" FAA concerned about increase in manual handling errors"
 

News: FAA concerned about increase in manual handling errors

Good approach IMHO, no fancy "heroic" stuff, just practising manual flying in everyday operations when it's safe to do so.

Strictly forbidden by my last employer.

I'm not practising, I'm "exercising my manual flying skills". I like it. :ok:

Therein lies the rub, folks. Unless regulators are willing to compel airlines to do this, then it's all just fancy words.

Really??? At any moment sir you should have competent control of your aircraft under manual operation.

What disgusts me is that it is so clear that aircraft manufacturers have been allowed to cater to liability free operation through the sale of automation. They also sell aircraft that require less maintenance to maintain automation at what I feel is a lesser standard leaving the operator with more responsibility and less help.

From the pilots aspect the above is clear. From the mechanical as an aircraft ages it degrades and support for troubleshooting degrades with it as they wan the aircraft to become less reliable forcing a new aircraft purchase to bring the numbers up.

Damn, I am ranting again. Suppose I miss the classics.

Grounded27, please exhibit a bit of balance. We do not shut down engines at V1 on revenue flights so that I can maximise my manual flying skills. For the same reason it is unwise to handfly when safety is significantly degraded eg high-traffic, bad weather scenarios.

That said, there are many, many situations where valuable and meaningful manual flying can be conducted quite safely. That was the point Armchairflyer was making.

The FAA identified “an increase in manual handling errors”.

Well congratulations! Hasn’t this been endlessly reported by older pilots for years now? It’s just that if the regulator allowed the operators to subdue such internal reports and itself didn’t want to listen to these voices for ages. It would have meant a) work and b) hurt some buddies in management of the airlines.

The FAA suggests “maintaining and improving the knowledge and skills for manual flight”.

Well congratulations again! At the same time the regulators approve such a stupid syllabus as the MCC. A blatant contradiction exposing this new article as hollow speech. You cannot maintain what has not been learnt! At the same time you cannot improve where there was no basic ground work, and installing the basics should definitely not be done on line.

The FAA “recommends to all operators to take an integrated approach by incorporating emphasis on manual flight operations into both line and flight training”.

That’s a start. However, a regulator should not only “recommend”, knowing quite well that the holy beancounters in operations just laugh at recommendations. They should “oblige” airlines to write such emphasis into their OMA, otherwise it simply stays hollow speech.
But the regulator shoud definitely make a higher basic skill mandatory for any commercial licence. Minimal flight hours with well defined training, like i.e. a minimum of aerobatics, and then finally scrap hoax syllabi like the MCC for heaven’s sake!

I would wish that the FOs joining airlines had a much higher proficiency. I am sometimes in complete disarray when I see a set of almost panicking eyes to my right, when I propose a visual into a beautiful island airport with severe cavok threatening for the next few days. They only come back to normal life when you take controls for a few moments to allow them to set up the FMS for a 5 mile parallel downwind leading into a 10 mile final and the ILS underlying as back-up.

Please FAA, either do it right or don’t elaborate on the subject at all.
The actual approach is simply a fig leaf to pretend doing something.:ugh:

MCC
 

The FAA has never subscribed to the MCC load of crap. That was a European thing. The FAA increased the minimum to be a co-pilot to 1500 hours. I would rather have a 1500 hour banner tower than a 250 hour MCC pilot next to me.

My humble point was indeed that simply focusing on everyday practice in the daily work environment instead of more fancy settings seems like a useful and realistic approach to me. Of course one can ask for top-gun line pilots who (after grueling selection and hypertough training) could safely pick up handkerchiefs with their wingtip (inverted in case of good weather), hand-fly a CAT III approach in a snowstorm on one engine and standby instrumens, and ace the most challenging sim exercises blindfolded, one-handed, and with ping-pong balls thrown at them while the check pilot belts out "You’ve lost that lovin’ feelin’". But somehow I feel that concentrating on just being at ease with normal manual flying in day-to-day operations whenever the situation permits without nibbling away at any safety margins is the more promising approach.

Of course, a bit more impetus in this direction (as Gretchenfrage put it: "oblige" instead of "recommend") might indeed be necessary to realize any potential benefits, otherwise it will partly remain "strictly forbidden" in favor of bottom line and bonuses for the company's next quarterly report.

