Lack of "Basics"?

[Jaun Huw Nose]

Discuss...

[beamer]

Standard Daily Mail stuff - gloom and despondancy etc, but a degree of truth exists in the basic assertions if you fight through the hyperbole.

[Michael Birbeck]

The major premise for this article is tendentious!

Why are so many planes falling out of the sky?


This begs questions like:

• What constitutes "so many"?
• Over what period does this article measure the number of accidents?
• How does the number of accidents in the selected period vary from historical figures in similar statistical studies using similar samples?
• Does this article exclude aircraft accidents that occur outside the flight regime (ignoring the imprecision and emotive nature of the term "fall")?

The list of questions could go on a lot longer. It appears that a number of high profile accidents, over an arbitary period, with no common causality have been selected here for maximum dramatic effect.

No real conclusions can be drawn from the "evidence" in this article. It will only serve to reinforce prejudices, create confusion and make the nervous even more so!

[blueplume]

The underlying assertion that there is a new generation of pilots who do not want to spend a few years flying small commuter a/c without autopilots, having to think for themselves and make commercial and practical decisions for which they are accountable is correct. Too many wish to go directly from training to heavy metal because everything else is beneath them. It's just not cool enough to be seen in anything other than an A330 or B737 NG. In my experience as somebody who has a great deal of raw data time I can see the difference in the new kids when they start. It's all about the rules and regulations but they they don't know their arse from their elbow when it comes to maintaining the centreline after take-off or flying a decent crosswind approach.
One of the most important things many have forgotten how to do and fail to appreciate the importance of is being able to make a decision and justify it afterwards. Too many are too scared about upsetting the management to fly the a/c. When it goes wrong the management blames the pilots anyway and all the things that were said off the record disappear in the dustbin.
The only thing pax and the CAA care about is that the airplane is flown safely. Company politics don't interest anyone. More pilots could do well to remember that. SOPs are great but walking away from it when things go wrong is better.

[Capetonian]

It will only serve to reinforce prejudices, create confusion and make the nervous even more so!

..... which is pretty much the 'raison d'etre' of newspapers like the Daily Mail, and it's what sells to the great unwashed.

That's why even a minor depressurisation makes inch high headlines and lengthy columns about "stricken jets plunging thousands of feet as terrified passengers gasped for air and said their last prayers for their loved ones ..."

[beamer]

BluePlume

Quite correct. Too many of the new troops are flying these aircraft by numbers. Their SOP's may be top notch but their ability to handle the aircraft is in some cases very lacking - its not their fault per se, that is how the airlines train them, that is what the national authorities seem to be happy with in the 21st century.

Sensationalist reporting by rags such as the Daily Mail does not help the issue but IT IS an issue nonetheless.

[Miles Gustaph]

I will admit that I read the first post and expected to read some Pilots are just miss-understood drivel, but I am very impressed at what is written here.

The latest EASA & FAA number show that accidents are on the rise... and the latest numbers don't cover 2009.

The "difficult" bit to understand about the latest accident stats are that Human-factors (pilot) issues are cropping up more and more & now account for the majority of incidents/accidents.

This is against the current regulatory environment that mandates CRM/Human Factors/SMS etc... which would suggest that our new all-singing-all-saving culture is bollocks.

I have done some work in this area though, and while I appreciate the comments above, and cannot in good faith argue against them, the research I have shows that the majority of Pilots believe that SOP's/CRM/Flight manuals etc are not relevant or do not cover their "job"... but have not made reports to say so... to elaborate further, of the reports made, more than three quarters of them were made by low-time pilots &/or under the age of 35.

I would therefore like to suggest that yes there may be a loss of "basics" but is is at all levels, experienced & in-experianced and that the use of mandatory/company reporting systems etc could contribute to reducing our industries accident statistics.

[MPH]

AF in the article is quoted as having a good saftey record? Don´t think so, in fact it does not have a good record at all! The stat´s are available for anyone to see. Not putting the airline down just putting the record straight!

[llondel]

One of the commenters has it worked out:

Has anyone ever questioned the UFO phenomenon and how some of these air disasters are attributed to "close encounters" with UFO's? These "alien" craft have been known to affect flight controls, and other petinent electronics systems on all types of aircrafts.

It's nothing to do with pilot training, it's all down to little green men.

[Miles Gustaph]

llondel,
another show of a lack of basics, little green men in aviation are called gremilins...didn't you ever watch bugs bunney as a kid?

[CarbHeatIn]

Ok, which one of you is married to Helen from London?

