Have we come full circle?
The fact that anyone considers a PAPI/VASI to be mandatory equipment is shocking.
. Playing devil's advocate for a moment if an airport has got ongoing long term WIP involving removal of PAPIs and electronic glideslope it cannot be beyond the whit of man to provide temporary facilities...
Last edited by wiggy; 7th Jul 2013 at 08:56.
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Yankee Clipper, you are quite wrong.
Try flying an ILS at Corfu, Heraklion and Zakinthos as my roster showed last week.
charter operations are more often than not visual approaches.
UK A321
Try flying an ILS at Corfu, Heraklion and Zakinthos as my roster showed last week.
charter operations are more often than not visual approaches.
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Check Airman, yes, we have come full circle. I posted recently but was deleted because, presumably, my reference to the AF prang highlited, in my opinion, the lack of proper pilot training which, again, in my opinion, would lead to further prangs. Perhaps the mods did not like my suggestion of further loss of life too. But, my point remains valid. As we moved, in the Industry to highly sophisticated and computerised aircraft, the training emphasis was on how to get the best out of the autosystems. Most experienced pilots had a huge background of handling compitence on which to fall back on but readily absorbed the new techniques. My major concern is with the appalling drop in standards of selection, pay to fly and heavy reliance on automation. It is not the fault of the new pilot who is no longer selected, pays for training & often pays a carrier to fly and is require to demonstrate armchair computer flying tecniques.
Chief Pilots come under pressure from the bean counters and it feeds down the line to the standard CP comments praising how modern technology has saved lots of money & a return on investment in modern equipment is vital. So, Auto ON, Lnav, Vnav-ON.............sit back & monitor/manage. Resolve everything through the FMC.
Mate of mine, years back on the (then) singing, dancing B757 offered the co pilot the first leg on a calm cavok day. Standard Company brief followed. Excellent. But when asked if he would like to handfly the aircraft for a while (no-one else even in the sky) FO blankly denied the offer & stated that he would prefer to follow company procedures. Worse, nasty little FO reported to the CP. The latter phoned my mate, at home, on a day off & chastised him for his relaxed attitude ! Same tosh followed as a previous poster said. " We are not a Training Airline" and "Line flying should enforce and encourage full use of the automative systems". My mate left as soon as he could.
I am retired now but urge the Industry to ge back to proper airline invested training. Proper selection. Basic excellence in initial training.Basic care & excellence in airline conversion. Full encouragement to revert to hand-flying techniques where appropriate or necessary & great value placed on thinking outside the box rather than trying to resolve everything from inside the box.
Chief Pilots come under pressure from the bean counters and it feeds down the line to the standard CP comments praising how modern technology has saved lots of money & a return on investment in modern equipment is vital. So, Auto ON, Lnav, Vnav-ON.............sit back & monitor/manage. Resolve everything through the FMC.
Mate of mine, years back on the (then) singing, dancing B757 offered the co pilot the first leg on a calm cavok day. Standard Company brief followed. Excellent. But when asked if he would like to handfly the aircraft for a while (no-one else even in the sky) FO blankly denied the offer & stated that he would prefer to follow company procedures. Worse, nasty little FO reported to the CP. The latter phoned my mate, at home, on a day off & chastised him for his relaxed attitude ! Same tosh followed as a previous poster said. " We are not a Training Airline" and "Line flying should enforce and encourage full use of the automative systems". My mate left as soon as he could.
I am retired now but urge the Industry to ge back to proper airline invested training. Proper selection. Basic excellence in initial training.Basic care & excellence in airline conversion. Full encouragement to revert to hand-flying techniques where appropriate or necessary & great value placed on thinking outside the box rather than trying to resolve everything from inside the box.
Last edited by Landflap; 7th Jul 2013 at 09:16.
I agree with much of the sentiment here, although in Northern Europe at least, the airport operators and ATC often discourage visual approaches.
At my home base, a large international north of the Thames, if you request a visual you are radar vectored onto the centreline at 2000' and then cleared for the visual - a complete waste of time. Munich visuals are verboten. Newcastle and Fuertaventura you can't line up inside 5 miles. I realise this is for noise, but it really limits the occasions that you can carry out true visual approaches.
Thank goodness for Copenhagen ATC that positively encourages visual approaches, often using them to quicken the landing rate, and sometimes sound disappointed if you aren't in a position to accept one.
