Modern Training erroding pilot skills
 

Article by Mark Townsend reporting BALPA concerns

"Airline pilots increasingly lack 'basic flying skills' and may be unable to cope with an in-flight emergency such as sudden machine failure, internal documents from Britain's major pilots' union claim"

"[] because pilots are not being encouraged or trained to fly manually"

In full here

As a humble but regular member of the SLF community I am obviously interested in the competence of the people in the front seats. I am probably in a minority but safety and competence -at least perceived- are factors in choosing how I fly not just who is the cheapest.

I read the full article from the link and one thing that came across to me was the spread of idiotic 'management speak' into the flying side of aviation. Witness the words of the spokesperson for the aviation industry. He said

'I don't share these concerns. Airlines are tying to make training more efficient but are not compromising on safety. It is true that we have moved towards a more simulator-based system, but that is more like a real aeroplane and is not a saving on safety.'

So a simulator is more like a real aeroplane than what ??? errrr a real aeroplane??? The quote sounds good but is actually rubbish.

I suppose the real balance that has to be struck ,and I am sure it is not easy to assess this, is can the automatics fly a Heathrow SID through the maze of Inbound tracks and holding patterns more accurately than a pilot -an every day occurance- as opposed the the less likely scenario of a engine out approach to Aberdeen in heavy rain and a 30kt cross wind when the automatic features can't do a lot to help and traditional handling skills are critical.

PB

With a modicum of commonsense, it is easy for airline pilots to improve their skills at basic aircraft handling. On the majority of route flights there are many opportunities where turning off the flight director and the autothrottle and then disconnecting the autopilot, will not compromise perceived flight safety. Of course, you pick the time and place but it is a rare flight where the safety of the flight is compromised unless all the automtic gizmo's are locked in. But like I said -you pick the time and place.

It is my experience, however, that a good proportion of pilots are simply too lazy to be bothered to take the opportunity when it presents itself to actually fly the aircraft, rather than simply twiddle knobs and let the automatics take the aircraft from A to B.

While it can be a chore to fly by hand with the FD and AT switched off, this is a poor excuse. You have to decide whether you should maintain equal skills at both automatics monitoring and raw data hand flying - or whether raw data skills are simply irrelevant in glass cockpits. Ask yourself if a CAA examiner testing you for an instrument rating renewal would prefer you to conduct an NDB approach by basic RMI hand flying or by LNAV on automatics. Which one is a sure test of your basic handling skills?

Individual twitch factors come into play with some captains. Some mutter in their beards when the first officer asks can he please turn of the FD and hand fly a climb or descent. The comfort zone of the captain of the ship has been invaded. Others, more wise, will say go for it - within bounds of commonsense airmanship.

For some pilots the automatics are a vital crutch because deep inside they are aware of their own rustiness but dare not admit it in front of a junior. Arguments on the subject of automatics dependancy will go for many years to come. One thing is for sure and that is this blind dependancy erodes natural flying skills.

Totally agree with you Centaurus.

Fly a bus myself and i enjoy it much more when i can take out the automatics and fly the STAR manually. It is much better than only turning some knobs and kick out the autopilot at 500 feet.

However like you mentioned already not every captain likes it when you do this. Even on a calm, cavok day with almost no traffic around. But on the other hand some company's prohibit the use of manual thrust on the A32X. So you can't blame pilots from this outfit to be a bit rusty on the use of manual thrust.

Personally i think it's part of your job to keep your handflying up to scrath as well. If the autoamtics fail on a demanding SID/STARt at least you know what you are doing.

FT

At last a well balanced thread with constructive coments ......... How long can this last?

I do share this concern. Myself I have flown A32O family and A330 for several years now. I still fly very regularly raw dat take offs, landings and even sectors. As said before, all based on the right time and the right conditions. And I am proud to say that my hand flying skills are still as sharp asever.

However.....This can not be said of most of my colleagues. I used to fly for a major European carrier where everybody more or less had the same flying skills. We used to enjoy handflying a lot, in fact it was recommended to practice.
Since a couple of years I have been flying in the middle east with people from all over the world....

And here those basics are totally gone. The company allows handflying ( AP, AT and FD off) but people are affraid of it. No practice so the skills go away eventually.
And this shows in the sim.....AP off is ok but once we go further the plane is all over the sky.

Who is to blame?

First of all....ourselves! We should force ourselve once in a while to fly the plane iso managing the buttons.

