I still vote for the pilots being to blame. The entire point of having pilots in the loop is that they are supposed to sort out the confusing and unexpected. That includes the inputs from your own human failings such as misperception and adrenaline.

Are the techniques to handle unknown/complex/confusing situations understood?
Yes, and it's bloody simple in this case - power, attitude, trim
Are they still taught?
It looks like the answer to this is no, or at least not well enough to be remembered when it counts.
A few hours in the sim will not fix it, but better flight training will. I'm guessing here, as it's 20 years since I last taught commercial pilots, but 50 more hours of hands-on handling and instructing in airmanship should do it. The other point is that a proportion (higher than at present) needs to be taught by hard-nosed grumpy old gits who've seen it all, rather than 19 year olds with 251 hours who are hours building towards a commuter airliner job. But these older guys won't work for peanuts, so the system produces monkeys.

Pilot Skills mixtures
 

I have 40+ years jets with mostly B737 Fkr 100 in the last 25

I have never flown an airbus but have played with the sim a little and thought about it afterwards

It seems to me that all pilots need a mixture of skills and knowledge which varies with their particular situation. We bring the our own set with us when we join a fleet and the trainers adjust it to fill the percieved need.

For the B737 it was mainly watch look act but I think the skill set required with an airbus changes subtly. I think the required skill set inclines much more to listen watch think think think.

The airbus was carefully designed to avoid pilots making stupid errors which most of will given a fair oppportunity under pressure. This results in a falacy that the aircraft can be designed to avoid mistakes.

Pilots then fall for this story, because in the main it is true, and then the one in a million situation strikes when you have fully aquired the "aircraft must be right" habit

The new, modern, cheap solid state IRS's that come in modern smart phones are not required. Modern jets have 3 or more "Real", no $%#@t certified 3 axis accelerometers and gyroscopes called IRS's or IRU's. On a Scarebus, if you call up the "bird", you have instantaneous AOA info. The pitch difference between your "bird" and you pitch bars is - tada - your AOA. A HUD would be nice, but you have the same exact display on your PFD. On a HUD it is just overlaid on the outside world. Awesome for TO and landing, but at 35K feet the PFD works just as well.

The pilots had everything they needed, including the procedures in FCOM. Most "unreliable speed" crashes have happened on TO. It is VERY diffucult to diagnose in that case. Is it unreliable speed? Windshear? At 35K, level flight, autopilot and autothrust on it is not that difficult, and a trained event on all A320 and above airbus aircraft.

Pilot error and systemic pilot training error. This should not have happened.

Yep the pilots screwed up because they didn't know how to fly. There are quirks in FBW Airbus aeroplanes that can confuse the issue (I'm an Airbus guy but I'm sure other types have challenging areas as well, most aircraft do). The Thales pitot tube fiasco is a disgrace. The airlines hire cheap inexperienced guys, don't train them properly, continue to drive down T's and C's discouraging experienced guys from joining or remaining.

All true but none of it the root cause. To me that is the certifying and licencing authorities. They set the rules of this game and they have not being doing their job properly for years. Someone asked if we can expect to see accident rates start to rise. You better believe it. It's not going to happen quickly, but as experience and skill trickle out of this industry it is certain to happen. At the moment the effects of inadequate design and training are being masked by the experienced operators still flying the line.

The public think our job is easy (these things fly themselves don't they), and that current safety levels are "normal" or "natural". Flying is inherently unforgiving and risky. We have systems in place to control that risk, and those systems must be continuously reviewed and updated.

It would appear to me that those in charge now don't understand what made saftey improve over the last sixty odd years and are now actively dismantling these systems. Did I mention EASA?

The muppet show with its French Director?

@USMCProbe
 

The point was not about pilots not having accelerometer derived speed data as part of IRS/INS but about the automatics completely relying on pitot tubes and not being redundant and using accelerometer calculated speed as backup. From engineering point of view, loss of Pitot tubes does not really require disconnecting the automation but someone somewhere made the decision (or formal regulations) that this is what is supposed to happen.

Someone has to make a decision here - either make the automatics more redundant or require the pilots to regularly practice without it.

