Flying skills
 

Without wanting to point fingers, the current thread 3 discussion on the AF disaster refers to the risks of pulling back on the yoke/stick as a reaction on an unexpected stall.

This leads to discussions about basic flying skills.

Which airlines discourage free time piston prop (or similar) flying?
Which airlines condone the above?
Which airlines encourage such basic skills free time flying?

Does such flying limit the hours a pilot can be put to work for his commercial activities through either aviation regulations and/or collective bargaining agreements?

Thx

Victor Hotel

Every employer is different, the list would be nearly endless, my airline doesn't have qualms about it as long as the pilot or engineer wishing to do so gets an ok from management (it has happened before).

That being said, there is a terrible attitude amongst companies and HR groups these days that suggests it's ok to hire people with less than stellar flying ability, so long as they have a good "personality" and can "get along with others" etc. etc. etc. I'm not trying to suggest "good sticks" should go around being :mad:. In my opinion the #1 driving factor as to whether or not to hire somebody is their abilities in an aircraft, on both the flying side and the technical side (systems). How they comb their hair, talk, who recommended them or how nice they are should be near the bottom of the list, not the top.

Furthermore, GOMs an SOPs will not and never have covered every single possible situation that may arise. Yet most flight crew members are afraid of doing anything (or unable to do anything) that falls outside of what is referred to as "standard".

Non-commercial flying outside of the job is allowed as it does not decrease the block hours available to the company. The company therefore has absolutely no right to say anything about it, and therefore doesn't do it. If you want to instruct in a flying school (that is commercial, in a club it isn't) you have to get a permit for it.

In fact we are encouraged to train our basic flying skills while flying the line as well by regularly flying manual and raw data, just to keep our skills up as many of us do not fly outside of the job anymore, be it for lack of money or simply time.

I know quite a few (very good) glider pilots who are also commercial pilots.

Yup, one of my colleagues won the world championship in the open class, i think two times already, not quite sure though :)

Times have obviously changed. When I worked for a charter airline in UK we had at least three pilots who were well known on the air display circuit, flying non-commercially whenever their roster allowed.
The summer being a busy time for charter and air displays the CAA required that they keep the company fully updated with their display hours in order that the combined total didn't breach CAA FTLs.

Kind of surprising to me, it's like telling a regulated driver (truck for example) that he can't drive home on his own time in his own vehicle if he hits the limit for his regulated driving. In the US we have a clear separation between is commercial and what isn't.

Why not practice basic skills in the airliner you are flying? I flew a 757 to Central America all the time. On the climb out being vectored into Havana airspace I would practice flying only by standby horizon, altimiter, airspeed and whiskey compass. South headings were easy because you get compass lead errors. I never needed this drill but thought it would be nice to have done it just in case that is all you have one day. It is free and gives you confidence in instruments you normally would never really look at.

No, I didn't disable the main instrument panel, just didn't look at it. Back then we were allowed to fly with the autopilot off.

That's the catch, I'm still not clear as to why hand flying is frowned upon and/or forbidden at many airlines these days.

All I can say is that I am very happy to have 1400 hours of fighter (no A/P installed) and several hundred of hours doing single pilot IFR without A/P before getting into the world of FMS and A/P and A/THR. There is NO substitute to handling a single pilot jet at maximum performance at both high and low levels, doing stall recoveries, hand flown IFR, pilotage nav at low level and in poor weather. An education not to be missed.

Then again, it did result in a mid-air and an ejection

GF

@parabellum, probably it was because the CAA thought of doing display flights as either areal work or commercial flying. And in that case you have to advise the company about hours and times and on the other hand need a permit from the company. Anyway, i'm not flying in a UK airline, just in a small european one and employment laws are different in each country, with that the required or not required permit from your primary employer.

EU-OPS however mandates that someone keeps a master list for FDT calculation. usually that would be the primary employer, but it can be the employee or the secondary employer as well. However only commercial hours need to be take into account as far as i know. Privately flown stuff doesn't matter.

