Mismanagement of automation
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I recall times (this was the early days, mind) when some pilots found themselves wrong way up they resorted to engaging the FD (HDG/ALT) to recover control.
This usually happened during our (cough, cough) "night VFR" slinging operations in the Canadian Arctic. Usually it just made things worse because swinging loads confused the hell out of the stabilization system.
But it also happened sometimes with passengers.
As an ex-Chief Pilot I must say the idea that we have people in this industry who will give up a just "push buttons" scares the hell out of me.
I surely appreciate the wonders of modern technology, but you still gotta be able to fly the rocket.
If you can't, or won't, you are in the wrong job.
If you doubt me, check this guy out: Chesley Sullenberger
This usually happened during our (cough, cough) "night VFR" slinging operations in the Canadian Arctic. Usually it just made things worse because swinging loads confused the hell out of the stabilization system.
But it also happened sometimes with passengers.
As an ex-Chief Pilot I must say the idea that we have people in this industry who will give up a just "push buttons" scares the hell out of me.
I surely appreciate the wonders of modern technology, but you still gotta be able to fly the rocket.
If you can't, or won't, you are in the wrong job.
If you doubt me, check this guy out: Chesley Sullenberger
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Sullenberger
I believe Captain Sullenberger's success was down to the aircraft's FBW system rather than any manual handling skills - which I'm sure he had and if he had been flying a 737 he would have needed them. Luckily he was in an Airbus!
G.
G.
Two's in - great post.
HC -
That depends on how you want to define the level of competency and what tasks you expect that competency to cover.
In the offshore world it may simply be to fly a manual ILS to recover to base - in other areas of heli aviation the manual competencies may be many and varied.
Try using automation to get a winchman onto a pitching fishing vessel in the dark and see how much use it is! Even the rad-alt hold might not be good enough to give the precision required.
I have been lucky to fly and teach the whole gamut of general handling exercises on every type I have converted to and spent much of my life assessing and honing the pure handling skills of many pilots as well as their use and monitoring of AP systems - both are vital skills and equally perishable.
Let's not pretend that we don't need to be able to fly the aircraft.
HC -
I am of course not against practicing manual flying skills to retain some degree of competency.
In the offshore world it may simply be to fly a manual ILS to recover to base - in other areas of heli aviation the manual competencies may be many and varied.
Try using automation to get a winchman onto a pitching fishing vessel in the dark and see how much use it is! Even the rad-alt hold might not be good enough to give the precision required.
I have been lucky to fly and teach the whole gamut of general handling exercises on every type I have converted to and spent much of my life assessing and honing the pure handling skills of many pilots as well as their use and monitoring of AP systems - both are vital skills and equally perishable.
Let's not pretend that we don't need to be able to fly the aircraft.
G.
This probably helped as well -
This probably helped as well -
Sullenberger enrolled at the United States Air Force Academy in 1969. He was selected as one of around a dozen other freshmen for a cadet glider program, and by the end of that year, he was an instructor pilot. In the year of his graduation, 1973, he received the Outstanding Cadet in Airmanship award, as the class "top flyer". Following graduation with a Bachelor of Science and his commissioning as an officer, the Air Force immediately sent Sullenberger to Purdue University.
Sullenberger served as a fighter pilot for the United States Air Force, piloting McDonnell Douglas F-4 Phantom IIs from 1975 to 1980. He advanced to become a flight leader and a training officer, and attained the rank of captain, with experience in Europe, the Pacific, and at Nellis Air Force Base, as well as operating as Blue Force Mission Commander in Red Flag Exercises. While in the Air Force, he was a member of an aircraft accident investigation board.
Sullenberger served as a fighter pilot for the United States Air Force, piloting McDonnell Douglas F-4 Phantom IIs from 1975 to 1980. He advanced to become a flight leader and a training officer, and attained the rank of captain, with experience in Europe, the Pacific, and at Nellis Air Force Base, as well as operating as Blue Force Mission Commander in Red Flag Exercises. While in the Air Force, he was a member of an aircraft accident investigation board.
