B.O.L.L.O.C.K
 

Bleeding Obvious Line Language Occasionally Communicated knowingly

Survey question really...

1. How well do all you helo pilots feel the industry is served for specific CRM courses and support?

2. Do we all believe in CRM?

3. Do we think CRM is properly implemented in our operations?

4. Any other comments?

It'd be great to know the depth and strength of feeling on the issue, so if you are prepared to let some personal professional info go that would be super....such as current role, a/c type, hours experience, background and maybe and personal experiences.

CRM is a nice idea.
However in the reality of life, CRM only works if both pilots are open to participate.
Many senior pilots consider the FO redundant and this attitude blocks their acceptance of opinions and suggestions.
EG. One suggestion I made to a senior captain (15yrs+) regarding a decision to divert while offshore to collect pax (who had been bypassed by another aircraft due their fuel limitations),was made 3 times using all the lovey dovey CRM insistance that I could muster. Short of taking the controls I had made my objections clear.
We had IFR conditions onshore and fog offshore and my fuel usage calculations delivered us onshore (assuming VFR) with below minimum reserve if we did the diversion. We collected the pax and then proceeded inshore to find the field socked in and the ILS U/S (Not that we had the fuel to perform the proceedure)
A decent was initiated through cloud into the fog and we emerged 200agl, 1 mile from a 300ft mast. Both low fuel lights were on and when we refueled I noted we had total 180lb remaining. Not a lot for the S76.
It was a pathetic display of leadership and management and had the makings of a great CRM course example for poor command decisions.

Collective - thanks for the response and it sounds like you possibly had your hands full both in the air and on the ground afterwards. I suspect you wrestled with a multitude of emotional and professional decisions about what to do that day. Thanks again for being so candid.

Eden,
Excellent topic, I think most on this forum can (and will) reply to this.

CRM, in my experience, is generally thought of by old and bold pilots as a piece of meaningless nonsense, thought up by our American cousins to drag down thier status as COMMANDER.

I find that GOOD CRM can help Commader and FO alike as no two peoples' experiences are similar, and so a Captain who has never experienced say, a tail rotor failure may be sitting next to a guy who has personally experienced two on that type.

In my view CRM is a good thing in the same way all communication, discussion and analysis is a good thing.

4R

PS Some CRM Courses I have been on are a load of ***** but that is another thread entirely!

My opinion on CRM is that it is most effective when the captain acts like one and leaves the flying to the copilot (read: "helmsman"). This is how we do it on ships and for good reason. The captain is free to act as the commander and focus on MANAGING the entire flight of which CR is but a part.

It's really quite elementary: leave the macro management to the boss while the helmsman occupies him/her self with the micro execution.

------------------
You are welcome to visit HELIDRVR here

4R I, one of you distant American cousins, tend to disagree with you. CRM will only enhance a good Aircraft Commanders status. The bad ones are beyond the pale to begin with. What we are talking about is knowledge, specifically the disimenation of knowledge. If you have knowledge and keep to yourself, you do no one any good. When you give it out, in a respectful manner, you enhance everyone. The Aircraft Commander who hoards knowledge is not doing himself or anyone else any good. In Nam, us old guys, cranky, selfish, inflexiable, etc, we called it a well trained Peter Pilot who would get your a** home if you were in a bind. Most good "old guy" Aircraft Commanders practiced CRM. It wasn't codified yet and we didn't know that was what it was called. This is not a military issue nor is it a civilain issue, this is an aviation issue.

To: ALL

Excellent topic, one of the most misinterpreted and at the same time, the most useful tool a professional can utilise.

CRM or Crew/Cockpit Resource Management is, in my mind an art that has to be learned through personal experience and over time.

I remember the first CRM course I took. It was with Air Canada where most of the participants were very senior 747 Training Captains with a few of us fling wing types (Captains and FO's) mixed in.

When we were asked to introduce ourselves at the begining of the course, most of the Senior guys felt they were waisting valuable time off and they didn't need a course of this type. By the end of the course, without exception, the 747 TC's couldn't say enough about the value of the course.