Management can push their pilots more etc...

A lot of big ( mostly UK influenced ) companies however dont allow this hence the results...

Another flaw is the dissappearence of the aviation basics: 1/60 rules, holding entries and calculations, lapse rates, descent profiles etc.....OK, we do not really need all this in our daily lives but maybe, one day , we will need it again!!!!

I am not sure I get your point here;does it make someone feel important to do the job that they have trained for and are paid to do?You have inadvertently detailed the very dangers of over-reliance on automation,not those of manual flying.Manual flying that leads to attention deficit,whether it be on the part of the pilot flying or the pilot monitoring,is not reason to desist from that practice,but rather justification for continuing to practice it until the skill is mastered.
Flightpath control by exclusive use of the FMCS makes you,by definition,a systems manager,not a pilot.It is a perfectly valid method of flightpath control and a skill in itself.Manual manipulation of the flt controls by reference to the flight director is yet another valid method of flightpath control and a skill that must be mastered(esp.the ability to anticipate the f/d or "see through" the cross-bars).Manual flying without any FMCS interaction is the third and final method of flightpath control and it too must be mastered to the point where no attention deficit exists.This final method is by far the most important as you might have to resort to this modus operandi during an emergency where any attention deficit could well prove fatal.
Folklore says that a good skipper can fly an ILS to minimums at night with 20 knots x-wind on standby instruments and that he can do it in his sleep.
How,where and when you keep these vital skills current should be left to the pilot's good judgement and not mandated in any SOP manual.The airline already trusts in your judgement;they hired you.

are we that lazy?
FL100 bling bling autopilot disconnect A/T too, surely we know our power settings for each stage of flight.. not saying its "fun" but surley we know where everything sould be or else we not monitoring the automatics.

you know when it is the "sim" coming up, for me its the worst flying seen, but if you spend one flight a week raw data, no need for this sim next week give this a go attitude.....

I'm confused here,

Surely we're not suggesting that flying the airbus with those side-sticks is referred to as 'manual flying'!

I've always been Lockheed and Boeing trained, but to my mind, that side-stick is just another form of autopilot!

Further, airbus pilots don't have the capability to 'hand fly' their machines at any time, outside the airbus interpretation of hand flying.

I've always referred to 'hand flying' in the conventional sense, that is, with no computer aids at all, purely the inputs from the pilot on raw data. Surely you airbus pilots remember hand flying....don't you?

Cheers, I think! :uhoh:

B-757 Captains during my 757 FO years (over three) sometimes hand-flew the plane to above FL 180 in good weather (but not on the east coast). Is this a disturbing thought for anyone? By the way, if you see a Resolution Advisory on the IVSI, you can react much quicker and better. As usual, this topic on Pprune might not apply to the pilot culture in the US. In the 1980s, pilots hired by major airlines here all had about 3,000-6,000 or more hours if from a transport background, and often 1,500-3,000 if they flew military trainers/tactical jets/small turboprops (i.e. T-34 or OV-10). In the 90s, most transport guys/gals (gals at my company) had at least around 4-5,000 hours, for the most part. They are our ("my") FOs . :D

Therefore, unless one was trained to avoid hand-flying in the simulator during Initial Training, i.e. using MCP/FMC modes for Cat 2,3 ILS and certainly " VS mode" for ALL non-precision approaches, a pilot always had a very solid background to lean on. Maybe the Airbus philosophy, being foreign, assumes that pilots will always use as much automation as possible? For many, older and even younger pilots, figuring out combinations of Boeing autopilot/flight director/autothrottles was a challenging experience. They never had a problem with real hand-flying, as long as they could guess which power setting to use (if autothrottles inop. per MEL, or not) and the non-flying pilot kept up with FMC and MCP changes plus radio calls and checklists during climbs and descents :) . "On a 'two to go' callout, how do we reduce thrust for a modest climb rate and avoid an abrupt level-off"? "Oh, somebody said to set the Vertical Speed mode and use 1500-2,000 fpm, etc!"

Reading Pprune, I'm always baffled by the fact that many foreign airline cultures tend to discourage hand-flying the plane. Is this in lands which have little general aviation, due to weather and very high cost? The ironic point for laymen is that until one gets used to most modern transport aircraft, the automation is NOT at all automatic-modes and changes are constantly required. The airplane does NOT know what we want to do, or change :oh: . There can be three vertical and three or four lateral navigation modes (enroute or approach). We must tell it at what point we need to be at i.e. 12,000' and 250 knots etc. Due to the constant need to extend speedbrakes, it takes a good bit of getting used to, due to the fact that they are difficult to descend and slow (757 and A-320).