Sullenberger was employed by US Airways or its predecessor airlines from 1980 until 2010. (Pacific Southwest Airlines was acquired by US Air, later US Airways, in 1988.) In total, he has more than 40 years and 20,000 hours of flying experience. In 2007 he became the founder and CEO of Safety Reliability Methods, Inc. (SRM), a management, safety, performance, and reliability consulting firm. SRM provides strategic and tactical guidance to enhance organizational safety, performance, and reliability. He has also been involved in a number of accident investigations conducted by the USAF and the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB), such as Pacific Southwest Airlines Flight 1771 and USAir Flight 1493. He served as an instructor, Air Line Pilots Association Local Air Safety Chairman, accident investigator, and national technical committee member. His safety work for ALPA led to the development of a Federal Aviation Administration Advisory Circular. He was instrumental in developing and implementing the Crew Resource Management course that is used by US Airways, and he has taught the course to hundreds of airline crew members.
Working with NASA scientists, he co-authored a paper on error-inducing contexts in aviation. He was an air accident investigator for a NTSB inquiry into a major accident at Los Angeles International Airport, which "led to improved airline procedures and training for emergency evacuations of aircraft". Sullenberger has also been studying the psychology behind keeping an airline crew functioning during a crisis. He holds an Airline Transport Pilot Certificate for single and multi-engine airplanes, and a Commercial Pilot Certificate rating in gliders, as well as a flight instructor certificate for airplanes (single, multi-engine, and instrument), and gliders.
Sullenberger was active with his union, serving as chairman of a safety committee within the Air Line Pilots Association.
He was a featured speaker for two panels, one on aviation and one on patient safety in medicine, at the High Reliability Organizations (HRO) 2007 International Conference in Deauville, France, from May 29 to 31, 2007.
Working with NASA scientists, he co-authored a paper on error-inducing contexts in aviation. He was an air accident investigator for a NTSB inquiry into a major accident at Los Angeles International Airport, which "led to improved airline procedures and training for emergency evacuations of aircraft". Sullenberger has also been studying the psychology behind keeping an airline crew functioning during a crisis. He holds an Airline Transport Pilot Certificate for single and multi-engine airplanes, and a Commercial Pilot Certificate rating in gliders, as well as a flight instructor certificate for airplanes (single, multi-engine, and instrument), and gliders.
Sullenberger was active with his union, serving as chairman of a safety committee within the Air Line Pilots Association.
He was a featured speaker for two panels, one on aviation and one on patient safety in medicine, at the High Reliability Organizations (HRO) 2007 International Conference in Deauville, France, from May 29 to 31, 2007.
Originally Posted by [email protected]
Two's in - great post.
HC - That depends on how you want to define the level of competency and what tasks you expect that competency to cover.
In the offshore world it may simply be to fly a manual ILS to recover to base - in other areas of heli aviation the manual competencies may be many and varied.
Try using automation to get a winchman onto a pitching fishing vessel in the dark and see how much use it is! Even the rad-alt hold might not be good enough to give the precision required.
I have been lucky to fly and teach the whole gamut of general handling exercises on every type I have converted to and spent much of my life assessing and honing the pure handling skills of many pilots as well as their use and monitoring of AP systems - both are vital skills and equally perishable.
Let's not pretend that we don't need to be able to fly the aircraft.
HC - That depends on how you want to define the level of competency and what tasks you expect that competency to cover.
In the offshore world it may simply be to fly a manual ILS to recover to base - in other areas of heli aviation the manual competencies may be many and varied.
Try using automation to get a winchman onto a pitching fishing vessel in the dark and see how much use it is! Even the rad-alt hold might not be good enough to give the precision required.
I have been lucky to fly and teach the whole gamut of general handling exercises on every type I have converted to and spent much of my life assessing and honing the pure handling skills of many pilots as well as their use and monitoring of AP systems - both are vital skills and equally perishable.
Let's not pretend that we don't need to be able to fly the aircraft.