This feature is intended to keep the STALL warning from triggering continuously while rolling on the ground. The speed threshold has been set so low (<60 knots) that it can only be exceeded while on the ground, there is no way you can slow down that much while airborne, not with such a plane. This assumes of course that you have reliable airspeed data, if you have a UAS condition than anything goes and such a failsafe can itself become an issue . As has already been suggested by other posters it would make sense to make STALL warning suppression entirely dependent on WoW status and do away completely with any speed threshold. If your wheels are on the ground then a stall condition becomes meaningless as you're not actually flying, if you're still airborne then a STALL warning should never be suppressed, regardless of the (possibly unreliable) IAS readings.

Regardless of the above I find it hard to believe the hypothesis -- because that's all it is, unfortunately we cannot ask the pilots what was actually going through their mind but can only formulate hypothesis -- that they went back to pulling on the stick because when they pushed the previously suppressed STALL warning became active again. To do so would go against basic training principles that are engrained in any pilot, even a lowly PPL, namely that when stalled pulling will only put you deeper into the stall, only pushing can get you out of it. The only situation where this would not be the case is when flying inverted, but I'm pretty sure the AF pilots were not confused to the point of believing that their plane had turned upside down.

The symptoms of a full stall are fourfold viz nose pitch down, heavy buffet, high rate of descent, possible wing drop - one of the big clues other than attitude should have been high rate of descent - have never thought much of efis VSIs - the old display was far more noticeable.

Of course amount of buffet depends on type etc.

But the error chain started the moment the nose pitched up - basic flying says maintain the correct attitude.

I still don't understand something which I hope you airliner pilots can answer, please. For my IMC rating (it's a UK-only qualification with very limited privileges that allows IMC flight), I was taught (over simplifying slightly for discussion) that if you don't know what is happening with the airspeed, set cruise power and put the AI in the middle with the wings level and things will settle to a point where you are in control again. Does that work at M0.8 at FL350?

A lot of good discussion points here

but

the issue is how to address these conerns whether you assign the causes to the crew or the airplane.

In the long run of time neither will be perfect, ever.

It's impossible to train for every specific malfunction as it is impossible to annunciate every specific malfunction. Somehow there must be a balance.

You simply decide how to minmize against what you think might be the next occurence.

Pretty much. First you have to recognise that you have a problem. Then you have to have an idea of an appropriate cruise power setting (years of automated flight and non-moving thrust levers tend to erode that awareness), and you may have to manually trim (not instinctive for some Airbus pilots).

However, in my experience, most Airbus pilots have zero experience of hand flying the aeroplane above about 10k, never mind at high level. This deficit is not compensated for in the simulator, where most excercises are conducted below 10k, hey ho.

did the pilots diagnose "unreliable air speed"? did they comprehend it?
 

The basis of these points have been with the industry for some time, but perhaps they have not been heeded:- Errors in Aviation Decision Making.
Pilots either don’t understand the situation, or if understood chose an inappropriate course of action.

Hopefully this unfortunate accident will reinvigorate the need to further understand and address many human performance issues in awareness and decision making, and generate an impetus for change.
The task would be to improve skills of situation assessment and judgement, not only for the pilots, but also operators, designers, and regulators.
The aim – perfection, may be unattainable; but achievement of consistent high standards of behaviour which together with safety barriers should help the industry maintain and improve a very good safety record.
The activity is that of change – in the way we think about safety, the role of the human, automation, training, and regulation. With change there is risk, these have to be managed and balanced with cost.

The AF447 accident seems to have more than a few similarities with a lesser recent incident on the London Underground

Rail Accident Investigation: Report 13/2012

Simplistically, a train managed to depart a station into the tunnel with the doors open.

Now of course, that's interlocked multiple different ways to be impossible ...... but a whole range of failures and difficulties over the previous 10 minutes, brand-new, all-electronic, latest-technology train, recent software updates, inadequate and conflicting error messages, misunderstood and rarely used manual overrides, etc, culminated in the driver (who normally does nothing more than oversee the automatics) of several years experience losing situational awareness.

Sound familiar ?

Maybe in some respects we are over training pilots - there seem to be an obsession these days for all sorts of mnemonics and very structured procedures which can in fact obscure priorities.

As I say "Flying is very simple but there are a lot of people around trying to make it as complicated as possible".

As part of the act of "dumbing down" of the profession maybe we are relying too much on the procedural aspects (slavish adherence to SOPs etc - yes, I know, we need them!) - almost like "painting by numbers" so much so that when pilots are faced with something "unusual" they become lost.

