A late-ish stabilisation

[miles offtarget]

This thread has migrated somewhat since my initial post; it's very interesting, but I feel that some of us are being led astray.

As professional pilots we are simply paid to operate a complex piece of machinery as safely as possible. And we confuse the issue if we indulge ourselves in the romanticism of flying around the bush, or believe the tired old stereotypes found in WW2 films.

A component part of operating this modern machinery is hand flying, but it's only a small component. Ultimately, airline flying only as safe as it is, BECAUSE of the automation that we have spent billions of dollars/euros in developing.

The improvement in human factor accident rates since the 1930's, where it was all stick and rudder illustrates this, and I refer you all to the surgeon analogy that I used earlier in the thread.

There may be very rare occasions where manual flying skills are required (DC10 hyd failure for one), but they are much more rare than the runway overruns, heavy landings, CFIT etc that result from trying to fly an airliner rather than operate it.

I'm not saying for a second that we should let manual flying skills atrophy to nothing, obviously we should have the capability to fly the aircraft, there is a place for that, but generally it's automation rather than stick and rudder that will see us into retirement.

Therefore, whilst don't have the data to hand, I feel that on balance we are much more likely to create our own problems by hand flying the sort of homemade approach that I witnessed in ALC last week, than letting some of our sharpest reactions dull a little.

We don't need the reactions of an F4 pilot to be a good B737 pilot. It's a different discipline entirely.

[BScaler]

Superior Pilot...

I read once that...
A Superior Pilot is one who uses his Superior Judgement to avoid situations which may require the use of his Superior Skill.
And...
There are Old Pilots and Bold Pilots, but no Old Bold Pilots.
Perhaps some elements of each of these two sayings apply here.

[Huck]

Arguably the ability to hand fly is largely irrelevant to the modern airline pilot,like it or not.The aircraft will fly itself better than we can anway

This is the scariest thing I've read in awhile.

Take a gander:

On December 18, 2003, about 1226 central standard time, Federal Express Corporation (FedEx) flight 647, a Boeing MD-10-10F (MD-10), N364FE, crashed while landing at Memphis International Airport (MEM), Memphis, Tennessee. The right main landing gear collapsed after touchdown on runway 36R, and the airplane veered off the right side of the runway. After the gear collapsed, a fire developed on the right side of the airplane. Of the two flight crewmembers and five nonrevenue FedEx pilots on board the airplane, the first officer and one nonrevenue pilot received minor injuries during the evacuation. The postcrash fire destroyed the airplane's right wing and portions of the right side of the fuselage. Flight 647 departed from Metropolitan Oakland International Airport (OAK), Oakland, California, about 0832 (0632 Pacific standard time) and was operating under the provisions of 14 Code of Federal Regulations (CFR) Part 121 on an instrument flight rules flight plan.
The National Transportation Safety Board determines the probable cause(s) of this accident as follows:
1) the first officer's failure to properly apply crosswind landing techniques to align the airplane with the runway centerline and to properly arrest the airplane's descent rate (flare) before the airplane touched down; and 2) the captain's failure to adequately monitor the first officer's performance and command or initiate corrective action during the final approach and landing.

I've flown with several pilots who knew/flew with the accident first officer. Let's say her views of automation were remarkably similar to Frosty Hoar's "hand-flying is irrelevant" comment.

Bottom line: wind components were out of limits for autoland.
Somebody's got to put the beast on the runway. Two people are sitting at the pointy end of it, making large sums of money. They're there for their skills. No "management" required on short final - just (dare I say it) stick and rudder skills. Skills weren't there, and a ~45 million dollar aircraft and 120,000 pounds of high-priority Christmas freight were a total loss.
Oh, and if it'd been a pax plane it would have killed hundreds. The wreckage was leaning so far that all slides were rendered inop.

[411A]

I think you and I are beating a dead horse here, Huck...the new(er) boys and girls at the pointy end are (seemingly) right and truly convinced that automation is the be all, end all, of modern day flight operations.
I sincerely hope that one day they are not in a situation when so-called automation will not dig them out of a hole they might find themselves into....

[A and C]

Nice bun fight

I do like a good bun fight and this one sees the guys who "manage" the aircraft using all the tools that the aircraft has to offer vs the people who reguarly hand fly the aircraft.