Being a Captain does not mean that you are in a lofty 'godlike' position. It only means you're the one the Prosecutor is going to ask why you didn't do this or that and you make more money.

You have to realise that you're role as an AC is to train you're FO to be an AC and to solicate his/her input on the day to day operations of the aircraft. Your crew, and that goes for all crew, whether you are Offshore with a FO or on EMS with a full ParaMedical team, is your most valuable resource in many situations that you may face.

I guess I'm from the old school of the Military where we didn't call it CRM, we called it Common Sense.

If nothing else, CRM will teach you to recognise what type of Personality you have and how to best adjust it in the day to day Ops and people you are involved with.

BTW, background is 8 years ASW/SAR and 12 years EMS and Offshore, 6700 hours mostly Heavy and Medium S76, S61, BH212.

Cheers, OffshoreIgor http://www.pprune.org/ubb/NonCGI/eek.gif



[This message has been edited by offshoreigor (edited 24 January 2001).]

I have to agree that having tried almost everything else to remove the element of 'human error' from accident/incident statistics, i.e. tool control, duplicate inspctions, OPCs, Line checks etc. CRM is probably the final frontier that needs to be crossed. So I do join that ever lengthening queue of pilots that feels it is worth doing.

Where it loses some of it's credibility is when trying to 'shoe horn' single pilot operations into the same box as multi crew operations.

I do accept that doing the CRM course does make each and everyone of us (hopefully - except the guy at the back who is almost asleep)aware of our natural failings as human beings and equally aware of some of the problem areas when it comes to 'communicating'. But the ball was dropped unfortunately when the system that thinks it is such a good idea failed to deal with CRM and the single pilot cockpit.

When this point was put to the 'suit' from the CAA he said that an extensive survey had been done with the assistance of the Royal Aeronautical Society and they had consulted with industry - but appear to have missed the large section of onshore single pilot operators.

From what I was told, the conclusion was along the lines of "maybe we should hold a forum for single pilot operators to assess their CRM needs so that we can include them in the rules/regulations etc."

I personally have not heard a lot on that issue since and I'm not really holding my breath, however I'm trying not to let this problem give me a jaundiced view on the topic, but I lose the thread sometimes when I watch yet another video of a heavy jet accident where the captain did not apply good CRM skills. Or listen to a tape recording of a third world jet run out of fuel because the crew did not declare a fuel emergency. Or I have to watch the Nimrod fire incident again.

Interesting - yes of course it is and I might just pick up a snippet or two from the scenario. But I have some difficulty making their incident fit into my world.

Nonetheless an intersting topic and I look forward to following its progress.

Thank you all for such positive responses...."tbc" has touched on an area which was part (not all....just part)of my reason for asking the question. The single pilot issue in RW flying has I believe external and internal (Cockpit) issues to resolve. Much of the common dog issues that give headaches to the single pilot are generated by the particular task (ops),management,engineering and the client. We perhaps have a duty to include these essential people and bodies of people in our discussions and dissemination of incidents or areas of concern. I am sure this happens to a greater or lesser extent in this buisness and is often a by-product of things gone WRONG as opposed to things gone RIGHT.

In some respects the single pilot CRM has potential to be a latent monster and has probably accounted for many of the ACCIDENTS invovling colleagues or people we all know. Anyway....some more food for thought and look forward to your further inputs.

TBC:

Don't know about the UK, but in Canada they offer PDM (Pilot Decision Making) courses to single pilot OPs. CRM is generally thought to deal with people not mechanical resources. That's why they call it Crew Resource Management.

I don't mean this to sound condescending towards Single Pilot Ops, but what we are dealing with in CRM is generally the personalities of multiple crew members.

PDM, however deals with the single crew concept.

Cheers, OffshoreIgor http://www.pprune.org/ubb/NonCGI/eek.gif

Fire Away! A quote from the fifth man on a four man gun crew:

"Cordite burning brightly, Projectile in motion, SIR!"

I think you have confirmed the original theme in my post about CRM being designed and implemented for multi-crew aircraft.

The PDM course sounds interesting and may be a damn sight more applicable to SP operations.

I also know that having talked to ambulance paramedics that have been on a CRM introduction course during their 'air medics' training, they suggested that CRM could certainly be applied to their 2 crew ambulances.