I'll prefix the following by saying I'm married to an airline Pilot and I know dozens of others so I'm not guessing when I say:

Never fly on small regional turbo-props either - much worse safety record than jets, plus (fairly or unfairly) many pilots flying theses aircraft are only doing so because they couldn't get "jet jobs" - they weren't good enough. Pilot exhaustion is also a big factor - although possibly not at the airlines you'd imagine.

Pilots I know report the lack of understanding of the aircraft from younger FOs who tend to rely on computers t rather than treating it as another aide. This is encouraged by airlines who prefer blind adherance to SOP

[Flying Torquewrench]

While I agree with some of the point raised in this article, I also have to disagree with some of the point raised by blueplume.

As we do a fair amount of heavy crew ops I have the oppertunity to look at other guys flying the machine. We do have a lot of F/O's who want to do some manual flying (raw data, manual thrust) but this is very often opposed by the captain. And we are talking about nice days with not to much traffic around and manual flying from just before being put on a intercept course for the localiser. Or even worse going into a field with nobody around an CAVOK.

So it is very easy to say that the new generation of pilots lacks basic flying and can only fly the machine through the autopilot. Part of the problem are also the skippers who don't let them fly a manual raw data approach. And the reason given is normally that the aircraft manufacturer has not installed all this shiny equipment for no reason and that it should be used.

Company policy is that we can more or less do as we want as long as it has been briefed and doesn't overload the PNF. Which seems fair to me.

[blueplume]

FT

Having lots of equipment on a/c that need it means it should be used as much as possible. This is not really an excuse for people lacking flying skills.
When Captains are reluctant to let the new kids handfly they will be doing it for a good reason because they know how difficult it can be to have to take over the workload that the computer normally has.

The level at which a pilot, PF or PNF, becomes overloaded depends entirely on the level of experience and actual conditions.

To me handflying means from take-off to landing, not merely from just before localiser intercept to landing. You've hardly got time to get it trimmed, let alone get a feel for the a/c.

As I mentioned before, the problem is that people don't spend enough time, if any, in small commuter a/c and air taxi outfits that allow them to learn about planning and decision-making as well as coping with non-Auto-Pilot a/c.
They want to get to the top without starting at the bottom and learning the skills that will stand them in good stead for the rest of their life in aviation.

Before someone throws in the old chestnut about me being bitter about not having made it to the "Big Stuff" because I didn't make it or couldn't handle it, forget it. I will be flying even bigger stuff very shortly and know what I'm talking about because I've seen it from the bottom up.

Cheers.

[beamer]

TorqueWrench

Part of the problem is that some ( repeat SOME )captains are so insecure in their own levels of experience that they are unwilling to let their colleagues handle the aircraft.

[minigundiplomat]

Ok, which one of you is married to Helen from London?


Quote:
I'll prefix the following by saying I'm married to an airline Pilot and I know dozens of others so I'm not guessing when I say:

Never fly on small regional turbo-props

Is her surname Embraer?

[poina]

Blueplume, I agree that hand flying of the a/c is the single best way to stay sharp. I used to only use autoflight in cruise on B-727, DC-8, and B-747. Of course this was years ago and the AP's didn't have full regime autothrottles, so what's the point of using them if I had to run the power anyway.
Nowdays all of that has changed and the manufacturers, and most airline ops specs want full use of autoflight from early climb until late final and autoland if visibility is in question. Couple that with RVSM level off and nav accuracy requirements and say goodbye to hand flying.
Also, it's not the line Captain's responsibility to allow the F/O to hand fly. That aircraft is flying on his ATP. Say goodbye to the good old days.

[A37575]

TorqueWrench

Part of the problem is that some ( repeat SOME )captains are so insecure in their own levels of experience that they are unwilling to let their colleagues handle the aircraft

Dead right about that. Even the first officer asking if he can turn off his own flight director in CAVOK is enough to elicit shivers of fright among SOME captains...and to actually request to hand fly an VMC ILS is tantamount to suicide. Worse still, this strange apprehension against anything apart from full automatics is seen in the simulator as well. The blame for this can be squarely sheeted home to the check captains and simulator instructors who should know better.

[Capt Pit Bull]

I'll tell you what it is. It's the lack of science at school that is making planes fall out of the sky. Lack of rigorous scientific reasoning, the conformity of box ticking derived from multi-choice exams that test memory and not scientific aptitude. No hands on experience in school practical science because of Health and Safety making it impossible. People are trained to follow rather than invent. They are not encouraged to be inventive or pushed into achieving excellence, rather they use the terminology unjustifiably, as in when so and so ticked all the right boxes and got straight 'A's. Maths is suffering badly, physics is very unpopular and the new academia is media studies.