Dare I say those of us who were brought up on basic a/c with basic autopilots (no autothrust or FMC or EFIS) were "hard wired" for manual flight. We may be a bit rusty but it's no big deal if we have to hand fly. The modern generation of pilots have not got this framework to fall back on when it's all falling apart.

Am reminded something my father (who was a veteran light a/c instructor) said to me "Masters practice fundamentals every single day - look at an accomplished concert pianist who will practice scales every day". If we want pilots to be masters of their trade then they have to be given the opportunity to practice basics on a regular basis.

nine minutes of dumb.
 

three brains stopped working for three minutes, nine minutes of dumb.

@soylent green
I would hesitate to say the airplane did not give them the message, the wind noise level at 60kts would be appreciably different to 500kts...? Or is it? - I'm unsure. I think that point was discussed way way back.

But full thrust plus rapid descent is a mushing stall. I think their critical skills froze under pressure of the unfamiliar. I suppose they don't spend enough enroute time rehearsing emergencies. Better than snoozing and keeps boredom away. I want to feel safe up there.

At the end of the day the real problem is frightening...

Flying a functional airplane is inherently simple.

Now landing an airplane (or taking off) is infinitely more complex and challenging. This reality is reflected in the relevant incident and accident rates. An autopilot as originally conceived was designed to minimize pilot workload during the safest part of the flight with the goal of maximizing pilot awareness and efficiency when it counted...during the final phase of the flight.

The AP was never intended to replace the pilot...yet we have the AP flying the aircraft for 99% of most flights. In this particular instance we finally reached a point where the PF & PM were collectively unable to fly a functional airplane with a completely manageable technical issue that had occurred on type numerous times and was well documented.

The complete lack of professionalism demonstrated via the transcripts clearly indicates a systemic problem in the training/CRM for AF. The reality that the problem is widespread enough to place to completely unqualified individuals in the wrong place at the same time is a clear warning sign that the entire training and screening process needs to be reviewed.

@nine minutes of dumb
 

The transcript is a riot. No wonder it was claimed to be such an offense for it to be leaked. Almost as "good" as the one from (my favorite) Smolensk:

However, the dumb dumb dumb idea of ("dual input") averaging the stick inputs without even providing the feedback to the other pilot is stupid. How come force-feedback is almost expected for good computer game console but not for a giant jet? I would argue that both Airbus and AirFrance should pay through the nose for this adventure. Airbus for designing a plane that allowed one pilot to do something completely stupid without the other knowing about it, AirFrance for the "performance" of the pilots.

The second screwup is designing a jet where everyone almost assumes (they should not assume that) is going to be flown almost entirely on automatics and then dropping off automatics at the slightest problem (in this case iced up pitot tubes) as if it required the same drastic response as say collision warning, thus forcing pilots into the situation they obviously have not been trained for.

Complete FUBAR.

Air France 447 Flight-Data Recorder Transcript - What Really Happened Aboard Air France 447 - Popular Mechanics

@fireflybob
 

Dumbing down pilots is the result of a fashion in all technology nowadays which is about "idiot proofing" everything according to dreams of marketeers and not engineers.

I am not a pilot but I am an engineer and I have spent good part of my life opposing this concept. It's not about automatics or no automatics but about who designs it. The true goals of automation are rarely simplicity and sense and more often stupidity of short-sighted profit. Meaning it is mostly designed by idiot marketeers and not engineers.

To adapt a joke about the issue:
Marketeer: This plane is by far our most pilot-friendly. It has only one button and we push it for you at the factory.

This is all industry-wide problem. In automotive industry, for example, they specifically designed all car automatics in a way that only the dealer can service even the simplest problem. The goal is profit not safety or sense.

Sorry, i don´t agree.
Why were they at that position at that time?
Other flights, e.g. IB, diverted miles to the east.

That´s when/where it started!!

Automation Complacency
 

What worries me as your average SLF, is that the FBW / computer systems on commercial aircraft are apparently almost totally dependent on a single instrument, namely the pitot tube.

Is their no backup system available in the event of pitot tube failure?

With the technology available today, surely there is an alternative means available for an aircraft's computer system to establish it's airspeed without simply disconnecting the AP?

This situation began because the AP disconnected, and the situation degraded because the pilots did not understand what was going on.