Do many Fleet Captains and Chief Pilots not have faith in their line pilots, or do they feel that mgmt is not getting the most value from the airplane, or both? Do they only trust their standard operating procedures, or should developing pilot judgement and experience not translate into long-term safety, provided the traffic and weather situations/terrain are near optimum, along with normal system operations?

just do it...
 

It is, IMHO, our responsibility as pilots to maintain proficient hand flying skills. It is true that Autoflight systems are very reliable, but anything built by man is subject to failure at some point. Additionally there is always some contingency that the engineers did not think of, they cant possibly be expected to think of every remote possibility. Yes I know thats why there are two or even three of everything on board, redundancy and all that. Im sure there was also a group of United mechanics saying "they cant possibly have lost all 3 hydraulic systems" while 4 guys were fighting with a DC-10 over the midwest US a while back (United 232).
My point is only this, anything can happen, and if doing a little hand flying when the opportunity presents itself can make you better able to handle more of "anything", well why not?
Like I said, just my opinion.:D

It is difficult to forget or get "rusty" on something one has never acquired properly. I believe hand flying basics get to be learned from the very first hours in one's flying school. After that, one is supposed to build up on experience on those basics and later on eventually adjust it for the type of aircraft he/she is flying.

Hand flying should be allowed and even encouraged in airlines, as said above : choose the place and time.

From my experience, I am amazed how many experienced pilots just got through the "net" into airliners, with below standard raw data and hand flying skills, to the point that landings really look like controlled crashes. This situation of course being aggravated with the "Bus"type of automation where you actually never fly manually the aircraft, unless you go into "Direct law" following some failures.

I havent seen many guys doing a proper raw data ILS with a "Bus" with all the automation and Flight path vector taken out, although I reckon it might be a little bit of a hard work, due to the sidestick type of flying philosophy;"No FPV ! Kamikaze type of flying" they say in the airline I work for. Kamikaze may be, but the FPV is just another FD, and there goes your raw data hand flown approach.

After reading the insteresting posts on this thread, I sit with a feeling of being among "old" people, who are talking about the good old days.

Time changes, and so do airplanes, and which skills are needed.

We are not in 1930 doing the mailrun, using basic stick and rudder. Or in 1950 doing transatlantic flights, using celestrial navigation.

The skills needed today are much more of a "management" type, and not so much "hands on". All professional pilots are fully capable of as much manually flying as needed for todays flying.

The most interesting comment above is that the high cost of GA in Europe leads to pilots reaching the right seat of an airliner with the minimum of hand flying skills.
I find this ironic that in the UK it is percived that we have the highest standards of pilot training we now have "Airline preperation programs" run by the big training companys ( Oxford, Cabair etc) that reject pilots who have done some GA flying.

Yes these companys will take the £20,000 that it will take these modular students to get a CPL/IR but even if they are very good will not help them to get a job, however pay £60,000 for the modular course that takes the student from zero flight time to the CPL/IR and the training companys will recomend these people to airlines.

I have seen APP students fail flight tests and then get recomended to airlines when modular students from the same company don't get an airline recomendation even when they pass all the tests first time!.

This skill errosion will only get worse with the CAA review of charges , this British airways driven idea is to try and get the CAA charges down and transfer them to the GA sector.
This will only have the effect of further driving up the cost of GA flying, eventualy BA and the rest of the airline industry will pay the price for this "short term thinking" but by then the bean counters responsable will have moved on to mis-manage another industry with short term policys.

Now that the thread has got going I’ll put in my thoughts that seemed inappropriate when I started it.

First I agree 100% with A and C in his first post; a well balanced thread is an endangered species, lets not get into a Europe vs US or Boeing vs Airbus fight this time! :ok:

I’m only a 100 hour PPL having learnt late in life, but as a very frequent traveller (and systems engineer) I would much prefer both pilots to be current at flying the aircraft without the autopilot. One of my favourite aphorisms is that “A fail safe system fails, when it fails to fail safe”, the pilots are partly (largely?) there to cope with these potential failures, either by managing the systems appropriately or by “hand flying” as becomes necessary. It appears to me therefore that not being current at “hand flying” removes a large part of an important aspect of flight safety, after all why did you guys have to build the hours in SEP and MEP rather than in a low tech simulator before moving on?