Well let me tell you this, those people in media studies will be studying more planes dropping out of the sky. Next up will be collapsing bridges, skyscrapers falling down, car wheels dropping off at 70mph etc. You need to do stuff like calculus to avoid it but unfortunately it has been dropped from O level

Read more: Why ARE so many planes falling out of the sky? A spate of disastrous crashes reveals one terrifying common flaw... | Mail Online

Well, I have to say I'm with Paul Harris from Somerset on this one.

Its not the only cause for concern, but it's a big one. And it doesn't just apply to pilots, or even just to the aviation industry.

pb

[IGh]

Airliner UPSETs, & pilot's instinctive Back-stick

From the _Daily Mail_’s story (linked in slot#1 above), writer alludes to DL’s comments,

“... modern pilots spend the first part of training flying old-fashioned aircraft. ... then spend hours and hours in a simulator. ... however, their basic flying skills can become rusty. Instead, they become increasingly dependent on electronic aids and spend far too little time practising old-fashioned skills which they might need ...”

The above comment can be validated by a subtle, consistent over decades, instinctive, human response found in cases of mysterious airliner INFLIGHT UPSET.

For example, consider the traditional (Boeing-style) mysterious slice-to-vertical, Yaw X Roll = DIVE initial upsets (at CRZ and during APPCH). This is the exact moment when a pilot’s “instinct”, the human’s “common sense”, must be overcome -- by prior training: An unknown source induces a Yaw X Roll coupling; now, should this mishap-pilot pull back-stick to counter increasing nose-down motion during this rolling slice-to-vertical???

Below are the details [excerpts] from one typical pilot response to a typical Yaw x Roll entry into an unwanted rolling-dive. One engineer summarized the lessons by saying “don’t add Alpha during an unwanted-Beta event.” A Navy pilot related their upset mantra, “UNLOAD for CONTROL!”

Footnote 315, AAR 99-01, pg 247: ... FDR did not record aileron and rudder ... inputs at either pilot position ... FDR recorded control column position [backstick] but did not identify which pilot(s) applied control column ... [Column Force NOT recorded].

AAR 99-01, Pg 248, second paragraph:

“... After about 1903:18 (about 5 seconds before ground impact), ... breathing and speech patterns recorded by the CVR indicated that he might have been exerting strong force on the controls (as he said “pull...pull...pull”). ... likely that the first officer made the first pilot control response to the upset event....

AAR 99-01, Analysis, pg 256

2.2.2.4 “Likelihood of Recovery From a Rudder Reversal”

... the airplane began to roll to the left and ... nose down, and the control column position began to move slightly aft. Although the airplane’s left bank continued to increase ... motions and the aft control column pressure resulted in a slight increase ... to about 1.2 Gs ... the airplane ... below the airspeed at which the roll controls (aileron and spoilers) could counter the effects of the fully deflected rudder (crossover airspeed). Thus, from that time onward, it would have been impossible for the flight crew to regain roll control without increasing airspeed and/ or decreasing ... G load.

After the autopilot was disengaged ... left bank angle continued to increase and the control column position continued to move farther aft. ... increased to about 1.55 Gs. At that time, aft control column input would have been an instinctive pilot reaction to try to prevent ... nose down in a steep bank and maintain ... assigned ... altitude.

During the early seconds of the upset event, the pilots did not likely suspect that the event was anything other than a strong, but otherwise routine, wake turbulence encounter. They had no foreknowledge of a rudder reversal or rudder hardover or of the crossover airspeed phenomenon. Therefore, it is understandable that the pilots of USAir flight 427 would have, at least momentarily, attempted to maintain their assigned altitude by increasing control column back pressure. Further, it is extremely unlikely that the pilots would have been able to diagnose the relationship between airspeed, vertical G load, and the loss of control in the few seconds available to them after this back pressure brought the airplane below the crossover airspeed.326

The accident airplane’s FDR data indicated that the control column position generally continued to move farther aft as the event continued; the airplane continued to roll left and ... farther nose down, decelerated a few knots, and began to lose altitude. About 1903:08, as the airplane descended through about 5,700 feet msl, the stall warning stickshaker activated, indicating to the pilots that the aft column input was commanding an angle-of-attack near stall. However, by that time the airplane had attained an extreme attitude (about 70° left bank and more than 20° nose down), which would have been well beyond any attitude that the pilots would have experienced in air carrier operations. About 3 seconds later, when the control column reached its full aft position, the airplane’s bank ... beyond vertical (90°), and its pitch attitude had exceeded 50° below ...

