Preventing the loss of pure flying skills in jet transport aircraft.

[RAT 5]

especially if it were a requirement of the XAA. This should not cost anything to do either, and whatever we do has to be accepted by the airlines as well as the pilots. So ideally it needs to be easy and cost free.

Given that some airlines encourage, actively, the development and maintenance of manual piloting skills, and some don't, the change in attitude of the latter may need a tickle of encouragement from an XAA. However, for that encouragement to be published, the XAA (EASA/FAA to make it equal for all) would need to acknowledge 'there is a problem'. I don't think pilots would object, but the blinkered airlines would howl in protest and 'being interfered with' where they believe there is no problem. They would argue that nothing was broke so no need to fix it. Their safety record would be their defence.
Regarding logging autolands: not only are they logged, but the accuracy & performance of the a/c and airport is assessed. Logging a raw data visual/ILS approach would also need an assessment of its calibre. Who does that? You or your colleague?

[wiggy]

My suggestion might just start the ball rolling and get us all thinking towards the mindset of flying manually - especially if it were a requirement of the XAA.

Agreed, now I'll post the following as long as some people don't accuse me of being...well, a certain word.

I try to grab manual flying as much as I can. As a result of a previous discussion for a while I have indeed logged manual ILS's/appoaches vs. Coupled (inc. autolands)..there, I've admitted it..

FWIW last calendar year, >850 flying hours, Long haul with a handful for "shuttle sectors"...:

Hand flown ILS's 21
Self positioned Visual approaches 2
Coupled ILS/RNAV - 12

So that's a total of 35 approaches in a year for a captain ...for the average P2 on my fleet that's going to be a lower figure due to their heavy crewing requirements.

[Uplinker]

So about two manually flown ILS's or visual approaches per month. That seems reasonable, and three per six months would appear to be entirely possible?

Hi RAT, I don't want to get bogged down with the autoland thing, but the form I am talking about was a personal record of our autolands, and all we did was record the date when we performed an autoland or a practice autoland; which airport, what the wind was and the general weather conditions. I have just had a look, but I can't find mine right now and can't remember what its CAA form number was - maybe it was only a company form. We did not assess the autoland quality, merely that we ourselves had performed one. This is not to be confused with the 'unsatisfactory autoland performance' form that you might be thinking of?

I am suggesting the same sort of form, but instead of autolands, we would record our own manually flown approaches.

They would argue that nothing was broke so no need to fix it. Their safety record would be their defence.

.....and totally unnecessary crashes due to bad manual handling such as the San Fransisco 777 (can't remember the details) and all the others would be our answer.

[RAT 5]

.....and totally unnecessary crashes due to bad manual handling such as the San Fransisco 777 (can't remember the details) and all the others would be our answer.

Agree.

[N1EPR]

How much manual flying is needed?? We all should be able to fly the a/c manually and be able to think about any problem we encounter at the same time. How much manual flying is needed to do this well vary with individuals.

The problems that we may encounter that cause the automatics to fail will be serious enough to require the intellect of both pilots to solve. If the flying pilot has to use all his mental abilities to aviate it leaves the cockpit short of the needed expertise to solve the problem.

In short the ability to aviate manually should be innate and not require all the full attention of the flying pilot. This will only be available to those that keep their scan and skills up to date.

[RAT 5]

In short the ability to aviate manually should be innate and not require all the full attention of the flying pilot. This will only be available to those that keep their scan and skills up to date.

Spot on. The tick in the box flying exercises often allowed in the sim every 3 years without any accompanying stresses come no-where near achieving the abilities you describe.
Something so simple is to practice is an ILS on the small SBY instruments. When I did my command upgrade it was an exercise in the syllabus. It was deemed that any self-respecting captain should be able to. Many of the new generation have full PFD on SBY electrics, and it would take multiple failures of electrics & screens to achieve the small SBY instruments only, but why not use it as an educating exercise to improve feel/touch & scan. You can do an OPC in quick short time and then use the rest of the 4.00hrs for pure manual flying exercises with a few simple QRH non-normals thrown in to tick those boxes. You keep flying under radar vectors and configure for the ILS while the PNF does the QRH switching under your supervision. It would teach PF AND PNF/PM to multi-task and be accurate. Just needs some imagination in writing the annual syllabus.

[Centaurus]

Many of the new generation have full PFD on SBY electrics, and it would take multiple failures of electrics & screens to achieve the small SBY instruments only, but why not use it as an educating exercise to improve feel/touch & scan

Agree. In fact, on all ILS I advise the PF to bring up the ILS up on the standby ADI.