My mistake, sorry FAA.

How about banning MCC pilots from flying into the USA?
There are blacklisted airlines, so the same could apply to inadequately trained pilots.

Playing devil's advocate, the manufacturers are only giving the operators what they asked for. Each phase of automation from the early gyro units to the modern FMS autopilots has statistically improved safety and reliability, so the operators asked for more with each generation. That the operators didn't take into account the need for pilot training to increase as more time was spent in George's hands is largely on them. This process was exacerbated by a shift in management experience - as the old guard, who were usually in aviation all their careers, retired and were replaced by people who were straight out of the MBA school.

The FAA requiring 1500 hours to be FO is a sledgehammer to crack a nut!

In a well regulated environment 250 hour cadets can and often are just as competent as anyone else.

Extra hours in the logbook is useful but it's not the only parameter that counts.

250 cadets in a B738 after a thorough training are fine. What scares me are 3000hr captains who have also been through the same robotic trained monkey training scheme and nothing else. The basic course for cadets is procedures, procedures and more procedures. Flying and thinking and making decisions outside SIP's is not included. I'm not sure how much of that is included in the command course either. It's the future of cockpit experience that concerns me more than the present. Unfortunately the future is always built on the present.

Rat 5 is right, a 3000 hr Captain can get there having never gone around, never landed in a dark and stormy night onto a short slippery runway, never had an autopilot kick out because it can't cope, never had an FO put the wrong rudder in at 20 feet. You can only hope that they gain that experience slowly before they are tested on it quickly.

Is the FAA holding the wrong end of the elephant ?
 

The FAA safety message is somewhat illogical. The need to address manual handling errors is based on an analysis of normal operations, incidents, and accidents. Yet errors are to be expected; it is the severity of the outcome and underlying cause which demands action. No such reasoning is stated in the SAFO.

Incidents and accidents receive most attention as generally the outcome of ‘error’ in these was more severe (consequential) than in normal operations. Yet a cursory review of ‘handling’ incidents / accidents shows a range of situations; many involved system failures or abnormal operations, and many with adequately trained and experience crews. There were some self-inflicted incidents/accidents, but these and the ‘failures’ all have a common theme relating to understanding the situation (including weather and workload); either in failing to avoid hazardous conditions, failure to appreciate the situation or previous error, or failure to choose or act on a safe course of action.

Requiring pilots to have more manual flight time may help maintain professional standards, but will it address the needs relating to the ‘manual handling errors’. Are we expecting plots to make errors so to practice recovery from the error?
Manual flight is unlikely to be conducted in adverse weather or involving high workload, or with systems failures; and obscure situational factors resulting in accidents are unlikely to be encountered. There is little evidence that crews could not have avoided or recovered from adverse situations (with existing manual flying skills) if the situation had been understood or there was a timely choice of action.

If the dominant issue is in understanding the situation, then perhaps there should be specific training targeting this issue. Manual instrument flight could help, as would wider experience of non-normal operations, e.g. go around. But even non-normal operations require good situational understanding and an apt decision to choose the manoeuvre; the skill to accomplish safe flight is secondary to awareness and choice of action; no evidence of absence of skill is provided.

The FAA has made a case for manual flight without presenting a justified basis. The interpretations in implementing the recommendations may be as wide as the range of views in this thread – but which will address the safety issue; there is a safety issue, but at which end of the elephant is it?

Amen to that. Times were that a visual approach was a relaxation of stress levels and a bit of a buzz, even fun, for all concerned. In my latter years on the line, I saw - with some surprise at first, but then with increasing alarm - that for most FOs, far from being fun, (even with the Old Fart as PF), a visual approach was an expediential INCREASE in stress levels.

I made so bold as to fly an ILS manually (before such 'high risk behaviour' was banned by my company) with a reported cloud base of 700'. (Before someone screams 'you shouldn't have done that in such conditions' - Colombo, no other traffic, good and trustworthy ATC and Met reporting.) My (Brit) FO was damn near squirming out of his seat before - I'm sure, to his utter surprise - the bloody runway appeared, right where it was expected, in the windscreen at 699'.

I have friends of my own (old) age who will argue that maximum use of automation at all times is the only way to go, but I think they're missing the point. If it's CAVOK and the traffic is light, manual flying should not just be permitted, it should be encouraged.