At my home base, a large international north of the Thames, if you request a visual you are radar vectored onto the centreline at 2000' and then cleared for the visual - a complete waste of time. Munich visuals are verboten. Newcastle and Fuertaventura you can't line up inside 5 miles. I realise this is for noise, but it really limits the occasions that you can carry out true visual approaches.
Thank goodness for Copenhagen ATC that positively encourages visual approaches, often using them to quicken the landing rate, and sometimes sound disappointed if you aren't in a position to accept one.
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Vinayak said:
You believe wrong, in the case of Emirates.
I don't mind admitting that I'm not especially keen on visuals. Simply because I am not well practised enough at them. If I have to do one, it is well within my capabilities but the potential for it to go wrong when I am tired after a long flight outweighs my desire to be a hero. I tend to wonder what the 300 to 400 folks in the back would prefer me to do.
I believe there are some airlines, emirates, that don't even allow visual approaches.
I don't mind admitting that I'm not especially keen on visuals. Simply because I am not well practised enough at them. If I have to do one, it is well within my capabilities but the potential for it to go wrong when I am tired after a long flight outweighs my desire to be a hero. I tend to wonder what the 300 to 400 folks in the back would prefer me to do.
Last edited by Al Murdoch; 7th Jul 2013 at 11:31.
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Yankeeclipper
(IANAP). Re. LHR - a couple of years ago with 120.4 on the scanner, beautiful April morning, there was a half-hour when the Heathrow Director was asking incoming pilots "Can you see the runway?" and if affirmed, "Would you like to fly a visual approach?". I'm pleased to say that the response in every case was positive and enthusiastic; in fact, when the offer ceased, subsequent pilots who had been waiting their turn were somewhat crestfallen.
I found it all rather heartening.
(IANAP). Re. LHR - a couple of years ago with 120.4 on the scanner, beautiful April morning, there was a half-hour when the Heathrow Director was asking incoming pilots "Can you see the runway?" and if affirmed, "Would you like to fly a visual approach?". I'm pleased to say that the response in every case was positive and enthusiastic; in fact, when the offer ceased, subsequent pilots who had been waiting their turn were somewhat crestfallen.
I found it all rather heartening.
Notwithstanding Company restrictions it's also takes a bit of give and take between Captain and FO when it comes to visual approaches.
Recall flying with my last operator (a well known loco) returning to our base airport where visuals were often available on a nice sunny day. Keen and competent FO who had recently finished line training (his first airline job). After he had briefed for the ILS I said something like "How about a visual approach?" He went visibly pale and said he had only done two visuals over circa 70 sectors of line training.
I suggested the only way he was going to get better at visual approaches was a little bit of coaching and practising same on a regular basis. He agreed and I indicate I would assist if required.
With some gentle coaching he flew a nice visual approach to a good landing. As we vacated the runway I looked across at him and could see his confidence level in doing a visual had gone up considerably.
In short if you want newbies to be able to fly a good visual approach they need to see Captains demonstrating visual approaches to a high standard, trained in doing so and also practising same until they too are competent and confident. This means a concerted effort by the operator to work towards this end.
Recall flying with my last operator (a well known loco) returning to our base airport where visuals were often available on a nice sunny day. Keen and competent FO who had recently finished line training (his first airline job). After he had briefed for the ILS I said something like "How about a visual approach?" He went visibly pale and said he had only done two visuals over circa 70 sectors of line training.
I suggested the only way he was going to get better at visual approaches was a little bit of coaching and practising same on a regular basis. He agreed and I indicate I would assist if required.
With some gentle coaching he flew a nice visual approach to a good landing. As we vacated the runway I looked across at him and could see his confidence level in doing a visual had gone up considerably.
In short if you want newbies to be able to fly a good visual approach they need to see Captains demonstrating visual approaches to a high standard, trained in doing so and also practising same until they too are competent and confident. This means a concerted effort by the operator to work towards this end.
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In fact, the US is about the only country I can think of where Visual Approaches are given or that pilots would even do it
I know several ATCOs in the USA at SOCAL who report regular conflicts with American pilots who will not accept a visual approach in VMC conditions due to (they surmise) a reluctance to "accept responsibility for" such aspects as traffic and terrain separation.
Try again, Clipper...
Maybe time to take a look at RT standards in that part of the world as well.
fireflybob
I couldn't agree with you more but will certainly try. The general decline in hand flying skills and basic commonsense mental arithmetic skills in the RHS is quite frightening and can be completely sheeted down to management believing it is a numbers game. Those airlines that have a lot of LHS ex military and GA guys with a lot of hands on experience will beat the curve but my view is that this OZ prang is the start of a new trend...no ILS...divert.
