As I understood flying all these years manual flying you make things happen, auto flight watch the things you want happen. Nobody puts AP on and goes to sleep. How can you not monitor speed? Auotomation does not mean you don't scan. SFO type incidents cannot happen in isolation. These are examples of pilots slowly loosing their scan over the years. Other than manual control inputs everything else remains same. Unless offcourse there was extreme fatigue and sleepiness then anything is possible.

Vilas, we lose our scanning skill because we are not connected physically to the machine that is responding to our inputs. To hand fly, you must scan, because if you don't, the aeroplane doesn't fly properly. With the autopilot in, there is no need to scan as in 99% of the time the aeroplane does it for you. Try as you might, you simply cannot keep up scanning proficiency if you aren't actually doing something with your hands occasionally/regularly.

More accidents of this nature haven't happened IMO because the big majority of us have, to a degree, had a background in handflying. As the Children of the Magenta become more prevalent throughout the industry and guys like Bubbers become extinct :), we'll see more of these types of prangs unless we get hand flying time again. Humans are good doers, not monitors, apparently.

You yourself hit the nail on the head when you said:

Many suns ago after an 18 hour layover ( due to inbound delay ) at EDDF, I absentmindedly let the F/O fly the Tobak departure manually out of RWY 25R. Because of very strong crosswinds turning very strong tailwind as we passed 1000 ft, we were a little slow in establishing the precise ground track required despite his best efforts with my promptings. We were reported by some " watchers " who complained about our " trangression " over their hallowed grounds.

A month later I was hauled up for some lousy coffee with the CP. No, no noise monitoring alarms were triggered but the nasty letter by deutschland ATC based on the " watchers " complaints had me put in the sim to do tobak departures out of EDDF...advise from CP and sim instructor: use the automatics! Boy, at that time it the tobak departures weren't even PRNAV! go figure..........

INITIAL SIM-TRAINING SANS LUXURY BITS.
 

Centaurus;

"The only way to teach today's pilots not to be frightened of hand flying is to ensure that type rating training in simulators starts off by teaching pilots how to fly manually without flight directors and auto-throttles for the first few sessions before automatics are introduced. After that, recurrent training in the simulator should include a high proportion of manual raw data flying."

Too many years ago I moved from Betty Windsors Flying Club to the awesome environment of the Bae146, having flown a B&W Artificial Horizon with the "W" symbol for the aircraft and the split horizon bar swimming around it, for 16 years, props and jets.

Initial sim training proved a problem, not that I couldn't fly on instruments, but that I was expected to program and follow the F/D bars, at all times, ab initio.

During the initial conversion session, I turned OFF the F/D bars with the comment that it was extra loading to program and follow them.

That airline's type chief trainer went apoplectic, froze the "box" and insisted I follow the magenta spider faithfully as no other course of action would be tolerated!!

Needless to say the subsequent details were handicapped by this slavish "attitude" (no pun intended!) and it was with greater effort and angst that I finally got onto the line.

And that was in 1987..............................?!

Now over a quarter of a century flying nice blue/brown A/Is, I still find myself "flying through the bars" and apologise to the child of magenta beside me as it is obvious I'm not following the "spider"!

What chance now in the 21st century is there of reversing the "you must use all automatics" from day 1 mantra?? Unless the XAAs get the message soon that the basics have got to be mastered BEFORE the luxury of the fancy bits can be used, then I fear that the recent CFITs due to part or no automation will continue and we in these pages will continue to ask "how could THEY do that?".

And of course we are excluding the possibility of FATIGUE as a serious contributory factor....! :ugh:

Pretty vague from guys who have some data they're not ready to share ...
Is it embarrassing to tell the protection protected the aircraft first despite the last attempt the pilot made to have a chance to survive. Scrap the aircraft later on but let me have a chance to go home.

I don't blame Airbus for such protection, I blame the BEA for not detailing that sequence which is also part of the accident.