When it was allowed, I used to make myself do at least one raw data, no auto throttle approach a month. In my experience, those who did this didn't need to, while the opposite applied, almost without exception, to those who didn't.

It might happen just once in a forty year career - but it only takes once - when the automatics let you down. Every pilot owes it to himself to have developed - and maintained - the skills that will allow him to cope with that highly unusual situation.

Sofaman;

Nicely put. Just that "whenever the situation permits" is less and less an option these days. We're not flying DC 3's anymore. This is the era of RNP/RVSM/ Crowded ATC/Low cost carriers filling the skies. Manual flying, as we used to know it, is no longer feasible, especially for long haul operators; Just invites you to the office for tea and biccys for some violation or other, be it company ops or ATC.

Like it or not, we are in the autopilot era, and so be it. However, I do wholeheartedly agree that manual flying skills need to be reinforced. I have preached ad nauseam on this forum that this should be done in the sim and not on day to day line ops. However, sim training these days seems to focus on LOFT exercises.

Jeez, on one LPC. we spent 1 hour doing low vis taxi around AMS followed by full de-ice procedures before getting airborne! What a waste of sim time. This sort of stuff should be reserved for the MFTD. Full flight sim time should involve more raw data manual flying business; that's where you find out if guy's still have the "Right Stuff", but then, in many companys that may not be politically correct or accepatable (too many failures?)

So automation continues to rule, 24/7. That is modern day Aviation Life.

oh come on...if you are in a wx condition (other than low visibility autoland or similiar), you better damn well be able to hand fly...even an autoland may require you to manually go around or take HAND action of some sort.

I've hand flown to minimums on approaches...I've hand flown in turbulence, I've hand flown at max authorized altitude (remember when that was called ''service ceiling"?) and I wouldn't be worthy of the name PILOT unless I could do it.

what the freaking thing is wrong now a days.

Autopilots were a luxury for my first three thousand so rarely available for minimums approaches. We didn't need them because we all could hand fly well. I don't think we should now say we only need programmers, not real pilots to fly airliners. A 15 year old kid can push buttons better than most of us.

AF 447 is one example of losing or never having hand flying skills. I hope with the new FAA rules the US will not go down this slide. Sometimes automation fails, now you need a real pilot.

Hands ON
 

How right Croozin is (#16). In many cases it never happens and the nearer retirement looms, the more one hopes it never does. I had the misfortune to experience an engine failure followed by an APU glitch causing total screen loss and thus a single engine NPA on stand-by instruments – and a G/A just for good measure. My previous 8k or so hours had been on a steam driven (albeit high performance) aircraft which involved a great deal of hand flying, so it was no big deal. I was able to take a glance at the right hand seat and was rather disturbed to see a certain degree of – “disengagement?” and fear that this is the future. If hand flying is actively discouraged (and I agree with “obliged” rather than “encouraged”), then we might as well all go home and leave it to the automatics – but I do not think that there will be many passengers to pay for the bean counters’ bonus. For heaven’s sake, are you a PILOT?:ugh::{

I absolutely agree that we should all practice manual flight wherever possible. However, it needs to be said that in the modern environment we should be circumspect where we do this. In the early days, if we had a low level altitude capture for example, it didn't matter too much if we overshot by a small margin. Today we can't get away with such errors. I would suggest that if we are in a metric environment such as China and Russia, we absolutely have to engage the autopilot at minimum height. This allows the PM to monitor better and reduces the threat of setting an incorrect value.
If a SID has a low level restriction, perhaps anything less than 3000ft, we should be engaging the autopilot to better manage the level off. Complex RNAV arrivals should also be flown using all automation available.
As one post rightly stated, if you are approaching an island in CAVOK or any airport for that matter, where the weather and traffic is acceptable then we should use the opportunity to practice our hand flying skill.
My point is that I agree with all the posts so far but lets not get carried away by using poor judgement to manually fly at times when prudence dictates using the automation provided.

DME arcs are so easy. We did them every night at Kingston. The 727 would stay in a 5 degree bank on autopilot but would roll wings level if less so it was fun to do the 15 DME arc and stay within .2 miles of the arc in a constant bank at 250 knots.