Have any of you had a good CRM course that really catered for specific areas of your flying?

PDM course sounds just the ticket - anybody had a PDM course in the UK or know of one?

Oh yeh - I would love to see some thoughts from engineers, management, ops and clients even. Please post some experiences or your views.

[This message has been edited by eden (edited 26 January 2001).]

CRM doesn't just have to deal with only multi-crew aircraft. The principles can be applied in the single pilot cockpit. By this I mean that your pax can be used (in certain circumstances)to help out in single pilot ops. It's more efficient to get them to help in traffic avoidance (lots more eyes). I don't mean that we rely on them, but they are a good resource that can help us. There have been times when I've had my head in the cockpit momentarily, (to change freq's on the radio, get a map, look in the CFS, etc) and a pax asked if I had seen the aircraft on the left (or some other possible hazzard). I tend to think of it as managing all of the resources available to me.

Initially CRM was developed for multiple person crews, but we single pilot types can use elements of CRM in our cockpits. Obviously, some of its elements won't be applicable, but we can learn, and use the ones that do apply.

Cheers

Randy_G


If you can't stand the heat...

then turn up the air conditioner !! :)

For single pilot ops I think it's fair to say that only lip-service is paid to CRM in the UK. Why don't we re-name it "airmanship" and then we know it applies to everyone?

Anyway, in the absence of crewroom chat and feedback I believe that CRM courses are good value if well designed. Anything that can highlight the perils inherent in go/ no go decision making be it judgement of weather or acceptance of technical defects and commercial pressure has to be a benefit.

Reading "Collective's" post was instructive! (Been there too as a baby co-pilot)Single pilots will do the same sort of thing but there is usually no one around to know about it.

Eden, for your survey:
11,000 hrs, IR, military, offshore, desert, jungle, loads, corporate, filming.

CRM is excellent value, no doubt there. When it was first introduced on the North Sea, I did wonder about the necessity of having to teach people what is basically good manners, i.e. in the way they interact with their co-workers. Having seen one or two senior captains showing their disagreement on a CRM course, it makes one wonder how they were brought up. I do agree that CRM is mainly common sense, although some professional aviators do seem to be rather under-endowed in that particular sphere. As an old colleague once said, "If there's any doubt, there's NO doubt!!"

For the record, ex-military, ex Middle East (205, 212, 206) North Sea (212, S61N, AS332), IR and 13000 hours.

Fellahs,

CRM is not about pilot/co-pilot relationships and info transfer - it's about becoming more aware of your SITUATION. Whether you are operating a single pilot machine or a heavy with a crew, CRM training makes you aware of the pitfalls you may encounter and some tools to deal with them.

The 'C' stands for CREW in the books I find on my crew room coffe table and I include ATC, maintainers, armamment ops, medics, soldiers on the ground, other aircraft crews and anyone else in that definition. Then I categorise the individual as:

Helping me - good CRM
Getting in my way - bad CRM

And take appropriate actions.

A single pilot operator needs just as much knowledge of good CRM as your average overpaid understimulated QANTAS cabbie.

Here endeth the lesson.

My experience includes only 2000 hours, around 600 single pilot FW and the rest multi crewed military helos. But I make every hour count, my kids will see their daddy more that way!

------------------
Free the world .. clear in live!!!

Thanks again ALL for your contributions - i'd be delighted to see some more experiences or thoughts on some of the wider issues such as personnel not directly or obviously linked to the flying op. Along the lines indicated by 'BushRangerRed'.

Looking out for more juice!

LU: Some of the threads here talk about issues that come from outside the cockpit domain. Much of CRM is a pile of common sense with areas of pragmatic application of simple human skills like sitting down with yer engineer and understanding what the bloke did to the rotorheed and what adjustments he made to the weights in the tail rotor - over a coffee prior to groundtesting and then flying the beast. If such relatioships aren't relevant I'll eat my cyclic. You must have an opinion on this - I reckon if you can describe matters that bring pilots and engineers closer together as a unit as opposed to the classic mender v bender mind model then you might win over some of your critics. Consider your posting on here an attempt to perform a considered CRM type relationship with your pilot who is about to go and fly the aircraft you just changed all Main rotor blades on due to Lifex and during which you found corroded Main gearbox feet. Talk to me make me feel it's an aircraft i should take in to the air cos LU fixed it. I might even invite you along for the ride if you can't convince me properly? I might invite you for a ride even if you do?