Surely what we need is appropriate use of the aircraft systems not de-skilling by automatics, I hand fly the aircraft as much as I can so as to retain my skills however a busy night at CGD is not the place for this just as a gusty day at Funchal is not the place to have the autopilot in more than half way dounwind.

As to wings level as long as you are speed stable and configerd for landing I can see nothing wrong with rolling the wings level at 500ft AAL as long as you are on the correct vertical profile.

The aircraft "managers" will no doubt disagree.

[Frosty Hoar]

Huck-

Fedex capt failed to monitor the approach correctly and consider the handling skills of the f/o combined with the wx. No awareness,no teamwork -poor management and airmanship.

No questions,your witness.

411a

Happy fishing.

A+C

I concur.

[Huck]

Fedex capt failed to monitor the approach correctly and consider the handling skills of the f/o combined with the wx. No awareness,no teamwork -poor management and airmanship.

O.K. Point taken.

One small defense of him - she was getting a line check. Otherwise it obviously would have been his landing.....

[Right Way Up]

One small defense of him - she was getting a line check. Otherwise it obviously would have been his landing.....

Not much of an excuse, so what if its a line check. The Captain's responsibility is the safe operation of his/her aircraft. Reroster the line check if need be!

[Two's in]

There may be very rare occasions where manual flying skills are required (DC10 hyd failure for one), but they are much more rare than the runway overruns, heavy landings, CFIT etc that result from trying to fly an airliner rather than operate it.

There seems to be some confusion over the probability of an event occuring against the requirement to be able to deal with it. Just because it's unlikely to happen doesn't mean you don't have to know how to recover the situation. Automation and Standardized techniques (such as stabilized approaches) will keep the aircraft operating within a well-defined envelope, and accordingly going outside of that envelope should either be (a) a conscious decision within revised, but well understood operating parameters , (such as a modified visual approach) or (b) something that can be recovered using the skills of the crew.

So you either elect to use those skills to operate the aircraft in a safe and effective manner, or you suddenly find yourself needing those skills to recover from an unexpected situation. In the case of the original poster it appears that local pilots with local knowledge are using these skills to expedite airport operations: in the examples quoted by 411A, those pilots used them to save the day, regardless of how they got themselves in that position.

In the Military you expect to have really bad things happen to the aircraft at any time, so the training emphasis is on handling emergencies and losing all and any automated systems that were helping you up until the point when the bad news arrived. Flying the aircraft must be second nature and most emergencies require memorized and instinctive actions. The only difference with commercial flying is the probability of an event occuring.

Standardization is great; and undoubtedly prevents accidents, but whether you consciously or unexpectedly go outside the envelope, somebody on board better know what the new plan is.

[Jaxon]

There may be very rare occasions where manual flying skills are required (DC10 hyd failure for one), but they are much more rare than the runway overruns, heavy landings, CFIT etc that result from trying to fly an airliner rather than operate it.

I don't use the red tabbed part of my QRH that often but I'm very pleased to have it with me - every flight.

You seem to be glossing over some very salient points here. Do you suppose safety is enhanced or degraded as flying skills and experience are increased? I suggest that perhaps it is the heavy reliance on the automation to coddle you in a blanket of safety that has the modern flightdeck manager in trouble with runway overruns, etc. when he either turns off the autopilot or is forced to not use it and finds that modern "flight deck manager" does not exactly equal "skilled pilot". There is no doubt that automation enhances safety, all other things being equal. But automation also removes the ability to frequently exercise real pilot skills and just as your tail plane provides "negative lift" so does the effective degradation of those real pilot skills to safety.

I've flown with a large number of the "new age flightdeck managers" and come to realize from direct and exciting experience that unless the automation advances significantly the retirement of actual pilot skills from the cockpit will drive those statistics in the direction which forces a renewed emphasis on stick and rudder. I can hear the indignant moaning ten years from now when the flightdeck manager complains about all the manual maneuvers and approaches s/he was required to perform in the sim.

[Huck]

I can hear the indignant moaning ten years from now when the flightdeck manager complains about all the manual maneuvers and approaches s/he was required to perform in the sim.