This scenario happens so rarely that it is barely worth worrying about. The more concerning issue is those myriad CAVOK days where you can see the field 30 miles out, you're on vectors for an ILS, and it would frankly be a shame to let the A/P do the flying instead of taking the opportunity to shake off a little of the rust that inevitably accumulates. And yet I rarely see anyone click off the autopilot and handfly, let alone switch off the F/Ds and practice their scan. When I do, I inevitably get that suspicious "I've never seen anyone do that before, are we even allowed to do that?" look from the F/O.

I'm not talking superhero one engine out partial-panel stormy-night heroics, I'm talking about quietly keeping your skills honed when opportunity allows; you owe it to yourself and your passengers. The numerous imaginative reasons guys come up with for NOT doing this always smack of nervousness and insecurity to me, these are often guys afraid of making mistakes: but of course that's a vicious circle, the less you practice the more rusty you become, the more rusty you are the less you want to hand-fly, and it creates a self-fulfilling prophecy.

The A/P is your assistant, not the other way around!

Never a truer word. Some time ago I underwent a simulator check by a flight ops inspector as part of my annual instructor check. I hand flew the ILS and a couple of circuits. At the de-brief he wanted to know why I hand flew and I told him because I enjoy it and that was necessary to avoid being automation dependant. He was quite polite but also firm that in his opinion the automatics should be utilised fully on all sequences.

His background? Turns out he was a former 737 captain for a major domestic airline and his whole career had been an airline pilot from being a cadet. That airline pushed automatics right from the first type rating.

This introduced a breed of pilots totally addicted to button pushing because of company policy. . Of course, individual flight ops inspectors have their own opinions based upon their previous flying experience but few have the desire to buck the system and recommend that hand flying be practiced on line. Nothing will change.

The only thing to be wary of when flying at a continuous gentle angle of bank to maintain the DME arc, was the well known propensity for the artificial horizon to erect to a false horizon as the pilot levelled out.

In one such 727 incident in night IMC, the pilot conducted a continuous gentle (less than six degrees) angle of bank when turning through 45 degrees as he circum-navigated a storm over the Western Pacific near Guam.
On straightening to a specific compass heading, his AH indicated 15 degrees bank angle error which then progressively got worse to 45 degrees. The only way to rectify the situation was to pull the circuit breaker for the VG and then reset it few minutes later.

This gyro error is discussed in the Collins Radar WXR 700 Pilot Guide that says, among other things, dynamic error is caused by the gyro aligning with false gravity due to aircraft accelerations...this is an inherent limitation of gyro technology...VG errors may be caused by shallow turns, and autopilot interaction...in effect the VG aligns itself with bank angles of less than six degrees but lags due to the slowness of the erection circuit.

In other words it is better to keep the angle of bank to more than six degrees in a prolonged shallow turn (such as a DME arc, otherwise there is the potential for pilot disorientation in IMC when a false bank angle occurs on the ADI. We are talking about old aircraft with `steam driven` ADI's.

You must have read my mind! Friend of mine was flying a 737 into Sydney (Australia) on a CAVOK day and approaching the localiser on a visual approach. The AP was engaged. The F/O was PF and asked the captain if he minded if he (the F/O) switched off the AP to practice hand flying as he had a simulator test coming up. The captain said no problem - be my guest. But the F/O did not switch off the AP and they were getting near the ILS centre-line at 10 miles out. The captain asked when the F/O was going to switch off the AP. The F/O replied not yet because I need it to intercept the ILS localiser first. Eventually the F/O was persuaded to turn off the AP but he then left the FD on.

The captain said why not turn off the FD seeing as you have an instrument rating test coming up where you will be required to demonstrate a raw data ILS? The F/O said I may need the FD for a GA? The captain replied you don't need the aid of the FD for a GA under these conditions. Reluctantly the F/O switched off the FD and a perfectly normal ILS was hand flown without the aid of the FD.

Later the captain asked where the F/O had undergone his 737 type rating as he was obviously a bit twitchy about flying CAVOK on a visual hand flown approach. Turns out the third party simulator provider taught full automatics from the very first simulator session.

This is why, when I'm at work I like hearing those 3 magic words from pilots - "Request visual approach"

BMI Baby crews used to do it quite often in the evenings as soon as they became number 1 in sequence. I hear a few Atlantic Airlines pilots do it but not many others at all (bar the flying school of course) which is a shame as the RYR cadets spend a week here just flying visual circuits all day in a B738 but I havent once heard a scheduled RYR flight go visual, only ever remaining on the RADAR vectors.