It gives the pilot practice at switching his gaze solely from the PFD ILS display to a few inches across the instrument panel to the standby ADI where the needles may be slightly different and the nose attitude scale is very small.

Depending on the design of the instrument, the needles of the standby ADI can partially hide the horizon bar making it difficult to see the real nose attitude. Having the ILS switched on the standby ADI during every ILS, gives the pilot (left or right seat) efficient scanning practice at using the standby ADI for real if the situation ever demands it.

[PEI_3721]

.....and totally unnecessary crashes due to bad manual handling such as the San Fransisco 777 (can't remember the details) and all the others would be our answer.

This conclusion is typical of hindsight bias; humans tend to focus on the the last action or person involved in the event, thus constructing a cause based on the outcome.
Such thoughts, and being unable to remember, suggests that nothing was learnt from this incident, nothing that would apply to you ('you' in this sense is not personal, but generic; 'you' as individuals, operators, trainers, regulators, and manufacturers); i.e. it wouldn't happen to me.

Learning requires deeper thought about events. It's easy to relate outcome by looking back, instead we should try to look forward from the crew's point of view at the time and consider all that preceded the accident.
One problem is that we depended too much on official reports, which generally focus on a causal route based on 'factual' evidence. This more often hinders wider learning as the possibilities which might help avoid other accidents are not considered because they were not proven in the accident, but they may have influenced the outcome ... we don't know, but it's worth the thought.

Thus for SF 777 we could consider the influence of ATC, the approach procedure, the automation design, operator training and procedural guidance, if the crew knew about the flight system weakness, or were aware of it in this event. The latter could argue for more system implementation training and use of automation - practice in daily operations.
Which of the above could apply to you; this would be a more useful crew room discussion than that assuming an outcome, blame the human, poor manual flying, etc.

[AKAAB]

After sixteen years of pushing the same buttons on the A320/321, I felt stagnated. So, I added a Comm-Glider rating last summer.

I hand-fly the bus more than most, but getting out and flying by the seat of my pants and working thermals to keep a glider in the air was a CTRL>ALT>DEL for my brain. If you want to improve your overall skills, go fly a glider for a couple of hours. It's done wonders for me.

[Uplinker]

This conclusion is typical of hindsight bias; humans tend to focus on the the last action or person involved in the event, thus constructing a cause based on the outcome.
Such thoughts, and being unable to remember, suggests that nothing was learnt from this incident, nothing that would apply to you ('you' in this sense is not personal, but generic; 'you' as individuals, operators, trainers, regulators, and manufacturers); i.e. it wouldn't happen to me

What I meant was; I couldn't remember the airline or the flight number or the date of the crash. However, I do remember that there seemed to be no monitoring of speed or energy - which is a fundamental and shocking piloting error - and which ultimately resulted in the crash.

I for one, am acutely aware that my skills are not as razor sharp as they were when I was handflying turbo props which only had manual thrust. So I think/hope that I do learn from such things - by them helping me stay reasonably pro-active in practising my skills when I can.

I think automation practice might be a red herring. If we all hand-flew more often, we should be better placed to recognise when the automatics were getting it wrong, (or have been wrongly programmed), because the system responses would be inconsistent with correcting the deviation(s) and we would then know to take over.

I like the idea of glider flying, and might look into that. But how much does it cost and when would I have the time? Also, after a week of getting up at 0300, the last thing I want to do is more flying, and I think Mrs Uplinker might object!

[wiggy]

I like the idea of glider flying, and might look into that. But how much does it cost and when would I have the time? Also, after a week of getting up at 0300, the last thing I want to do is more flying, and I think Mrs Uplinker might object!

I know what you mean. I have enough on with work and keeping home life afloat. I know most here, self included, are inclined to be Total Aviation Person minded and a bit of SEP/gliding to sharpen up the skills sounds great... but pilots doing things out due to a sense of vocation is one of the reasons the industry has gone the way it has.

Do surgeons spend spare time at weekends honing their skills by dissecting small animals? Do bank managers routinely spend evenings sharpening their arithmetical and analytical skills just in case they are presented with some difficult decisions at work?

Sorry to be controversial but if there is an industry problem then it's up to the industry to find the hours, kit, and the funding, we shouldn't be expected to take up a hobby to fix the problem....

[ManaAdaSystem]

Interesting discussion.
Apart from what to train, what options are there?

-Extra training in a FFS simulator. Company pays. Not likely.
-Private flying, motor or glider. Fun, but time consuming and expensive.

KISS, people.
Lockheed Martin took over Microsoft Flight Simulator and developed it further.
Prepare3D, P3D.

Lockheed Martin - Prepar3D

Buy a high quality 737 or 777 from PMDG. Add it to P3D.

https://www.precisionmanuals.com

Add a set of flight controls, and off you go. You can train whatever you want.