Pilot error is surely a factor in this case, but a more significant factor is the failure of aircraft manufacturer's to recognise that automated systems should be designed as an adjunct to a pilots flying skill and training, and not as a substitute for it.

Your assumption that in a crisis situation a pilot will revert to training is false. The PF pulled back on the stick not because he was confused but because he was biased.

The 'startle effect' is an example of the over arching mental heuristic known as the recency effect. A different but related error is the primacy effect. The report makes clear that the pilot was primed to take the plane up because of the anxiety he had expressed about the plane's flight level prior to the incident. He went up because he wanted to go up; his training be damned.

The transcript makes clear the consistent incomprehension the PF had regarding the situation. Despite this incomprehension he still acted. He may not have acted on his training. It makes perfect sense that when confronted with conflicting and confusing stimuli he fell back on his pre-existing albeit erroneous mental model that the plane needed to go up.

You're correct, of course, that this remains a hypothesis since we cannot read his mind. Yet all hypothesis are not created equal and based upon what an extensive amount of science teaches us about human behavior it is a rational, reasonable, and quite plausible hypothesis.

Please explain how your 10-times-as-accurate "solid state sensors" will determine airspeed--the salient part of that word being "air."

Well, yes there is. The other 2 pitot tubes. Trouble is when there is a common problem affecting mroe than 1 :*

Your 2 statements do not quite add up :ugh:

The AP disconnected precisely because 'that automated systems should be designed as an adjunct to a pilots flying skill and training' occurred - the AP was not able to determine what was happening to a sufficient degree - the system designers / regulators decided that was a point to hand it back to the crew.

Now as you say 'and the situation degraded because the pilots did not understand what was going on' and that is an issue for training / skill / practice. Now I fly "made in Tolouse" products for a major European airline, LHS for nearly 10 years. I do not recall one sim training session where I was "persuaded" to be distracted / looked down / pretend dozed off, and then given the aircraft in an unusual attitude, with some systems / insts failed, and told to resolve it *. I do recall being given some very gentle stall recoveries to perform, precisely, with a detailed brief in the minutes before "to address the AF issue" (all systems working except in Altn law) :ooh:

* The sort of UP recovery every RAF student pilot started doing at ~25hrs and in every IF training trip / test thereafter.

I think (as a SLF) -- this is a problem inherent in multitasking. You cannot fly a plane and troubleshoot a plane at the same time. Humans just are not very good at this kind of thing. Not with a million confusing messages popping up.

One moment they are bored half to death next thing you know all hell is breaking loose...

@stepwilk
 

Already did, here:


http://www.pprune.org/rumours-news/4...ml#post7280726

Pitot tube is really an archaic sensor that is used in aviation (in my view) only because of historic and bureaucratic reasons. They continue to use it in spite of constant problems with it - ice and bugs clogging it and causing crashes.

To begin with, Pitot tube does not even measure directly any kind of flow but pressure difference. To calculate some sort of flow/speed out of it you need to know current air density.

Pitot tube - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

On top of it all, the pressure difference measured by Pitot tube depends on angle of attack, which adds even more problems.

On the other hand, hot-wire mass flow sensor reading is directly what you need for better control of flying condition as it it the mass of the air flown around the wings that gives the lift. Or in other words - thinner air gives you smaller lift than thicker air at the same speed. Using this sensor in vacuum would give you zero flow reading and zero aerodynamic lift even if you were going at a very large speed.

Meaning, if this technology was known from the start, that's what would have been used - because it directly measures what is needed to maintain required aerodynamic lift.

Hot wire mass flow sensors are used in every car produced today. It is a well-known technology.

Mass flow sensor - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

As SLF also, I understand that standard aviation practice recognises this and that this is why the PF is supposed to fly the plane while the PNF does the troubleshooting. In the case of AF447, this division seems to have been muddled.

Is it normal to have 3 pilots on a trip of this length?

YES, about 12h flight time.

testpanel, good point - or you could say is started by not fitting the new pitot heads. Aircraft have been flying around for decades with pitot heads fitted that don't ice up - I find it difficult to believe that a modern aircraft of this complexity was not fitted with pitot heads that did not ice up!

VC10man, yes - it's a function of the duty time - above a certain figure (depends a bit with operator and Flight Time Limitation scheme) you are required to have a "heavy" crew.