Do you work at a airport with terrain significantly higher than the airport within the terminal area, say within 30 miles? If so, some companies don't want their crews doing visuals at night at such airports.

Of course airlines arent going to like their pilots doing that when automation is available

But why shouldn't they? The Pilots are supposed to be capable of doing it otherwise what would they expect to do if the FD/AP drops out?

In my mind there's only one way to stay proficient at that sort of flying and that is to physically do it in a real aircraft. Sims may be getting more and more realistic but there's no substitute for being strapped into a real aircraft.

My major US airline had no restrictions on manual flying unless it was lower than Cat 1 approach minimums. We used AP and AT and FD only as a convenience or to reduce work load, our choice. We could dispatch with all three inop and climb to any altitude we wanted to when I was flying. I know now RSVM requires it but I retired just before it began in the US in 2003. Not letting pilots hand fly because of SOP's is asking for trouble.

Simply put, the best way to minimize manual handling errors is...to practice manual handling...within one's own envelope of limitations. That envelope will almost certainly expand as one becomes familiar with the concept. If the person in the seat is too lazy or inept to do that, then he/she should seek another occupation where whining excuses are held to a higher value. :ugh:

F/O: 'mind if I turn the AP off?'

Capt: 'sure; go ahead'

F/O: 'mind if I turn the flight directors off?'

Capt: 'well, I suppose so'

F/O: 'mind if I turn the autothrottles off?'

Capt: 'why do you want to do that for!?'

Mid 90's when I used to fly the 320. I realised that I hadn't hand flown the 320 for the previous couple of years, except take-off (first 400 feet) and landing (last 1000 feet). I discovered that my instrument scan had become terrible at that point.

There was a reluctance to hand fly it, partly because of company policy. Partly also because we seemed to have been brainwashed into thinking that the 320 was not meant to be hand flown. Actually, it is a very nice handling airplane.

I agree with a lot of what you said, but strongly disagree with this. Perhaps it's because my humble RJ doesn't climb as fast as your 777 (presumed from your username), but I think that a level off (even below 3000ft) hardly constitutes a high workload environment.

If I find myself screaming up at 4000fpm on a low altitude level off, adjusting the power setting does the trick most of the time.:ok:

Burnie:

True enough. But, this has nothing to do with terrain in the terminal airspace and night visual approaches. (My Post #29 to you.)

FAA concerns about manual handling errors. Sure. So i was pretty suprised to hear, that long range pilots only fly 2-3 sectors a month. Wow. And when they do so, they aren´t that much proficient as other pilots flying a beech, cessna and whatever without autopilot.

What are the discussions about flying raw data ils approaches without autopilot. Folks, do you really think that is above standard skill? Or flying without autopilot out of flight level 150. Sorry guys, people who aren´t able to do this aren't real pilots and were never screened of a professional.

I often think of the situation that my 320 looses two hydraulic systems with a engine failure and a light stall on the other engine. In fact the flight director quits the service as well as the flight path angle. For sure, we have 30 knots xwind and not much fuel. These are the situations the boys train their skills with flying a raw data sector or a visual? Come on. They should cancel their 7896 insurances which should protect us and actually never help us in out life till we die.:ugh:

Our operation asks for more airmanship: Don´t discuss terrain warnings when they come. Learn the performance of your aircraft especially on contaminated runways instead of a smooth touchdown. Be legal every time or at least try to be. Know how much fuel you need. Be a leader instead of satisfying your ego with hand flown approaches.

I wanna say: Use automatics when you need them. Fly raw data when you have fun. Because we´re pilots. But never ever say you´re more proficient than other pilots only because you fly here and there a raw data or visual with a visibility from pole to pole. :ugh:


PS: All the guys telling you, that they flew so much raw data in the early years and all pilots with glass cockpit couldn´t fly, tell them to use street maps to navigate next time instead of their little fancy gps iphone.

777B

The problem with this forum is that a lot of people post without really reading or digesting what has been previously stated. Your points just about sum up the whole issue about manual flying, i.e Yes, very necessary, but there is a time and place for everything.