Thanks Capn B for the compliment, didn't expect it. As everybody knows I am a hand flyer and use automation to do the boring enroute flying. Departures and arrivals are hand flown unless weather requires otherwise. Most of my landings are visual approaches into airports like Tegucigalpa, Honduras so the FO gets to do the ILS into MIA if the short turn on allows it which it usually doesn't. Visuals are so easy and the instrument scan is a normal pilot duty so how some pilots can't land on a visual to SFO is puzzling. Automation dependency is my only answer.

You said it was cultural differences in the other thread. Anyway, you're retired aren't you?

BarkingMad: I'm on your side in this. I believe that pilots should learn to fly the a/c first, then operate it. Sadly, especially with self-funded TQ courses, time is premium and the courses are minimum. The couple of extra sessions required to achieve the ideal are considered a not-effective cost nor necessary for the issue of a type rating.
I too fly through the bars and scan the basic performance data and try to encourage the same. The degree of success is varied depending on the attitude of the student. I once flew for an airline where the instructors were brutal in insisting the students "fly the flight director." Their scan was very poor. I then showed them how you can stall the a/c with centred F.D's and also fly into the ground with perfect F.D's. This woke them up, the students that is, sadly not the other instructors who continued their blinkered teachings.
Today I find the lack of scan still there, especially when A.P is in CMD. They watch the F.D's and say all is fine. They are doing no more than watching the A.P keep the F.D's centred. They have no idea what the a/c is in fact doing and are not monitoring it. A sad deadly great shame on the training environment.

This is sarcasm, right?

Just the truth, sunshine. Take off your automation/Airbus sunglasses and try to understand why pilots can no longer fly aeroplanes.

With the autopilot in, there is no need to scan as in 99% of the time the aeroplane does it for you.

You hope. You still have to scan to ensure George is behaving himself. I know of various accidents where he went subtly AWOL and no-one realised until it was too late; or they did and then tried to solve the problem using the very same rogue who'd put them in the hole in the first place.

Rat 5, please don't quote me out of context. Of course you should scan when in Autoflight. My words immediately before that quote were that if you are hand flying, you must scan otherwise you lose control every time. That is the difference. Scanning ability reduces the more autoflighting you do. That was my point.

C.Bloggs: My fault. I was following on from the Clandestino comment. I did not go back to your original comment and read the whole paragraph.

I suspect that Capt Bloggs' thrust is along the line that automation cripples, as opposed to those who employ automation to assist and improve performance .. may have considerable difficulty in monitoring the automatics successfully ?

Very much like a medical examination with a GP mate years ago while he was punching and pummelling my innards ... I made some irreverent and cheeky comment about automatics in that context and his response was along the lines that if he didn't practice his diagnostic skills regularly .. then he would lose them ... where have I heard a similar cry ?

I doubt that anyone is extolling a virtue to be had by handflying all the time. However, a level of commonsense dictates that the pilot needs to develop and maintain competence in both separately and in conjunction.

If only Regulators and airline operational managements would read this statement and apply it. Well put JT

J T
Some of the comments here and other threads are suggestive of that using automation only boys do and men don't. Some suggested that pilots fly better than modern autopilots. I find these comments do not represent reality. Otherwise RVSM, CAT3 and some other situations would not ask for AP use. Use of automatics is safer because it lets you monitor and comprehend overall picture. Afterall going from A to B safely has many other things than just flying manual approach. Just as accidents happen because of poor manual skills they also happen because of poor understanding and monitoring of automation. So one should hand fly to maintain the skill required and other times use automation.

Absolutely .. horses for courses.

One needs to be competent in stick and rudder.

One needs to be competent in the boxes.

One needs to be competent in managing a sensible mix of the two according to the needs of the moment.


The pilot who is a brilliant stick and rudder man is a danger if circumstances require, but he is not up to, the use of the boxes.

Likewise, the pilot who is a brilliant box man is a danger if circumstances require, but he is not up to, poling the beast in anger.


Safety, in this regard, is maximised if one uses - effectively - the appropriate mix of manual and automatics which might be useful in the circumstances ..


That some may prefer to do one over the other is merely a sideline consideration, I suggest ?

As to men and boys, the distinguishing characteristic there is only the price of their toys ...

Could hand flying skills be maintained by Sim sessions?
 

To the pilots who fly or have flown the big transports.