I'm a private pilot with a visual rules rating. Having watched programmes on TV about air disasters, I don't understand why so many accidents have happened to commercial pilots not recognising a stall situation, or were unable to recover from the situation.
Does relying on instruments, when piloting commercial flights, take away the skills that were learnt during basic training?

Is that "unusual" to lost Pitots indications ?
Is that "unusual" to lost an engine ?
Is that "unusual" to lost part of hydraulic power ?
Or is that "unusual" to fly the aircraft manually ?

I was wondering how many alternatives to the Pitot tube sensor there are and what would be the pros & cons? Apart from the hot wire method there are also ultrasonic sensors similar to the Curtiss-Wright type. Considering the reliability inherent in modern electronics surely there must be a cost effective & viable alternative to the Pitot tube.

TOGA bury the stick & everybody else
 

Airbus makes a fine, technologically advanced and safe jet. I've never flown one, never had the opportunity.

I had an Airbus captain in the jumpseat and asked this individual about his high altitude stall recovery training. The answer I got was that the Airbus will always beat my jet's performance because to escape a ground proximity warning they can engage TOGA and apply maximum pitch input (bury the stick) and the airplane will not stall. After all you can't stall an Airbus.

The answer did not address my question about Airbus' high altitude stall recovery training. Perhaps there was/is no Airbus high altitude stall training. With all due respect; selecting TOGA and burying the stick will not solve every problem. This leads us to the post two positions aove mine where a pilot in training asks the question if becoming a professional pilot causes one to forget/lose their basic flight training background in stall recognition and recovery. How do we answer the question?

Every aircraft in flight is capable of being stalled. It takes the right combination of events and/or circumstances. The idea that " XYZ" aircraft is incapable of being stalled should be eliminated, it is a dangerous error in thinking.

Advanced aircraft, avionics, and ratings do not invalidate basic aeronautics. If the airfoil is stalled then the angle of attack must be decreased to regain laminar airflow to get that airfoil " flying" again.

There are not two sets of basic aerodynamics: one for Private pilots and the other for us commercial pilot " professionals".

Thou shalt maintain thy flying speed, lest the ground (or sea) rise up and smite thee.

For airspeed a qualitative 'sanity' check would be Ground Speed from GPS. If both airspeed and ground speed are around 40kts then it supports a diagnosis of stall unless you believe in 300kt wind. To that end the PAX could have seen the GPS speed decay from 400kts to 40kts in the GPS in the seat back - very sad.
The PF had less than 2 years ATPL, I recall his wife was on board. Perhaps many with similar training/experience would do the same or worse in this nightmare scenario. The ultimate responsibility lies with the capt.

Sad but true.

Personally, I flew A300/320family and A340 for a major EU carrier.

NEVER EVER had high altitude stall recovery training.

Only in the beginning training on A300 some approaches to stall below 10k feet were done.

@Mike744
 

Pitot tube was invented in year (get this) 1732 so it is quite safe to assume we did learn a thing or two about better ways to measure gas flows since then; :)

Pitot tubes allowed to measure approximate air-speed without need of electronics or even electricity (except for heating the damn thing) and thus were a great tool from the very beginning of aviation.

Original Pitot tube provided two pipes with static and dynamic/impact pressures that were connected to a mechanical gauge where the different pressures acted upon a membrane that was driving a air-speed gauge needle.

See this Popular Mechanics article from 1944.

Popular Science - Google Books

This isn't to say that everything that is that old must automatically be bad - but the problem is that all countries have aviation laws that specifically require Pitot Tubes and other such archaic things and it simply seems easier to throw some electronics into 300 year old sensor than to change all the laws, I think.

So, "modern" Pitot tubes no longer output their readings in form of two hoses but have a silicone pressure sensor instead - and this is the extend of the "innovation" in the aviation sensor field.

On the other hand, in cars you can now find all different types of mass flow electronics.

SLF here.

I've read and reread the CVR several times now. There are a couple of things that were occurring on the flight deck that I really do not understand.

On several occasions the PNF points out to PF that he is ascending and that he should push the nose down to enable a descent but to do so "gently!". PF then responds that he's descending. (PNF also points out the decaying forward speed of the aircraft to PF.) But PF really isn't descending as he's merely eased up the back pressure on the stick. PF then states "we're in a climb." At this point the PNF attempts to summon the Captain back to the flight desk.