We do in the UK. It generally is based either on "hire and reward" [not if you are paid, but if the passenger/pupil is paying], or above a certain weight (~3000lbs MTOW).

NoD

I'd say another pertinent question is what is your airline's cultural view on hand-flying?

At my current gig, it's A/P on at 400' and off on approach at 1500'. A Captains will actually reach over as PM (PNF) and turn on the FO's A/P if it isn't on early enough for his taste. Most of the pilots at this airline can handle about 5knots of crosswind before they start sweating.

At my real airline, it's A/P sometime before RVSM and often off again at 10,000'.

I'm not certain which came first, the eagle or the egg, but I know the latter group is better sticks and safer pilots.

I'm too close for guns, switching to...ramming! :ok:

Going back to the 60s/70s when on the B707 and then the 80s on the B737-200 we, more often that not, hand flew the a/c from take off to top of climb and then again from top of descent to landing. We wouldn't dream of flying a visual approach with the automatics engaged! We only got altitude alert in the mid 80s, let alone altitude acquire on the autopilot.

Because of this we were all extremely skilled in hand flying the machine to a high accuracy, so much so that we could almost do so in our sleep (we often did LOL).

Autopilot u/s for a night Tenerife or PIK to YUL (Montreal) and no engineers? No problem we can take turns and hand fly it!

Recently my new FO remarked to me after briefing a relatively simple SID out of a European airport "Gee this would be hard to fly raw data!" - I looked across and replied "We always did - very accurately".

It's great to have all the modern automation but, quite simply, professionaly pilots should be able to hand fly the aircraft accurately but they can only do so if they are practised in the art on a regular basis.

I'm not at all convinced that the issue is whether you can hop between an airliner and a single engined piston aircraft. As previous posters have indicated, you can also hand-fly a transport aircraft. I think that the problem is the gulf between highly integrated information rich modern cockpits, and remembering that it is "just" an airplane, and behaves exactly like every other aircraft in terms of pitch/power/lift/drag and all those simple aerodynamic laws.

Many studies have looked at the surprisingly poor job pilots make of the transition from VFR to IFR flight. Even experienced instrument pilots tend to "hang on" to fast disappearing visual cues rather than simply transferring their gaze to the instruments and flying the way they were trained. The number of continued VFR-into-IFR accidents where both the pilot and the aircraft were fully IFR capable is testament to just how hard that can be.

In my experience, the same applies the other way around. Many times, with new-ish first officers (and some not so new), I was surprised at their inability to transition from IFR flight to a simple visual approach. On a lovely day, their sector, we would brief for the instrument approach, and if it was a smaller airfield where a "shortcut to a visual" was possible, we would brief for that as "plan B". Sure enough, the airport is right there, the pattern is empty, and ATC offer the visual. We accept, but for some FO's this became a stressful moment! They were so strongly oriented to commanding the FMS or A/P through bugs and buttons that they found "flying the aircraft" to be quite overwhelming - EVEN THOUGH THEY HAD THOUSANDS OF HOURS HAND FLYING OTHER TYPES.

In other words, the problem is not about basic muscle memory, or experience, it is very situational. Humans are poor at switching context.

After 4000 hours in the Airbus cockpit, the AF pilot would be completely baffled by the contradictions being presented, and in the 3 minutes remaining probably never figured out what was going on. Paradoxically, a pilot from almost any other type of aircraft might have spotted in a few seconds that the aircraft was fully stalled, and be able to solve it.

many of you may not remember but for recent students coming through the cessna ranks, the most scary and yet educationational part of training is the spin recovery. in some jurisdictions, one no longer needs to have to go through that but personally i think getting into that position in a very forgiving aircraft (for me cessna 172) was mostly educational not for the recovery procedures themselves (you basically do nothing and the aircraft does it by itself... sort of..) but for being put in a position of having to think when you are looking straight down at the ground which is seemingly spinning out of control. very good mental excercise!

Bigjames, I hope you're not spinning a 172. :=

not as we speak anyway...