And secondly with SAR, in a call out if you get a minor malfunction it harder to terminate the mission whereas eg with offshore CAT it's easy and normally the best thing, to RTB. So like any design (physical or strategic) if you want to make the discussion about all things and all people, it will inevitably be diluted and dysfunctional. Therefore since this thread is about automation management and you are a manual flight apologist, perhaps you should start your own thread on manual flying skills in which all your big-balled hero colleagues can participate? No doubt when you eventually reach civvy street we will all benefit from your "right stuff"(!).
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RVDT & CRAB
I'm sure Capt Sullenberger is a great guy and a fine pilot. It was his fortune on that day to be teamed up with the right equipment. The AP system did a fine job for him I am told by those that know about such things.
G.
CRAB - HC is right we are too diverse an industry to get up tight about one aspect. Of course if there were such a thing as an SAR 'rating' or for that matter an 'offshore' rating (and others similar ratings along the lines of professional skills and knowledge) then maybe we could provide more applicable training during the 'pre-hire' or immediate 'post-hire' phase of employment. Then we could address many pertinent issues in an appropriate context.
Just an idea.
G.
G.
CRAB - HC is right we are too diverse an industry to get up tight about one aspect. Of course if there were such a thing as an SAR 'rating' or for that matter an 'offshore' rating (and others similar ratings along the lines of professional skills and knowledge) then maybe we could provide more applicable training during the 'pre-hire' or immediate 'post-hire' phase of employment. Then we could address many pertinent issues in an appropriate context.
Just an idea.
G.
I always love it when you guys bang on about how little other than SAR I know - I presently fly and instruct on a single pilot IFR, glasscockpit, helo with a reasonably well appointed (although only 3-axis) AP so guess what - I do understand automation as I teach it and assess its use.
You also fail to see past the steam driven Sea Kings of old and still think of it in Mk31 AFCS terms because you weren't flying and instructing on the Mk3A with its duplex digital AFCS that was a very big step up in flexibility and capability.
Automation and the management of it in helicopters isn't new, cutting edge or a black art - believing that it is the only safe way to fly the helicopter is a worrying new fashion though.
Trying to belittle those that have a contrary view to the ivory tower offshore Gods is not a good basis for improving skills or safety but doubtless you know better than me about that as well.
I have been a civilian pilot for over a year now and seem to be managing quite nicely - the unfortunate thing I keep seeing is that civilian flyers often look down on the military way of doing things - don't ask me why.
You also fail to see past the steam driven Sea Kings of old and still think of it in Mk31 AFCS terms because you weren't flying and instructing on the Mk3A with its duplex digital AFCS that was a very big step up in flexibility and capability.
Automation and the management of it in helicopters isn't new, cutting edge or a black art - believing that it is the only safe way to fly the helicopter is a worrying new fashion though.
Trying to belittle those that have a contrary view to the ivory tower offshore Gods is not a good basis for improving skills or safety but doubtless you know better than me about that as well.
I have been a civilian pilot for over a year now and seem to be managing quite nicely - the unfortunate thing I keep seeing is that civilian flyers often look down on the military way of doing things - don't ask me why.
Originally Posted by [email protected]
... the unfortunate thing I keep seeing is that civilian flyers often look down on the military way of doing things - don't ask me why.
But no, I don't think civilian flyers look down on the military was of doing things, they just get riled when the military guys steamroller in and say "no, you don't want to be doing it like that, you want to do it like we do in the military (because we are steely-eyed gods of the sky)". We had one like that in my company, nearly every sentence he uttered started with "when I was in the military we did it like x y z...". He grew out of it eventually.
But no, I don't think civilian flyers look down on the military was of doing things, they just get riled when the military guys steamroller in and say "no, you don't want to be doing it like that, you want to do it like we do in the military (because we are steely-eyed gods of the sky)". We had one like that in my company, nearly every sentence he uttered started with "when I was in the military we did it like x y z...". He grew out of it eventually.
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Thats the second time in this thread you have mentioned the size of peoples balls HC.