Could you maintain hand flying skills by simulator sessions alone? Is the simulator of today accurate enough? What are the shortfalls of the FFS? Apart from the obvious one that a FFS is not an aircraft!

Re: Pilotless Airliners
 

Who is going to write the software that decides whether or not to abort? And whether or not to evacuate after the abort? Will they be held liable in court?

When the cabin is on fire who is going to decide if to land / ditch immediately or continue on further to an airport?

Who is going to decide what to do when the flight attendants "hear a funny noise" or see "something leaking from the wing"?

The auto-taxi system will also need to be able to detect debris, contamination etc. and the auto-takeoff system will need to be able to decide whether or not it's a good idea to actually take off when the weather conditions are changing rapidly, or when it gets a ding from the flight attendants that someone just got out of their seat and went to the toilet...

And on and on and on.

Pilotless will only be for passengerless until we invent a computer that can replace the human brain or a programmer who can foresee every possible scenario that could ever occur, which by definition he cannot because how would he know that he didn't think of something?

Mross, it would help to maintain your skills but it would not be ideal because you don't feel G's in the sim.

Also, I get sick using the visuals (the fake stuff out your window) in the sim because motion sickness is a disconnect between what your eyes and your inner ear tell you, which do not always agree in the sim, like when you're taxiing and you make 90 degree turns etc.

You can get enough practice, assuming you fly enough legs per month, hand flying on the line, EVEN with your flight director on IF you work the throttles manually.

Believe me but if you do not have the skills to hand fly a fidelity compliant flight simulator then you sure are going to have a real problem flying the real thing. Regulators around the world accept that fidelity compliant simulators can be used for type ratings, instrument ratings, recurrent training. if a pilot is having trouble flying an ILS in a crosswind in a simulator then he will almost certainly run into the same trouble in the real thing.

So the answer to your question of could you maintain hand flying skills by simulator sessions alone, the answer is definitely yes. IMHO

I have always found simulator flying to be more difficult than actual flying. In general, to me at least, the actual aircraft is much more stable than the sim.
The sim is fine for procedural training.

because you don't feel G's in the sim

737 endorsement was ZFT. First line training session with a pax load differed only in three major respects from the sim sessions ..

(a) the aircraft was considerably easier to fly

(b) the aircraft visuals were far better and should be mandated for the sim

(c) it was much more fun

In every sim session, after a few minutes, I was sufficiently immersed in the doing to have difficulty distinguishing it from the aircraft IMC. Visual sim flight was always a tad surreal.

Perhaps that was just a reflection of my seat of the pants incompetence ?

John - 100% agree with your comments re the sim vs. the airplane.

The last transition course I had with the airborne component was on the L1011 (mid-80's) and we did circuits for four of the best-'funnest' hours of my career. From then on, simulators were good enough to certify pilots on-type without the airborne work.

For others wondering about this idea, six-axis (full motion) simulators have been used for thirty years + for airplane transition courses to save airlines money by not flying the real thing. It's also a lot safer practising the necessary engine-out procedures and all other system abnormalities that one can do in a simulator but never in an airplane.

But I would never look to simulators to "maintain" flying skills. A simulator is a training tool - mainly for procedures, (CAT II/III, engine-out, system failures, LOFT work etc). It is no substitute for a real aircraft and should never be looked upon, especially by regulators and accountants, as a suitable for such work.

Flying and thinking like a pilot cannot be learned in a simulator. It can only hone and replenish already-learnt skills.

A simulator only reaches its full potential in teaching and training when one is already a pilot and already skilled at thinking and handling and stayin' alive when the real airplane is trying to kill you.

Had a chat with an HOT about visuals. His airline is very restrictive about them, although he wouldn't admit it. He says that the G/A's spike on CAVOK days, so better not to let the chaps do them; they cost time & money. He'd love to spend more time to bring manual flying and visual approaches up to scratch, but there is no spare sim time or money. With so many pilots from differing backgrounds spread all over the network there is no possible over-sight. Solution? Create a corps of button-pushing SOP monkeys. Safer & cheaper. I can understand Flt OPs thinking, but it is very sad. Will it reap rewards? We won't know until there is a problem of significance. There have been many near misses, but just that.