True, but the Birgenair 757 Captain was also an ex-Turkish Air Force jockey, and he was thrown by the situation he was presented with, despite both his F/O's calling out "ADI" (referring to the nose-up attitude) and "Stalling". He'd got it into his head that all speed information was bad (when in fact the F/O and Standby instruments were working correctly) and seems to have just "maxed out" psychologically. When the investigation tried the same scenario with very experienced pilots, almost all of them suffered the same reaction.

IMO sufficient stick-and-rudder skills are something that definitely needs to be improved, but that's only part of the problem. There's the whole issue of what happens when you lose pitot/static information over water at night (as NOD posted on the other thread, low circadian times), and the psychological "shock" of having what should be a routine operation turn against you within a few seconds.

The way I understand it (just an MEP PPL) modern carriers automatically send back to base even the slightest deviations of optimal speeds etc caused by hand flying the latest slippery machines such as the Airbus 320 family.

Such deviations result in a gentle call from the Ops to the PF recommending AP usage or just gently cautioning.

If this is true, such a nudge will stop people hand flying, it breeds a culture of "keeping your head down". In this case doing nothing improves your career development.

The end result will be that once someone becomes Captain, he will have hand flown just a fraction of what a new captain would have flown 20 years ago (and yes, I do accept modern airlines now contain a lot of safety features that work most of the time).

If then flying something like a Seneca, just for fun, is discouraged by company policies, there is no way for such young pilots to gain hand flying experience.

Perhaps all new FO's should be obliged to do a minimum of 500 hours of instruction at a glider or GA club in their spare time before becoming eligible for Captain promotion?

Cost is ranked higher then skill.
I was once told an autoland is cheaper the a manually flown landing.
This x thousands of landings a year is less cost for the man upstairs.
Skill is expensive and Airbus heavily promotes automation.

vanHorck
 

Don't think you should read that level of pickiness across to all carriers.


"My" outfit, like many, does analyise all flights ( from the data recorder, not datalink) but you'll only get a phone call ( and usually from a Union reps, not management) if you've really "rung a few bells" on a single flight or rung a bell they're particularly interested in that month.....of course OTOH if you've utterly stuffed up :ooh:

To be honest if I'd had a euro for every time I'd made the slightest deviation from optimal speeds I'd be a millionaire and the union would have a very large phone bill, so I'll stick to my SOP of hand flying whenever it is appropriate.

Then how do you explain this?

http://www.pprune.org/rumours-news/3...ys-airbus.html

There's a big difference between a manufacturer pioneering automation in transport-category aircraft and claiming that the manufacturer is promoting use of automation above all else (which in Airbus's case is flatly contradicted by the above thread and the article that spawned it).

The problem rests with the airlines.

Even if you want to make the argument for costs, how do you account for the lost revenue, loss of business, bad image and write offs that one pilot who cannot hand fly an airplane can bring about. After all, it's happened a few times in the last few years.

I am sure that bean counter can calculate very precisely the savings based on money saved versus the probability that an accident/incident could occur.

Rwy in Sight

Excellent, not sure if it was intentional on your part or not, but you've said that people's lives are expendable, if it saves a penny or two in the long run. Hope I don't ever fly on that airline.

It's all up to your airlines' training department!
 

vanHorck, as far as I know only technical problems end ECAM warnings (A320) will be sent to base in most carriers, not deviations of optimal speeds. That would be a useless rule! Even though some gliding experience is useful (ref 1) a pilot should practise handflying his airline jet with only raw data. And why would you suggest it only for future captains? Shouldn't the co-pilot be able to handfly and land the beast as well?