Just wondering if you have some sort of inferiority complex to do with either hand flying a helicopter or the size of your balls in comparison other peoples.
Maybe that's where the comparator comes from
Just wondering if you have some sort of inferiority complex to do with either hand flying a helicopter or the size of your balls in comparison other peoples.
Maybe that's where the comparator comes from
HC - I think very few mil pilots consider themselves to be steely-eyed gods of the sky but I can understand the frustration they feel moving to civil flying where there is limited training (compare a conversion to type between mil and civ) compared to that they enjoyed in the mil.
The mantra in the mil is to train hard and fight easy so you don't do the enemy's job for him - this clearly doesn't translate to civilian flying where the bottom line governs everything but when you have enjoyed the freedoms of mil flying, civilian stuff seems tame, over-regulated and under-resourced by comparison.
As for growing out of it - I think it is more like banging your head against a brick wall - it's nice when you stop as there is no way the system will change whilst beancounters control everything.
The mantra in the mil is to train hard and fight easy so you don't do the enemy's job for him - this clearly doesn't translate to civilian flying where the bottom line governs everything but when you have enjoyed the freedoms of mil flying, civilian stuff seems tame, over-regulated and under-resourced by comparison.
As for growing out of it - I think it is more like banging your head against a brick wall - it's nice when you stop as there is no way the system will change whilst beancounters control everything.
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Great post TOD, but I think the be-all intent of that automation in them shiny big jets is to turn you lot into money saving accountants.
There was a great post on these forums a long time ago that went along the lines of something like this: "The difference between fixed wing pilots and rotary wing pilots is that for fixed wing pilots the job ends when they reach their destination, whereas for rotary wing pilots the job starts."
Automation is always improving and getting better at doing all that mundane stuff. The goal of automation has always been safety and efficiency, and when it is all working I do believe that's the result that is produced.
Degraded automation is an encyclopaedic volume all its own where the pilot has to fault find, improvise, challenge, ignore, crosscheck, etc a system that he/she has little insight into it's inner workings. It is in my experience that some people are just miles better at fault finding than others.
There was a great post on these forums a long time ago that went along the lines of something like this: "The difference between fixed wing pilots and rotary wing pilots is that for fixed wing pilots the job ends when they reach their destination, whereas for rotary wing pilots the job starts."
Automation is always improving and getting better at doing all that mundane stuff. The goal of automation has always been safety and efficiency, and when it is all working I do believe that's the result that is produced.
Degraded automation is an encyclopaedic volume all its own where the pilot has to fault find, improvise, challenge, ignore, crosscheck, etc a system that he/she has little insight into it's inner workings. It is in my experience that some people are just miles better at fault finding than others.
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Hi CT, yes I would agree, however I would also suggest that we are all in the business of the aviation business. We promise to get our load of warm pink bodies to destination together with any baggage or cargo they throw at us, whether it is 13 in the back of a VFR fixed rod B212 (if there are any left these days) or our 615 destined for BKK. Automation has been a response to that contract. We add automation and levels of redundancy that increases the chances of being able to fulfil the mission, I suspect that the professional SAR guys are in the same situation though within different economic context. You rightly highlight the mundane, automation has been previously described as making the boring bits more boring and the exciting bits more exciting, or more properly decreasing the workload when the workload is already low and increasing it dramatically when the workload is high. Switching from landing on runway 16 to 23 at ABZ involved a simple change of trajectory in a 332L, now I have to plan the three runway changes into PEK by setting up my secondary flight plans in the cruise. I know if I'm down in the weeds and they reassign my arrival, the two of us up front will be doing the one-armed-paperhanger impression if we have not covered our bases properly.
You also touch upon another interesting aspect, that is the diagnostics of trouble in the automation. I have plenty of personal examples where the normally very reliable automation in its rare moments, attempts to deceive me. Having an understanding of the basic parameters is essential to filter out these misleading cues. The trouble is established and rigorous procedures are essential for the safe operation of automation, the difficulty then arises as to when to drop those procedures because they either are not or will not work (in this specific, previously unimagined situation). Back to the fundamental conundrum: how to train this suspicion into the new crews.