We have to accept that civil aviation is a commercial activity. Present global economic mess Airlines are struggling to survive. They do not have funds to cater for every pilot's idea of safety.If they don't make profit even the best pilot goes home. So operating procedures have to cater for not only safety but economics as well.

That is precisely why the regulators have to step in and mandate raw data/handflying in the SIM. Then all operators will be on a level playing field.

The other point is, do you really think that AF or Asiana would have ignored pre-warnings about the accidents they had if they'd got them?

"Dear CEO, in 12 months your pilots are going to crash an A330 because they couldn't get out of a stall. What are to going to do about preventing that?".

"OK, every SIM session let's get our pilots to do some handflying and stall and UA recoveries, 15 minutes each."

If you think safety is expensive, wait until you have an accident.

Bloggs
You are saying handflying in SIM or actual aircaft? Sim offcourse they do. Anyway lot of thought is going into changing routine exercises in SIM training. They are changing to what is called EBT, evidence based training. With new technology some failures have become easy to deal with so they are being replaced with more error prone ones.

OMG, here we go again with yet more buzz-words. EBT. Ever since the first fabric covered flying machine pilots have been doing EBT. It is called dual instruction.

Pilot holds off high in the sim and gets tail strike. In other words it is evidence he needs more training. Isn't that "evidence based training" or have I completely missed the point?:E

If airlines, for whatever reason, elect not to permit hand flying on revenue flights then whether the ideal alternative or not, it would be logical to use the simulator for the purpose.

And that means making time available in the simulator and not wasting that expensive and valuable time 90% of the session by flogging around in the simulator on automatic pilot pressing buttons and reading time consuming checklists. It is called cost-efficiency.

"OK, every SIM session let's get our pilots to do some handflying and stall and UA recoveries, 15 minutes each."

Some do: it is not training as it should be, it is a tick in the box.

A37575
You surely are missing the point. There are some exercises in the recurrent and OPC which are mandetorily performed because it is regulatory requirement. In modern aeroplanes these exercises majority of pilots perform satisfacorily. While some others are not performed so well. They want to emphasize on those with the approval of authorities.

Examples?

Rat, that was simply a fictitious quote I made up by a half-understanding CEO. That some companies do is great, even if it is only a tick in the box. At least it is a start.

I don't think practicing hand flying in the sim every few months would make the slightest difference.
To retain hand flying skills you have to be doing it every other day.
Par for the course in some types of operation.
Impractical in others.
I don't think there is a solution; we are just in a point in the development of aviation where a gap has opened between economics and human factors. Presumably the gap is economically acceptable right now and will close as technology improves.

I was just after an example, not a lecture. And I was asking Vilas, not you. But while you're at it, in your experience of ATQP, what "standard" SIM events have you seen discarded so the time could be used for, say, 2E go-round practice?

Aha, now I know. I have seen quit a few supposedly top notch pilots not be able to fly an approach in the sim raw data and no A/T.
Must be the lack of G feeling!

CaptBloggs &JS
A year and half back I read an Airbus presentation on EBT in which a statistic was provided as to which exercises are performed properly and which are not and percentages were given. Unfortunately I could not locate it but I am sure I can. I think Emirates is in forefront on this.

The answer lies with asking your friendly neighbourhood Sim instructor his take on this. Get enough beers in him and he will say 'how do these guys get jobs?'

Hence why it used to be mostly handflying tests with some use of the AP, now a Raw Data approach is considered an emergency event, with the caveat that Raw data is an HSI with out a Flight Director. So the level required of pilots these days has been recalibrated from 'robot that could be considered a pilot on some level' to 'pathetic in title only, let's hope the lights don't go out'.

An example
 

The situation: a 2 AM takeoff from a Middle Eastern airport (but not an oil-rich one), engine fails (non-recoverable) at Vr, and the captain has been warned against OEI return & approach to this airfield because of unreliable power (lighting) at this site.

A more reliable airfield is a 90 minute hop away.

Where is the lesser risk? Fly the circuit and hope the approach lighting behaves? Or set sail for the better-run airfield?