Footnote #326 Boeing pilots who were evaluating the 737’s handling characteristics during post-accident flight tests identified a stronger-than-expected relationship between ... G load and the ability to overpower the roll induced by a full rudder deflection with full wheel input. The pilots reported that “there is some technique [required] between the G and the roll.”

[continuing on AAR pg 257]... in a rudder reversal scenario, the pilots of USAir flight 427 would have been struggling to cope with the rudder’s anomalous movements (in addition to the airplane’s extreme roll and pitch attitudes) when they also would have been surprised to discover that full left control wheel input was ineffective in countering the airplane’s steepening left roll. These factors combined to produce a flight situation and control problems that the pilots of USAir flight 427 had never before encountered in flight or training, including during stickshaker/stall recovery training. With this series of problems in the course of a few seconds, it is understandable that the crew was no longer responding in a manner that might have allowed recovery.[328]

Footnote #328: No reliable aerodynamic model exists for the 737’s flight characteristics in a stall; consequently, the Safety Board could not evaluate the possibility of recovery after activation of the stickshaker. The Safety Board notes, however, that if the pilots had reacted to the stickshaker by reducing aft control column pressure only enough to silence the stickshaker (as air carrier pilots are trained to do in a minimum altitude loss stall recovery), the airplane would have remained below the crossover airspeed for the existing vertical G load, and the pilots would not have regained control of the airplane.

During post-accident simulator tests, ... test subjects were able to recover from the USAir flight 427 upset ... when they applied a specific recovery technique ... forward control column ... to reduce G load and maintain a speed above the crossover airspeed) promptly when the event began. However, unlike the pilots of USAir flight 427, the simulator test subjects were aware of the circumstances of the accident, prepared for and expecting the upset event as it occurred, and coached through the recovery procedure.

When the simulator test subjects varied their responses from the specific techniques ... a successful recovery from the upset event became much less likely. Further, when ... tried to maintain altitude at the outset of the event ... speed decreased below the crossover airspeed, and recovery became unlikely....

[DBTW]

Fear

Never made it to big stuff because I wasted my youth enjoying fast single seat aeroplanes. This is probably one of the most sensibly discussed threads I have come across on PPRUNE. Well done to you all!

Think on this. The ability to fly is not a natural human trait or state. To some extent, everybody has a perfectly natural "fear of flight" response deeply embedded within their psychy. In my hardly relevant experience flying really dynamic aeroplanes, I found managing a young pilot's fear factor to be a major issue. If you want someone to do something they are basically scared of doing, you need to expose them to the apparent threat in such a way as to overcome the inherent fear. To that end, pilots under training used to have to show steadily improving levels of confidence as manoeuvres and evolutions became more and more complex.

Over the last several decades the focus of training has shifted away from dynamic manoeuvring in real aircraft towards the very much cheaper use of simulators. In this transition, the use of simulation has removed an element of the confidence growth/fear management in the student because no mistake or action can be fatal.

Whilst our levels of safety awareness have increased dramatically since WW2, the present focus on saftey by regulation, rather than safety by exposure/experience, has lead to several generations of pilots who have become so safety focused they are probably now really quite scared or anxious of absolutely anything out of the ordinary.

IGh's input above describes the failure of highly trained pilots to recognise the fact that if an aeroplane is out of control you should unload. To some extent, we find ourselves back at the beginning of flight when nobody knew how to recover from a spin! Common sense told the pilot not to move the stick forward when descending out of control. It took training to overcome that particular problem, and we can train our way out of the current dilemma.

For safety reasons, pilots need to know how to fly in a full range of dynamic situations. Think about how many pilots you know who appear threatened by the thought of having to dis-engage the auto pilot. That particular trait does not indicate a safe level of confidence to me.

Even when people fly big, technologically advanced jets they need the self confidence to be able to identify unusual circumstances, take control themselves in some manner (even if the autopilot stays on) and keep the aeroplane airborne. If people are frightened, or simply loath to making decisions, then they need more training (or to get out and let someone else in.)

Similarly, if the excuse is that the control logic of the newer aeroplanes does not readily make reversion to hand flying an obvious choice in unusual situations, then we have the technology to change the control logic! Pilots who cannot fly for any reason should not be in the cockpit.

If hand flying big jets is innappropriate for any reason, be it strange control logic or commercial, then the pilots need to regularly get themselves airborne in something they can hand fly. In my view, any actual flying experience/recency is relevant when you find yourself in an emergency. For people wary of simply getting airborne in something they can actually hand fly, it may well be the perfectly natural "fear of flight" response in action. For them my question must be, "Are you in the right job?"