Not having flown a full simulator I leave it to others to comment the effectiveness in practising for “hand flying” in them.

I often fly circuits from early downwind to 500 on finals using only trim and rudder, (sure its occasionally a sloppy circuit and difficult to be accurate- I only do it when its empty) but it gives me confidence that I know the aircraft and what she'll do If I ever lost aerlion or elevator or both). 3 deg approachs on a light single (as they are taught) also give me the willies.........

I know you guys are probably all RPT's , but do you ever get the chance to "see" what a 757/73 in a sideslip is like, or play with the asyms and not use rudder to pickup the wings ?

Ps was on an Egyptair bus into luxor a few years back, and that guy did a class 1 x-wind, wing low landing, even holding the wing down on the tarmac until opposite came down naturally, I spoke to the FO (same hotel) later and he told me the Xwind was 20-25 and that it was a manual landing. I was impressed, he did not use the rudder to "hunt" for his best picture, nor seemingly I recall bank, he just pretty much got it right, which in a 320/321 was pretty damn impressive.

Apologies in advance if its a stupid question.

edit(changed "it" to "opposite")

Interesting topics
 

Gus/Gals,

It's nice to hear all the respond and it's part of the crm anyway...

Have a safe flight,

O_g:ok:

May I add my two cents in this thread?
Thank you.
Hand flying is hand flying, even in the Columbia!
I am not sure if the … Boeing guys have any experience in the new Airbus fleet, but the maneuvers that you need to do, with autopilot and autothrust off are almost the same (as I recall from my Boeing days, and they were a lot!).
As a matter of fact, it would be more appropriate to put the yaw dumper off, even in the Boeing a/c and while we are at it, let’s switch the HYD off, so that the feeling will be completely “truthful”?
Let’s get serious. Hand flying, which is allowed and encouraged in my airline, is a very good practice. You need the practice, so that whenever you have one or two automations missing, you will be able to cope easier.
It doesn’t have to be completely manual and definitely you’re not going to do it into a busy airport, like LHR, for instance.

7gcbc- sideslipping a swept wing a/c is a huge no no.

Flying is a degradeable skill....if you dont use it you lose it.

Remember the chalk on the wall analogy. People with 15,000 hours will lose the skills slower than the 1000 autopilot merchants.

This is not only my view but that of the CAA - check out FODC 24/2004 www.caa.co.uk/publications.

Our part A encourages you to take the flight director out. We have just started doing total electrical failures in the sim (manual flying on standbys only) if you want a reason to keep current with hand flying you need to look at the results.

My aircraft type mandates manual flying for the single engine go-around , TCAS avoidance , EGPWS and Windshear recovery. All relatively high stress manoeuvres which do not need to be carried out by people "frightened" of flying the aircraft manually.

Yes some of our AP in at 1000' out at decide pilots are afraid of the aircraft (stressed out / sweat like pigsetc ) when flying manual approaches.

RMC

duff link there old chap hopefully this one will take people directly there (small pdf).

regards

I have two small observations.

1.To function effectively as a manager you need to have a fair idea of the "managee's" job. Applies to systems just like people.
2. Many emergencies do not happen "according to the book".

The automation flies "by the book".
When it is not a "book" situation, you are on your own. This would be a good time to have some old fashioned thinking/handling skills.

I DO NOT AGREE WITH " A TO C" interpretation of Oxford and cabair Modus operandi.

the truth is that Airlines are NOT interested in modular students so they ask for Integrated students.

Why do they prefer integrated??.....because they went through a selection before joining the school, because they average MUCH higher grades in the ATPL subjects and in flight tests. This is a FACT. (if you dont believe me go and check it out at the CAA).

Airlines prefer Integrated students because they know EXACTLY where these people have trained and that all of their training was under a very RELIABLE and HIGH STANDARD organization such as Oxford or Cabair.

toomuchradiations,

Its actually quite common for prospective employers to remove "unknown" risk when considering candidates, and the route through Cabair and Oxford may indeed just do that, it's no guarantee from the employee performance point of view , however it removes the risk of employing a non-starter.

All the investment banks do this, however they are smart enought to not confine themselves to just one or two uni's

I use the work "unknown" because until you have the pudding on you're spoon, its all conjecture, the best candidate on paper may turn out to be a no-hoper, and the worst candidate may often thrive, that said, the method of going in using the two schools you mentioned is pretty solid based on historical requirements.