BTW, try and get 30 crew through JFK or DME - I envy the post flight duties in the rotary world. The nice thing though is the engineers do the wash and drying runs for us - no loitering to wait for engines to cool down!
You also touch upon another interesting aspect, that is the diagnostics of trouble in the automation. I have plenty of personal examples where the normally very reliable automation in its rare moments, attempts to deceive me. Having an understanding of the basic parameters is essential to filter out these misleading cues. The trouble is established and rigorous procedures are essential for the safe operation of automation, the difficulty then arises as to when to drop those procedures because they either are not or will not work (in this specific, previously unimagined situation). Back to the fundamental conundrum: how to train this suspicion into the new crews.
BTW, try and get 30 crew through JFK or DME - I envy the post flight duties in the rotary world. The nice thing though is the engineers do the wash and drying runs for us - no loitering to wait for engines to cool down!
Originally Posted by [email protected]
HC - I think very few mil pilots consider themselves to be steely-eyed gods of the sky but I can understand the frustration they feel moving to civil flying where there is limited training (compare a conversion to type between mil and civ) compared to that they enjoyed in the mil.
The mantra in the mil is to train hard and fight easy so you don't do the enemy's job for him - this clearly doesn't translate to civilian flying where the bottom line governs everything but when you have enjoyed the freedoms of mil flying, civilian stuff seems tame, over-regulated and under-resourced by comparison.
As for growing out of it - I think it is more like banging your head against a brick wall - it's nice when you stop as there is no way the system will change whilst beancounters control everything.
The mantra in the mil is to train hard and fight easy so you don't do the enemy's job for him - this clearly doesn't translate to civilian flying where the bottom line governs everything but when you have enjoyed the freedoms of mil flying, civilian stuff seems tame, over-regulated and under-resourced by comparison.
As for growing out of it - I think it is more like banging your head against a brick wall - it's nice when you stop as there is no way the system will change whilst beancounters control everything.
I'd liken it to the thought that there is no point in being the safest airline / helicopter operator if you go out of business.
What we have to do is look carefully at what training we do and why, so as to optimise the limited training time we have. Make it all count.
Anyway a suggestion, why don't you stop telling us how wonderful the mil was (since nearly everything you say is not transferable to civvy) and I'll stop banging on about the size of the balls and ego of the mil pilots?
Degraded automation is an encyclopaedic volume all its own where the pilot has to fault find, improvise, challenge, ignore, crosscheck, etc a system that he/she has little insight into it's inner workings. It is in my experience that some people are just miles better at fault finding than others.
And all that endless engine failure on takeoff / landing training - something that NEVER happens in reality - just how much time should we be spending on that vs the complexities of partial automation?
HC said
is that supposed to be ironic or just plain f
in thick? 
I'm sure a nice cultured Chinny crewman might pop along to enlighten you soon HC
after all we aren't at war that much these days.
in thick? I'm sure a nice cultured Chinny crewman might pop along to enlighten you soon HC
But anyway, let's not allow your chip to derail a thread about automation.
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War-zone ops
HC - I think you might be surprised by what is going on behind the scenes, maybe not squadron strength ops but meaningful stuff anyway - but that's another very different story.
The gist of all this is that training in civvy street needs to be more focussed and task oriented so that we ease gently away from the generic crap of yester-year that was only designed that way because we took 20 years to fall in love with flight simulators and had to be able to do EVERYTHING on the real aircraft.
Back in the eighties the UK CAA mandated autopilots for light twins working night ops in the police segment of helicopter aviation. They neglected to mandate the necessary training that should accompany the introduction of this equipment so the inevitable happened and a helicopter crashed (mercifully with no fatalities) due entirely to mismanagement of the autopilot. The lesson is there to be learned so we need to look at the ratio of training in a TR syllabus (remember a TR is a professional pilot transitioning on to a new, and usually similar,type) spent teaching how to do all those profiles and associated engine failures and spend some more time on getting to understand the automation. The engine failure exercises should be moved to the (context related) operational TR section that (should) follow the basic licence rating.