After announcing that he no longer has control of the aircraft the PNF takes control and proceeds to pull back on the stick. Even after suggesting a descent - but "gently!" - to the PF.
ter PNF took control the PF took control back and the Captain appeared on the flight deck with the words "What the hell are you doing?"

PNF states "Climb... climb.... climb" to the PF whereupon, finally, PF states that he's had the stick back the entire time.

The captain then says "no... no... no. Don't climb. No... no... no"

After this seeming command PF continues pulling back on the stick anyway.

So, after having received several suggestions or seeming commands to put the nose down, PF continues pulling back anyway. This is a huge interconnect between what he's being told and what he's actually doing. Can it be that at this point in the situation the PF is actually in panic mode and is merely doing anything he can think of without forethought as to what it is he was actually doing? Similar to the flight or fight method of dealing with extreme/dangerous situations? It almost seems as if the PF has temporarily lost all semblance of situational awareness, including what is being suggested/commanded to him.

Hey, not a pilot here, just curious ... is there any technology in existence or under development that could relay air speed to pilots from GPS technology? For example, a GPS device on board an aircraft would interact with either fixed ground stations or satellites in defined locations, and this interaction would yield an air speed? I would imagine (in my rather non-technical haze) that such technology could also be adapted to read out the pitch or AOA, all of which would render these pitot tubes obsolete?

I would just like to urge all Airbus pilots to read BEA's AF447 Final Report. It is an education, plugs holes in our understanding and illuminates many areas left grey or fuzzy by our training. It took me about 7 hours to read and made me more aware than ever that aviation is still very much a work-in-progress, that there are still major problems or deficiencies in design, regulation, company procedure, training, checking, simulators, flight safety reporting, ATC infrastructure, ergonomics, even in meteorological knowledge. Once again good and honest pilots and people have perished so that the rest of us can live and learn.

If the PF in the right seat, once the AP disconnected, had done nothing except hold the wings level and the pitch at 2.5 degrees until the ADRs kicked in again with some sensible readings, for about 60 confusing, ECAM flashing seconds, we probably wouldn't have even heard about it. All the PNF had to do was silence the bloody aural, disconnect the FDs and monitor the pitch and roll on his PFD like a hawk.

It took me 7 hours to read the Report and discover why that didn't happen. Of course anyone on PPrune who has followed the threads and read the Preliminary and Interim Reports would already know most of it but the Final puts a lot of flesh and insight on those bones.

My own area of concern is the absence of a Captain on the flight deck and the Report has quite a lot to say on the subject, including a CRM Training recommendation. Personally, I don't think it goes far enough. I believe the travelling public, once the Long Haul stuff started, has been short changed by the operators. For economic reasons, they deemed, with the blessing of the Authorities, that **** only happens below FL200 and that there were no status and role problems with two F/Os sitting together in the cruise. I am afraid AF447 calls that comfortable assumption into question. **** certainly can happen above FL200 and, for the AF skipper, it happened very fast. One and half minutes, to be precise.
I believe a pilot with the status, role, rights and duties, and salary, of a Captain should be in the left seat of an aircraft at all times. Period. Try convincing those surrounding the President of even the most impoverished banana republic that it is OK, in cruise we don't have the money to pay for a full Captain to be on the watch. Flying 300 passengers safely, to the best working practice possible, is flying 300 Presidents. This argument has nothing to say about the proficiency or professionalism of F/Os, which is taken for granted and may well exceed a Captain's. It is simply about responsibility, about having a legitimate person in the hot seat for when and where the buck stops. CRM improvements, more emphasis on briefings, more training for F/Os, all suggest some mystification at work to conceal a less than optimum crew configuration.

I was a bit surprised by how the Report quickly covered the analysis of the failure of the crew to recover from the stall once the horizontal stabiliser had reached its 13 degrees position, presumably still in Alternate 2B law. What could have been done, were the Elevators enough, was Auto Pitch trim still available? I would have expected a recommendation for some very defined jet upset training procedures.

But my main purpose here is not to initiate debate or even to ask any questions. I would simply urge you to read this Report if you are an Airbus pilot. For what it's worth, I have 12 years flying A330/340, 27000+ hours, and 2 months to go to retirement at 65. As a pilot I have always strived for excellence and only ever achieved average. And this Final Report has taught me a lot.