I don't speak from aviation experience in this respect, however in the commercial business world, there is a significant amount of bias towards the top-end Universities, and who can blame the employers, although I have to add one point, the graduates/candidates only "shine" *after* they have been exposed to the work in anger, and not before - it's the same in any industry, with one or two execptions. Indeed some of the best on paper turn out to be incapable of "dealing" with people and adverse to teamwork, and the middle level candidates (all rounders - no genuis, but very comfortable) seem to be the best at making the runs, I have seen more than enough MBA grads come through and "read it like a book" and they all fail to a man, you can't learn this stuff in a classroom, it just does not cut it, yes learn the basics and get through and remove the "intellectual-capability-risk" but after that, when you start "work" its a whole different ball game.........


RMC,

I don't see why you can't sideslip a swept 75/76/73 gently enough to see how it works, and keeping the Vmin or (stall) margin high enough and within weights, I can't see how it can cause problems (anhyedral excepted). ?


edit: changed "perceived" to "unknown" - late night, kids driving me crazy, brain muddle...

How about taking the chance of blanking some of the airflow into the jet engines at low altitude/airspeed ?? Cough ...spit ....sputter Oh my look at that EGT !

toomuchradiations
 

It's all about money The training set ups are all making far more money from the integrated students so that they can afford to offer a deal that compensates the airline if the pilot that they have sent is not up to the job after six sim details.

The deal is simple the training companys only take the people that they think will be a low training risk , charge them a bit over the top to cover the odd one who fails the airline sim. Add to this some sort of tax deal that the airlines get (I've not got to the bottom of that one yet) it all adds up to a money thing.

I should think that the integrated students would do better at the exams as to cut down on the risk to the traininng companys they are in a full time training enviroment the modular student has to balance his training with a job that is paying for the training.

On the whole the modular student has a much harder time getting the CPL/IR and tend to be more commited.

As the company that I work for has just gone down the "integrated" recrutment path it will be interesting to see if we get people who have some hand flying skill or a magenta line kindergarden and I will do my best to keep an open mind untill this is proven one way or the other but I would much rather the FO sitting next to me had done 700 hours instructing or glider tugging before setting out for an airline job.

I have flown MD11's for two US carriers now, and was also contract trained by a third carrier and MD in Long Beach.

The MD11 has undergone an interesting evolution in this area, from a strong "do not touch it" philosophy that sprang from the manufacturer, to today's environment where proficiency in ALL levels of automation is required.

At my last employer, I was known for clicking off the autothrottles any time I hand flew an approach. A junior FO turned me in to the head of standards, who emailed me to stop doing this.

I wrote him back that if he would put a letter in my file stating that I was not responsible for flying with A/T deferred, I would stop practicing for such a scenario. I never heard back from him.

One of the most thought provoking experiences that I have ever witnessed was in a Boeing 737-200 simulator where I was conducting type rating training on a highly experienced SE Asia born airline captain.

He was asked to intercept a VOR radial while climbing at 250 knots on a departure. He was on autopilot. The first officer had only 300 hours total time. Both pilots displayed some lack of familiarity with RMI interpretation.

Asked to now hand fly and level out at 8000 ft, the captain showed lack of familiarity with basic cross-reference skills. Without warning his ADI failed (became frozen) during a level turn but neither he or his F/O noticed this until the captain was asked to take up a new heading.

Despite a comparitor light showing , the captain steadily wound on ever increasing angle of bank (ADI was "frozen) while attempting to turn to the new heading. The standby ADI and the F/O ADI were operating normally. The simulator was set on night IMC scene.

With the "frozen" ADI still not responding to his roll input, the aircraft became inverted due to the captain's continued roll inputs.
The nose dropped and at this stage the captain looked puzzled as he felt that obviously something was not quite right.

The F/O's eyes were staring at his own ADI and he seemed frozen in fear as the IVSI went off the clock. He sat on his hands and said nothing because he simply was out of his depth.

Passing through around 120 degrees angle of bank and 20 degrees nose down, the captain suddenly looked at the standby ADI (correct) indication, and disbelievingly called out "Standby ADI failure!" He then proceeded to reach over and pull the standby ADI caging knob. The no doubt astonished standby ADI did what it was told and showed "level" flight under the influence of the pulled caging knob. After several thousand feet of altitude had been carved off it was clear that the plot was lost, so the instructor froze the simulator in order to knock off for morning tea and a little chat.