Now you can see why there are advantages in role related training leading to role related ratings. If money is tight then let's focus it on the areas needed most.
My New Year's Wish - Please deliver us into a world where Evidence Based Training has arrived for real.
G.
The gist of all this is that training in civvy street needs to be more focussed and task oriented so that we ease gently away from the generic crap of yester-year that was only designed that way because we took 20 years to fall in love with flight simulators and had to be able to do EVERYTHING on the real aircraft.
Back in the eighties the UK CAA mandated autopilots for light twins working night ops in the police segment of helicopter aviation. They neglected to mandate the necessary training that should accompany the introduction of this equipment so the inevitable happened and a helicopter crashed (mercifully with no fatalities) due entirely to mismanagement of the autopilot. The lesson is there to be learned so we need to look at the ratio of training in a TR syllabus (remember a TR is a professional pilot transitioning on to a new, and usually similar,type) spent teaching how to do all those profiles and associated engine failures and spend some more time on getting to understand the automation. The engine failure exercises should be moved to the (context related) operational TR section that (should) follow the basic licence rating.
Now you can see why there are advantages in role related training leading to role related ratings. If money is tight then let's focus it on the areas needed most.
My New Year's Wish - Please deliver us into a world where Evidence Based Training has arrived for real.
G.
So what you are saying is the training given in the civilian sector has been pared to the bone to reduce costs (and therefore keep HC happy) yet is not actually fit for purpose.
The training in the military is far too extensive and therefore far too expensive (according to HC) and dares to produce people who can actually fly the aircraft quite well, with or without automation and who then have the audacity to question the other training ideas.
I am sure there is a happy medium but those of us who enjoyed a thorough and extensive training in varied military roles (rather than A to B and back again straight and level) both in the real aircraft and simulators will continue to wonder at where the civil aviation system is heading - fully automated aircraft with no pilots at all would seem to be the logical extension of the argument.
Let's hope not
The training in the military is far too extensive and therefore far too expensive (according to HC) and dares to produce people who can actually fly the aircraft quite well, with or without automation and who then have the audacity to question the other training ideas.
I am sure there is a happy medium but those of us who enjoyed a thorough and extensive training in varied military roles (rather than A to B and back again straight and level) both in the real aircraft and simulators will continue to wonder at where the civil aviation system is heading - fully automated aircraft with no pilots at all would seem to be the logical extension of the argument.
Let's hope not
Originally Posted by [email protected]
So what you are saying is the training given in the civilian sector has been pared to the bone to reduce costs (and therefore keep HC happy) yet is not actually fit for purpose.
The training in the military is far too extensive and therefore far too expensive (according to HC) and dares to produce people who can actually fly the aircraft quite well, with or without automation and who then have the audacity to question the other training ideas.
I am sure there is a happy medium but those of us who enjoyed a thorough and extensive training in varied military roles (rather than A to B and back again straight and level) both in the real aircraft and simulators will continue to wonder at where the civil aviation system is heading - fully automated aircraft with no pilots at all would seem to be the logical extension of the argument.
Let's hope not
The training in the military is far too extensive and therefore far too expensive (according to HC) and dares to produce people who can actually fly the aircraft quite well, with or without automation and who then have the audacity to question the other training ideas.
I am sure there is a happy medium but those of us who enjoyed a thorough and extensive training in varied military roles (rather than A to B and back again straight and level) both in the real aircraft and simulators will continue to wonder at where the civil aviation system is heading - fully automated aircraft with no pilots at all would seem to be the logical extension of the argument.
Let's hope not
As to your "wonder", why not consider contributing something useful to this thread. I wouldn't go so far as to say civvy training isn't fit for purpose but of course it needs to evolve as the helicopters evolve,and it's certainly lagging behind at the moment. But I suspect you will be too busy telling us how wonderful it was in the mil to actually contribute anything useful and practicable. Please prove me wrong.