It's already happening at my place. My PT was this month, and the FIRST maneuver was a handflown, autothrottle off departure procedure out of LAX, vectors back to a non-PROF localizer approach to a full stop. AT and AP stayed off the whole time. This was in an MD-11 sim.

I loved it - but I would have failed the flight director as well.....

[con-pilot]

It's already happening at my place. My PT was this month, and the FIRST maneuver was a handflown, autothrottle off departure procedure out of LAX, vectors back to a non-PROF localizer approach to a full stop. AT and AP stayed off the whole time. This was in an MD-11 sim.

Did have you all three engines working? Easy then.

Some people on this thread would have made a mess in their pants if they had seen some of our departures and visual approaches in the 72 back in my USMS days. We use to practice rolling wings level on the PAPI or GS at a 100 feet from a constant descending turn from downwind. We also had a rather unique visual departure profile we used to ,er, calm down our 'passengers'. That was a lot of fun.

[Jaxon]

Huck, good on ya. I know that there is a wide range of variation existing across the industry in simulator training and evaluating. Some places are still hammering in the basic pilot skills, and some places... not so much

[PrettyBoy]

When reading through this thread it seems that you either have "good hands" OR the ability to "manage" aircraft through the use of automation. It seems to me that a balance of both is required to be a modern professional pilot. There is no room for "hot dogs" nor the pilots who is unable to manipulate the controls when the automation is turned off. I'm amazed at some of the comments here....

[miles offtarget]

This might be a good time to point out that my initial post described a ( I assume) servicable 737 becoming wings level at somewhere between 100 and 200 ft AGL after a homemade approach into a major airport on a CAVOK day.

The debate as whether we sould or should not be able to fly the aircraft is a fatuous one...we all should be able to, and if we can't then shame on us.

My point is/was that I was surprised to see professional pilots shamelessly flying an airliner with up to 148 people on board like a 172.

Merry Christmas

MoT

[Bigmouth]

the new(er) boys and girls at the pointy end are (seemingly) right and truly convinced that automation is the be all, end all, of modern day flight operations.

That's because they are being taught that way. And it's reinforced at every 6 month checkride.
Many more aircraft in the sky means many more pilots than just a few years ago. Naturally the skill level of the average pilot is being diluted with every expansion. And in this business the training is geared towards the lowest common denominator. SOP's and commonality are key, and very unfortunately Joe-super-pilot is forced to fly like to Joe-shoulda-washed-out's standards.
The big killer today, and more so in the future is going to be complacency. And complacency is caused by automation as well as the modern marvels of engineering that our aircraft are.

[miles offtarget]

Sorry Bigmouth, I have been flying since 1986 in both the air force and airlines and still think automation is (usually) the key to safe flying.

Lots of friends killed in pointy grey things the air force (little or no automation), few if any killed flying perf A airliners, lots of automation.

Ergo, new(er) pilots taught correctly...automation (within the bounds of reason)...good.

MoT

[Bigmouth]

Pointy grey things type flying hardly compares to the shiny snub nosed kind, now does it.

[Ralph Cramden]

411A You are right, we are beating a dead horse here. I don't often visit PPRUNE much anymore. Too depressing.

What you are trying to do is describe a rainbow to a room full of people who were born blind; describe Beethoven's 5th to deaf mutes. You are trying to communicate with people who cannot hear you as it is outside their experience.

Back in the olden days when I was flying automation was there for my convenience. If I wanted to use it, I did. If not, I didn't. The point being that I could get my A/C safely on the ground with or without. I hand flew almost all approaches throughout my career. If the WX was bad, I did it to get the practice, if the WX was good, I did it for the sheer joy of it.

Of course you have to use the automation in modern A/C. That's Plan "A". Where is Plan "B"? When you run out of options in avaition, you are in a very deep, dark hole.

[411A]

Of course you have to use the automation in modern A/C. That's Plan "A". Where is Plan "B"? When you run out of options in avaition, you are in a very deep, dark hole.

Indeed so, Ralph.
The airplane I fly now (and have for the last twenty seven years in Command, the Lockheed L1011) was the first really automated wide-body aeroplane.
Its automatic approach/land capabilities are second to none (even today, as a few of my friends who fly the B777 will agree) sadly the younger folks many times will never enjoy the pleasure of flying a manual approach in nasty weather.
How very sad.