Automatics complacency can do those things to some pilots.

Hand flying
 

Our current base check syllabus for the Captain is dual AC fail after t/o RW16 on ALBIX 1R SID at LSZH.
Vis 400m.
Dont U pax guys worry. No matter how rusty we get we can still hand fly wide body twins.
Shame on companies quoted to encourage autolands and auto approaches.
As to d previous post... I never used to position on a Vietnam Airlines flight with no expat on the crew...
Hear dese days sit is d same dere...
So choose carefully whom U fly with...
Unfortunately I know one of the badly injured pax on AF358... as well. She will only be able to walk after one year wit an artificial kneecap...
So even d Gods make mistakes...
:mad:
P.S. So let us enjoy the money that can buy us nice yachts and fast cars or else we will have more "feed the computer Dude, and stay away from the controls" pilots' CRASHES

I retired from airline flying a year and a half ago, and have been worried about falling hand flying standards for a few years. A fact that has not been mentioned is that companies that strongly discourage hand flying and raw data flying can promote an F/O that has only been in the airline environment then expect him to fly low level circuits in poor Wx around the bottom of an Alpine valley (or any class C field) after only six months in the seat.

There must be a sim. check coming up...
 

And how do we know? Lot's of manual flying to, wait for it... practice for the sim. IMHO, this is not how it's meant to be. The sim should be used as a learning tool, not as a chopping and trapping tool. Unfortunately we too (as an industry) have gone along with the "tick the box to cover ourselves and then blame the pilot if it looks like it will get the laywers of the company's back" route. Lawyers and Human Remains... don't get me started!

Going slightly off topic, sorry: Am I not sideslipping when I do a wing-down crosswind landing in a jet?

sideslipping
 

mbcxharm.

If you are doing it right, with wing down into wind and a little opposite rudder you are still tracking straight down the runway centreline.

If you were sidesipping you would be tracking forwards and in the direction of the lower wing i.e diagonally.

God, are there any stick and rudder guys out there anymore or is it just the fly by numbers products of these flying school factories that mummy and daddy pay a fortune to so as to be able to tell their dinner guests that the fruit of their loins is an Airline Pilot?!


Blackwatergoblin

"If you were sidesipping you woud be tracking forwards and in the direction of the lower wing i.e diagonally."

Ehhh..... that is exactly what you are doing, relative to the wind.

splitting hairs here maybe , but any wingdown opp rudder is a slip, in heavies perhaps its not so as evident ?

gotta love the "kinetic" push at the end of the slip tho, anyone want to explain that in plain english to a dumbo ?

oic:

That's my point exactly...

Piltdown Man - how true you speak!

The JAR FCL LPC is an almost totally "testing" routine - I, and several of my colleagues have been chewed-off by the Training Inspectorate for 'instructing on a test'. I LOATHE the principle that I now have sit there with my mouth shut. Make cock-up? - Fail, tick the box. Every trainer used to know precisely when to apply discretion - not any more, you can lose your TRI/TRE in minutes with one particular Inspector (who, rumour has it, has never worked in the industry as an actual airline pilot.) Hate it - it's gone back 40 years.

High standards are maintained by continuation training not continuation testing.

oic

"Ehhh..... that is exactly what you are doing, relative to the wind"

Ehhh....Splitting Hairs, relative airflow!

I always used the sideslip as a maneuvre to lose height without gaining airspeed just before a spray run in my more basic but happier days, it had nothing to do with the wind or it's direction at all.

Maybe I just got it wrong for a whole lot of years!

BWG

blackwatergoblin
 

I can assure you that I am a sick and rudder luddite and I am alive and well but I suspect that I am on EASA's hit list !

Piltdown Man

Good point

I seem to remember an incident report that’s pertinent to your post, FO has a sim check coming up so flys the approach into LGW with auto-thrust off in marginal conditions and bumps the tail.

O dear I was suggesting hand flying is a good thing, perhaps I just shot myself in the foot :{ :ouch:

On second thoughts no, if he had been in practice it probably would not have happened. :E

7GCBC

Dai Davies (ARB Chief Test Pilot) view from "Handling the Big Jets"
"It is wrong in princple to allow a swept wing a/c to suffer significant angles of sideslip"

The difference in apparent airflow between leading and trailing wings can cause a spin at low speeds.

Large sideslip angles via abrupt inputs can also cause engine surge/stall.

A couple of degrees in ground effect is not a major issue.