In my company it's done like this: Starting in the type-rating sim sessions the F/O's in training are learned to fly the Airbus manually (A/P, F/D & A/THR off) on many occasions whenever the exercise permits it. (And, for training, having one engine out is NOT a good reason to keep the A/P on. := ) Then, during base training they'll fly a few touch and go's, again without the automatics. Later on, during the initial line training, they will be asked to fly manual raw data approaches, whenever the conditions permit it. Believe me, once they're fully released on line they'll handfly the A320 pretty well, or ... they won't be released on line. :=

Unlike many others my company encourages pilots to keep their handflying skills up to date. Most of the time, I don't have to suggest my F/O's to turn the automatics off. they will have asked me before if they can. More often it happens, especially with the newly released kids, that I have to suggest them that it would be wise to fly with the automatics on when the metar warns us about low clouds and moderate visibility or when flying into a busy airport we are not familiar with! :p It's not they are not smart enough to know that, it's just that they were so used to raw date flying during their training, that using the automatics for approach has become the exception, rather then the rule. :p

I'll admit that sometimes those new F/O's are not so great in using the automatics. For instance, the first time they have to intercept a G/S from above with the A/P, they will often have a problem. Not amazing, they've trained it once in the sim and then they were expecting it! So confronted to this situation these guys (and girls) will disconnect the A/P when it captures the initial approach alt before the G/S iso using the Airbus procedure for this. (dialling the altitude up and using V/S to get to the G/S.) Oh well, manually intercepting the slope and then re-engaging the A/P gets the job done just as well and it gives me something to talk about during a friendly post-flight debrief. :ok:

There is really no excuse for Airlines who forbid their pilots to keep their raw data handflying skills up to date.


(ref 1) I know. I have a few hundred hours of gliding and glider-towing experience!:ok:

500 hours instructing? In their spare time? Ye gods - I guess that's one way of making sure no-one gets to be an FO until they have grey hair.

The only person who gets anywhere near that amount at your average gliding club is the full-time paid instructor. Part-time instructors might do 5 hours a week (at most) for a few months a year - most do far far less, and it would take them 10 or more years to get to 500 hours instructing.

If you asked for a Silver 'C' you might be nearer the mark - a Silver 'C' pilot is someone who is a competent glider pilot able to fly in moderately demanding conditions, who can sustain soaring flight (on the right day!) and with the confidence to go out of glide range of the launch site, and select a field (a good field one hopes) and execute a field landing if necessary.

BJ, I was doing solo spins with 7 hrs total time. I agree as in maintaining your hand flying skills, knowing how to control a skid in a car and spins, we should be in command of what we are operating outside of the norm.

+1

Totally agree there, and thank god my company still has that in their manuals.

Of course insurance premiums could come down if a higher % of stable approaches were achieved by a carrier through automated flying only?

Or lower GA leads to reduced fuel cost etc?

Most captains in my company are not too comfortable if an FO suggests to fly manual. Manual flying in my experience is very rare and only on nice days. Manual flying practice is for in the simulator. Al data is monitored and if you exceed a limit or a gate while manualy flying you will be contacted by the company. People just don't want to take the risk.

If you don't fly too often manualy, it gets harder when you do. You need more capacity. And that puts people off even more.

However, the airbus has lots of failures that imply the loss of the automation. Manual flying skills will be there, but rusty and will consume a lot of capacity which will be taken away from decision making.

For the company it is off course of interest to collect lots of data indictating that 95% of the approaches are within certain limits and thus get a cheaper insurance bill. This is done through the flight data monitoring systems and I know from colleagues in other companies that they have that too. However, I do have the impression that in some other companies hand flying is more commen, like the example given above.

I don't think that's something unique to Airbus (Airbii?). In terms of autoflight (something entirely separate from FBW), most modern Western airliners tend to be flown using the automatics from noise abatement to final approach. This is true whether you're occupying the seat in a Boeing/MD/Embraer/Avro or an Airbus.

I have it on good authority that when one switches autoflight off on the FBW Airbus models, they tend to hand-fly rather well.

Aviation insurance underwriters will only be looking at the actuarial evidence. If, by using automatics, you avoid accidents then you are only doing what your insurers expect of you, if you have accidents then your premiums will increase. Underwriters are very loath to tell operators how they should operate, that is not their skill.