Coming from the Navy environment, I too have the same general opinion that offshore does with CRM.

2p's are supposed to be the AC, the AC should be working to devolop those skills and not acting like god.

The hardest part is developing your tact in brushing CRM issues with your senior.

The best ones, (and my plan is to follow this) know their butts are on the line, so it's:

"Look, if you see me f*cking up, say something! Because you going in with me doesn't do anyone in back much good at all."

I've had scary moments as a crewman in both fixed wing and heli ops, where in one instance I had to pipe up to be "The voice of safety."

I have found in instances that voicing it such as "I wonder what this might look like in an NTSB transcript/Naval review board hearing ..." is only for those whom you know well :)

As for whether operations in the private sector are providing enough, couldn't say, I'm on the lowest rung.

But, as Offshore puts forth, being "single pilot" doesn't prevent you from aquiring the skills, you do get dual.

It's kinda a wonder that with my CFI's, (I think it's just mmy milspec backround) They ask me what I want to do today, or what we planned on doing today, and once that's settled, I brief the flight. Every flight.

For a single pilot CRM can be as simple as ensuring positive control transfer, so there is no doubt as to whom is flying the aircraft.

CRM doesn't even have to be pilot to pilot. If I'm soloing with a passenger, part of my brief is "If you see(traffic) or hear anything, basically whatever makes you uncomfortable, sing out to me."

You never know what a pax might see while you're occupied with another task ...

That's about it for me Eden, my Navy experience: 13 years as a SAR Crewman.

Flight time:

About 22,600 hours total (Navy) Much of that was TACAMO crew time, 13-14 hour missions. But a lot of SAR in heli's too.

300 so far civilian, and going up :)

------------------
Marc

To: Eden


CRM (Cockpit Resources Management) was so I have heard was developed by United Airlines after several serious incidents. As I stated in a previous post my last contact with a pilot in an aircrew capacity was when I was a crew chief (plane captain) in the USCG and that was in the 50s. I had several brushes with danger where I had to tell the pilots they were placing the aircraft and crew in danger but my pleas to get them to take notice went unheeded. On one occasion, we were making a GCA into Corpus Christi Mainside and it was a hazy day. I was flying the panel and I looked to my left and saw a Navy JRB on a collision course. I used the intercom but the pilots didn’t pay any attention due to the GCA operators conversation with the pilots.. The other aircraft was making an instrument approach to Cabanis Field and he was obviously under the hood. I contacted the pilots twice more to no avail. I then hit the command over ride on the intercom but it was not until the other guys’ GCA operator saw us and our GCA operator saw him before the pilots took notice. We were both ordered to take evasive action and we missed by about 500 feet. So much for CRM.

Regarding your safety when flying in an aircraft that I had maintained you would be very safe, as I would be sitting very close to you. In the Coast Guard at that time if you fixed it you flew in it. I worked both on fixed wing as well as rotary wing aircraft and I learned to fly everything I fixed. The only thing I could not do in a helicopter was to hover over a fixed point.

Regarding CRM for the lack of a better acronym, in my line of work, I have to not only face it I have to implement it. When I go on a consulting assignment I get hit with a lot of animosity. First of all I come into the work environment to mainly clean up the work that had been done or to do the work that is yet to be done. That’s the first hurdle. The second is that I make in some cases twice what the other employees are making. It is my responsibility to establish the relationship and to prove that I am not going to make the employees look bad. In fact I try very hard to train them in the techniques necessary to do a good job and in a lot of cases I do the job and give them the credit. When I finish a job whether it was a 3-year assignment or a six-week assignment, when I leave, the individuals I worked with are sorry to see me go. So, CRM works

However, it does not work at all on this forum.


------------------
The Cat

[This message has been edited by Lu Zuckerman (edited 31 January 2001).]