I couldn't agree with you more but will certainly try. The general decline in hand flying skills and basic commonsense mental arithmetic skills in the RHS is quite frightening and can be completely sheeted down to management believing it is a numbers game. Those airlines that have a lot of LHS ex military and GA guys with a lot of hands on experience will beat the curve but my view is that this OZ prang is the start of a new trend...no ILS...divert.
Last edited by VR-HFX; 7th Jul 2013 at 12:14.
VR-HFX, I agree.
My last Company already had a ban on self maneuvred visual approaches at night and there was much inference that they were thinking about a total ban on visual approaches (ie even by day).
My last Company already had a ban on self maneuvred visual approaches at night and there was much inference that they were thinking about a total ban on visual approaches (ie even by day).
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Visual approaches? Heck we do them all the time.
If, by "visual," you mean, "An ILS with no callouts."
A true visual with no course or glideslope guidance? I've seen that once in 2000 hours on the 777.....
If, by "visual," you mean, "An ILS with no callouts."
A true visual with no course or glideslope guidance? I've seen that once in 2000 hours on the 777.....
Jaarule
Those pilots are few and far between assuming WX isn't a consideration. Where there is some consternation is SoCal pushing visual approaches beyond 35 miles from the airport. That is also a rare bird but happens on occasion. Not sure of your regulations, but there's an OPSPEC I and many others have that limit visual approaches to 35 miles, therein the reluctance to accept. Inside of that, it's quite rare to see an offer of a visual approach passed up assuming all requirements are met.
I fly multiple sectors a month that touch SoCal airspace.
Those pilots are few and far between assuming WX isn't a consideration. Where there is some consternation is SoCal pushing visual approaches beyond 35 miles from the airport. That is also a rare bird but happens on occasion. Not sure of your regulations, but there's an OPSPEC I and many others have that limit visual approaches to 35 miles, therein the reluctance to accept. Inside of that, it's quite rare to see an offer of a visual approach passed up assuming all requirements are met.
I fly multiple sectors a month that touch SoCal airspace.
Last year I was invited to fly the full motion simulator of the 150 tonne 4-jet which I hadn't flown for 10 years. Not only that, but to teach 6-7 colleagues to fly an approach and touch-and-go each.
No ILS (it was set up for the wrong RW by the console operator), no FD, AP not used, FMS off and rather a dim visual picture.
All 7 flew the aircraft well and no-one crashed. Only one of them was a current airline pilot, all bar one were very experienced GA flight instructors. I assisted with throttle settings; it's quite a heavy beast and is usually flown with both hands on the yoke and another crew member moving the throttles to the desired value - but I could tell from the 83%-ish power setting that was needed that they all flew stable, visual approaches using basic, ingrained techniques in an aircraft with which they were totally unfamiliar - with just a few nudges from me as the instructor.
It isn't difficult to fly a visual approach without all the electronic toys, provided that you were correctly taught in the first place.
When I trained people to fly the jet, one of the approaches we practised at night was a visual circuit, terminated in a visual approach with no PAPIs / VASIs and only RW edge lighting. I wonder how many of today's 'magenta kids' have ever flown a 1500 ft visual circuit in their type?
As has oft been said: "Training is expensive, but accidents are very much more so!"
No ILS (it was set up for the wrong RW by the console operator), no FD, AP not used, FMS off and rather a dim visual picture.
All 7 flew the aircraft well and no-one crashed. Only one of them was a current airline pilot, all bar one were very experienced GA flight instructors. I assisted with throttle settings; it's quite a heavy beast and is usually flown with both hands on the yoke and another crew member moving the throttles to the desired value - but I could tell from the 83%-ish power setting that was needed that they all flew stable, visual approaches using basic, ingrained techniques in an aircraft with which they were totally unfamiliar - with just a few nudges from me as the instructor.
It isn't difficult to fly a visual approach without all the electronic toys, provided that you were correctly taught in the first place.
When I trained people to fly the jet, one of the approaches we practised at night was a visual circuit, terminated in a visual approach with no PAPIs / VASIs and only RW edge lighting. I wonder how many of today's 'magenta kids' have ever flown a 1500 ft visual circuit in their type?
As has oft been said: "Training is expensive, but accidents are very much more so!"