Raw data, IFR, VFR, ILS, FMC, it's all there.
Low cost. Available anytime.
AND, the model fly by the same numbers as the real aircraft. Do a take off calculation with your company software. Set the PMDG aircraft up with the same weight. The FMC speeds are correct. Customize the model to match your company aircraft.
You need a certain thrust and pitch to keep 250 kts at 10000 ft in the real aircraft. It wil be the same in your PMDG aircraft.

Too much? Nearly all systems in the PMDG 737/777 have been modelled. Correctly. You can practise system failures, and you will get the same indications as the real aircraft.

It's that good. It's time to stop making fun of flight simulators and see the potential. For practice. Transition training.

[RAT 5]

You suggest KISS. I totally agree. KISS. Why is there a perceived or real problem since the magic of EFIS, LNAV/VNAV & Auto-throttle arrived? The whole Children of the Magenta Line' concept. I flew for various airlines with these magic box of tricks. They didn't suddenly erode our skills. We used them every day in the same manner we used the old tech a/c, but it made the job easier and more accurate. That was very satisfying. The pilot orientated management expected it of their crews. Now all you get is don't crash, don't take too much fuel, don't be late, don't deviate from the encyclopedia of SOP's (at your peril), don't practice the black art of manual visual approaches.
The KISS answer is back to the future and restore the black arts every day. If managers aren't going to encourage that, which is free, they certainly are not going to be so charity minded as to provide a big boys toy simulator for your fun. That's impractical considering much of the problem is within airlines who have multitude of bases over the horizon.
It's a problem created by line culture and initial training and it will need to be solved there. The best solutions are those applied to the root causes.
I hate to think what will happen to taxi drivers, lorry drivers and coach drivers who need to navigate the jungle of inner cities after they've spent most of their time in 'drive themself vehicles' on mutli lane motorways. OMG. Manual control close to all those people. And don't start me on auto-parking v DIY.

[Linktrained]

Cost of Gliding...(then !)

The UK Treasury limited " foreign exchange " to £25 , and later £50 each per annum, with any foreign currency returned to ones Bank. Return fares out and back, could be bought in the U.K. in Sterling.
The cost of hire for an Auster at Croydon or Southend etc. was then £3 per hour. This may give some scale to money and values at that time !

I went for a week long gliding course at Troyes to obtain my A, B, and C certificates. There were few thermals in October, and the Instructor and I communicated in Franglais.

Later I went for a further course near Toulouse, a Ridge site where there was ridge soaring, for endurance. Sometimes this would be with a short winch launch off the side of the hill followed by a turn to land up the slope with what was now a tail wind, or alternatively landing with quite a strong ( for a glider) strong wind, remembering to lower the "into wind wing" before stopping.

LT

[Linktrained]

The next stage was the "Brevet D" or Silver C which had to be done in two or three flights for Height Gained (1000m or more), Distance (50 Km +) and Duration (5 hours plus) Fewer than 300 UK Silver Cs had been issued at that time.

There were further stages possible, for Gold or Diamond C but I never got near enough to know what they were ! But only for distance and Height gained, even before FTLs came in.

(Duration for me was always less than 2 or 3 hours on single or twin engined aeroplanes. Or more like 15 hours on fours.)

Winch launches were the norm, and economic on petrol at perhaps half a pint per launch which might provide one with several hours of flight - if you found more lift, which might be a thermal, hill lift or if very lucky/ skilled, a Standing wave or a Cb.

Enjoy your Gliding

LT

[mnttech]

My new airline have a policy allowing pilots to use the sims whenever they are not in use for self-directed practice, and as somebody moving on to long haul, I hope to try to get in once every month or so to bash through a bit of raw data circuits, approaches and failures.

There also needs to be a qualified panel operator to run the box, so at our place it's not easy to organised on a regular and frequent basis.

Ask the simulator maintenance department, and see if they have a tech that can run the panel for you

[Uplinker]

Thanks for the heads-up Mana., I like the look of that. Any Airbus options yet?

.

[plhought]

Originally Posted by Uplinker

Thanks for the heads-up Mana., I like the look of that. Any Airbus options yet?

.

A320-X | Flight Sim Labs, Ltd.
This appears to be nearing release. Looks impressive:

[Uplinker]

Thanks, that (A320) looks impressive!

Have been flying Airbus FBW for 11 years, and the cockpit stuff looked spot on to me.

I will await its release with interest.

[Centaurus]

on which we "learned the ropes" doing night freight with crusty and difficult Captains.

In my experience it was despite crusty and difficult captains as well as cowboy captains