Years ago, my F/O wanted to fly the whole (short) sector from one Gulf airport to another; this in the A330. Autopilot off, autothrottle off,(yes, not a disaster in the scarebus!). Nice day, no traffic, NO PROBLEM:ok:

(There IS a time and place for everything. As professional aviators, our job is to make the right choices. That's the least we can do for the fare paying punters riding down the back. The problem-as others have pointed out-is that these options are becoming fewer and fewer these days. The commercial skies are simply getting too crowded. Monitoring by all is now the order of the day, or else trouble looms. RVSM, RNP,RNAV was not an issue in the good old days; it is now, which is why most sensible operators demand full use of automation to meet the rigid standards).

Now, the requirement to keep the right side up in emergency situations is another matter entirely, and this comes down to selection and training issues. Hand flying skills per se are not the only solution. Just take a look at the accident rates of the byegone era. The Atlantic Barons were pretty well schooled in manual flying, (handicapped by high rates of mechanical failures), but control loss and CFIT were still alarmingly high.

In the military, manual instrument flying skills were mandatory for a successful career; night low level intercepts/attacks over the sea- (500 ft, 500 knots, 60 degrees angle of bank)- was not the time and place to be doubting your manual flying skills. But, well practiced as we were, we still lost good guys, for reasons unknown. Human error will always be with us, no matter what. Automation simply loads the dice in our favour.

Want to have fun and keep your hand in? Go fly a Pitts Special. (always did wonder why aeros training was not mandatory for commercial pilots:))

Most posts in this thread focus on the need for more manual flight, but few if any actually state what this will achieve in respect to the ‘manual handling errors’ analysed by the FAA.
As @ post #15, there is no data on the nature of problems which result in error; many people are guessing or linking the increased use of automation (reduced manual flight) with error, but without data and reasoned explanation, this is only supposition.

Considering that the vast majority of normal operations are flown safely, and that most of these operations involve automation, perhaps the industry should investigate what current crews do that enables them to avoid ‘manual handling errors’. Daily operations will provide far more evidence of what goes right (including recovery from error) as opposed to what goes wrong.

The industry should focus on the positive aspects of safety; how did crews avoid or recover from upset situations, manage ADC/ASI and autopilot failure, conduct check-flight stalling in high technology aircraft, and routinely fly missed approach go-around manoeuvres.

In order to understand the reasons behind what goes wrong – resulting in ‘error’, it is necessary to know what goes right and why, then compare the two cases.

According to your logic, we should investigate what people do to manage to live a happy marriage and out of that we should then better understand why some end up in violence .....

Sounds intelligent, but not very practicable. Just about as your theory.
Do not complicate things, especially when a regulator finally steps in and points to a pandemic in modern aviation.

-> The training has been diluted to the point of having airline professionals who have less total manual hours on equipment than some Cessna hobby pilot.
-> The recency in manual skills has been reduced to the last 500 feet with completely established parameters and maybe one handling sim-session with a well briefed 30 minutes of coordinated turns and a one-engine ILS approach without FD.

Please do not dress up whatever could serve as a lame excuse for such a situation by putting an intelligent sounding statistical and bureaucratic veil over the topic .... in orden not having to act.

Face it:
Today's pilots lack training and skill when the holy automatics go West.

Do something about it.:ugh:

Arc technique
 

Very good post.... In fact the taught technique of 10-15 ahead /behind the needle is for that exact reason of cutout alignment thresholds and false horizon on rollout.

However- the A330 fmgs when flying arcs depending on the range, flies them as low AOB and the stby AI will have residual bank on rollout.. It might be digital etc but has the same albeit minor issue. so not just a steam driven problem.

Similarly autothrust in holding ..... Older aircraft without autothrottle/thrust you would hold in a race track at about min drag plus ten kts... That way thrust remained constant, and speed dropped due to the turns , but stayed above min drag = lessfuel burn.

New aircraft fly min clean , or green dot in the hold and thus " throttle bash " to hold the selected speed = burn more fuel...

So some of the old technques are still valid but the history has or is getting lost ...

It is strange but, the IR has become something of a surrogate handling test. Commercial restrictions are not going to allow extra sim time or base flying that is not mandated by law and there is some extra risk in self taught training coupled with the fact that todays flightdeck automation is designed to allow safe operation in demanding airspace. If poor handling skills are an issue, the regulatory bodies should establish a mandatory handling skill test to augment the IR test.