wire aircraft?).

Mmmmm now that's sure to make me duck the missiles.

A37575,

Good post.

We in the RAAF have a similar imb*ggerance called AVRM, which IMHO is a complete load of cobblers.:yuk: However, it’s what the Yanks do so therefore it must be good!:hmm:
When “I were a lad”, CRM = captaincy and TEM = good planning and authorisation.
Suppose I’ll cop a good old fashioned flaming from the disciples of AVRM now!:eek:
I reckon the good AVM was just lucky – unless he was the A-male!!:uhoh:
Have flown with with a few that could fit the “arrogant A-male type captain” descriptor, although thankfully they seem to be less in number these days.

What cracks me up is that some ****** has written a paper on a topic that most of us do without even thinking about it every time we go flying.

What's even more astonishing is that people will read and actually believe that tripe.

Like Gunshy and Sand Dune wrote..........

It just keeps some academic ******** in a job (and fortunately out of the flight deck) and makes it look like this person has made a previosly undiscovered revelation that none of us has ever heard about.......

Everything you need to know about the touchy-feely side of flying is summarised in the title of Tony Kern's book "Flight Discipline".

The rest, as stated above, is a load of tosh.

Yeah I have a degree in "Aviation Science" and I even got Distinctions in Av Psych :rolleyes: I seem to recall that a lot of this academic twaddle was really either
1/. the boffins making up new words because they lacked the vocabulary to express themselves in plain english; or
2/. making up more crap because expressing it all in plain english makes it sound like plain ol' common sense :yuk:

Priceless a thesis defining common sense

There are two factors feeding the proliferation of recurrent courses like this:

1. Arse-covering - organisations need to be able to say they've trained their employees in the relevant areas.

2. Content - you can get handy tips from said courses, if they're appropriately set up and run.

Better to have them than not, bull**** aside.

A37575...

I have flown with one of those mythical Alpha Type captain beasts that you write about... and yes we came close to quite a few incidents.. they do exist..

But I'll agree with you on this.. that no amount of techno-psycho babble was ever gonna change this guy or make him less dangerous...

In the end it took a good chief pilot, probably using words that were just as long as those in the article, however maybe, a little more direct and a little less P.C .... to take care of the aforementioned problem... :ok:

To throw a monkey on the wrench (or os that a spanner in the works). Perhaps the good AVM (ret'd) was a most revered Knuck!! Therefore the only Alpha he had to convince was himself.

Having flown single seat and subsequently converted to multi crew, i can honestly say some CRM topics were most educating. Mostly about how complient co-pilots can be when confronted with senior captains (Alphas or not) and about communicating within the crew. Single pilot ops dosen't require any verbalisation about plans or approach intentions and hence it requires some extra thought to actually communicate what you intend to do to others.

launch the spears!!!!!

Must admit though, after sitting through CRM once, i would rather shoot myself with an ASRAAM than do it again!!

And here I was thinking that everyone thought CRM was the ants pants, it's the biggest crock of sh1t known to mankind:ugh:
Even we single drivers have to go thru a CRM course, hmmmm good for one thing, pushing out zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz's & getting paid for it! Otherwise a total waste of time.

CRM= Common Bloody Sense!


Wmk2

I hate to be the voice of dissent...
 

Putting threats in the take off brief adds to SA as long as the threats being briefed are relevant. I'm starting to get a little irked at hearing examples of threats such as as

• crossing an active runway (sure if the vis was poor but CAVOK?),
• 'a bit of weather on departure' when the cloud is SCT 040, or
• it's late and we're a bit tired.

However I do think that stopping and considering as a crew the possible things that can bite us on the backside on this departure/arrival is probably not a bad practise to do- and something that I saw practised regularly well before the advent of TEM into the formal CRM programme. In that respect, formalising it was probably 'stating the obvious' to most crews but we all know that many SOPs aren't written for 'most crew'. I'm a big fan of 'I haven't noticed any threats, you got any? No? Excellent' and that's it.

CRM is another name in the ordinary world for OHAS. This is a "science" designed to give jobs to people who do not have the ability to do anything usefull for the population at large.:ugh:

I think thats a pretty reasonable one actually - maybe the bloke says it because he is really feeling like ****e after a long day - multi sectors - and is really saying keep your guard up.

I know after a long day with a few early starts in a row - I feel like crap. I know the reaction times drop and you can be focused on one thing and completely miss something else.

I think most of the other TEM is pretty much rubbish.

Geez I'm glad I don't work in this caper any more!

Yeh its bloody ripper innit sixties?

Quote:

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Training at Ansett involved four simulator sessions a year, one line check, one CRM day, a corporate training day and one “CAO 20.11” day (known in Europe as SEP’s) – a day of life raft and evacuation training. This meant a training day every second month or so.

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http://www.pprune.org/jet-blast/3600...ml#post4705208

Mate, when I hear someone say "gee, if it weren't for that TEM/AVRM/CRM course I did we would have died", I'll agree with you.

Anyway, when do start doing some real work down in the Gippsland Riviera?

Blueloo, 'threats' are supposed to be external to the crew and so from a purely academic point of view you could argue that 'being tired' is perhaps not a threat. Further, raising it as an issue to manage brings into question whether the individual is actually fit for the flight. If you put that particular point through the '60 minutes' test or the 'board of inquiry' test then it takes on a whole different life.

More often than not, on a 'normal' day my identification of threats is 'nil' and then I ask the other crew if they've got any that I've missed. This is when the trivial and pointless occasionally come to the fore.

Whilst a series of early starts, long days, etc is an issue to be managed, my major gripe is that the whole tiredness thing appears to be somewhat of a throw away line. Something to say because people are looking for something- anything- to list as a threat. I generally ask after someone brings it up exactly what strategy we're going to put in place to manage it. The answers are interesting and range from 'vigilance' to 'focus' to SOPs. I ask are when are we not vigilant and when do we not follow SOPs?

Of course my main point point is that people are jumping at shadows and going over the top to deal with a 'threat' and that whether we agree or disagree on the issue of tiredness, going looking for threats that we already have procedures in place to manage is a little pointless.

KEG you appear to be way too sensible to be working for QF. :D

CSD, hey big fella; perhaps a better way of wording it would've been to say I've picked the odd good tip or 2 in CRM courses here and there!

They're already getting 3 waves a day outta me here on the see one, do one, teach one principle ... I think it's all there in the back of my head somewhere, just a bit slow to come out at times!