Flight International "Pilots must go back to basics>"
 

Flight International 8-14 April 2014 page 21 article by David Learmount. Headline "Pilots must go back to basics." Sub-heading "Flightdeck automation is rampant, and industry commentators believe it is time flight crews relearned how to actually fly."

If ever I have seen a case of flogging the proverbial dead horse, it this constant reiteration of something that pilots and commentators have been banging on about for nearly 40 years. In fact ever since the first glass cockpit was installed. For example.

A quote from the article: "Speaking during an open session at the end of the 25-26 March event (Royal Aeronautical Society's "Aircraft Commander in the 21st Century" conference in London), Capt Mike Varney of Airbus and Captain Steve Hawkins of BA separately came to the same conclusion: pilots have to be reintroduced to their aircraft as flying machines because both they and their employers have become obsessed with systems management, to the exclusion of flying. The operations and training leadership at both organisations have taken up the idea of tripping out the flight director and turning off the automatics at the beginning of type or recurrent simulator training sessions." Buy the magazine and read the rest of the article yourselves if so inclined.

All this carry-on about loss of basic flying skills blamed upon addiction to automatics, has been going on ever since D.P.Davies "Handling the Big Jets" was first published 48 years ago. David Davies saw this coming a mile away when he penned his advice to airline pilots at chapter 11 of his fine book. He wrote (edited for brevity): "Do not become lazy in your professional lives. The autopilot is a great comfort, so are the flight director and approach coupler. But do not get into a position where you need these devices to complete the flight. Keep in practice in raw ILS, particularly in crosswinds. Keep in practice in hand-flying the aeroplane at altitude and in making purely visual approaches."

The last paragraph has echoes of the Air France A330 high altitude stall and crash into the South Atlantic and the Asiana Boeing 777 crash on a visual approach to SFO.

Of course, most of today's airline pilots will privately concede their basic instrument flying skills are shot forever and that applies to junior copilots coming through the system who one day will take the left seat and follow their leaders in avoiding avoid hand flying like a plague. There is no doubt in my mind that automation dependency will increase further with still more sophisticated automatic pilots that are coming off the drawing tables.

That being so, what is the point in re-hashing the bleeding obvious in these feel-good expansive flight safety conferences that are known more for their networking attractions and meeting up for drinks with old mates, than serious decision making on such trivialities as sticking in the odd manually flown circuit (FD and AT on, of course) for regulatory box ticking purposes.

Forget the regulators. They are mostly toothless airline or charter pilot has-beens (it takes one to know one, incidentally!) after a nice secure Public Servant job who couldn't give a damn what the airlines do as long as the prangs are kept within sensible limits.

Regardless of whether it is beating a dead horse or not, Learmount and Davies are/were right. Unfortunately, once body count reaches a certain uncomfortable and unacceptable level, the bureaucrats, both gov't and company, will finally do something about it. Sad state of affairs.

Desert185, yes, they do something about it... exactly the opposite of common sense!

Say a hairy landing, or an unstable approach manually flown, their answer will be to keep automation to avoid deviation in hte future. This is plain wrong.

Unstable approach, visual pattern, all need to be addressed with more manual practice, to do it better next time you really need it.

This is sad. :{

Raw data flying is based on good scan of parameters and prompt corrections of deviations as they develop so that they do not require major change of flight path. As PF or PM the scan more or less remains same and between the two of them even 10 seconds should not pass without one of them noticing the speed. In SFO accident a training captain and experienced captain under check both never monitored the speed which shows their scanning had deteriorated over a period. Even with full automation the scan is no different. Only that you are passively flying the aircraft. If your scanning is intact you do not need much practice to fly raw data.

Judd, a very well written and accurate description of the post -modern angst regarding manual flying , loss of basic skills etc. The regulatory driven knee jerk is for manual handling sessions within airline training departments that really only ticks boxes but does not address the problem .

As you so astutely recognise the junkets where these quotes originate are exactly as you describe. A lot of hand - wringing and quotes post - event but come d' habitude nothing achieved . D .P . Davies was spot -on several decades ago with his forecast of lack of currency and subsequent potential for catastrophe unfortunately proven . I don't have the answers either apart from changing the system within airlines and regulation at great , unrealistic expense. Stopping the RHS being the most expensive for line training purposes might be a start .

cheers ,Olster - retired , similarly toothless , airline pilot

Only that you are passively flying the aircraft. If your scanning is intact you do not need much practice to fly raw data

Just continue telling yourself that... and hope you never have a problem with the automatics!

main_dog
I come from DC3 era and then onto 5 commercial jets including the 747 classic so raw data never held any terrors for me. You may fly any amount manually but if you do not drive the scan into your subconscious you can never be comfortable with it. I am saying even on autopilot you need to scan same way as if you are flying manual and be in control never take things for granted

Vilas, I sincerely envy your DC-3 experience. The 747-200 I also had the good fortune to fly.

Regardless, I politely disagree... one's instrument scan is one of the most delicate and perishable skills, requiring regular manual practice (not just watching the AP do it) or else it evaporates like water in a desert.

That is a good and valid piece of information regarding keeping a scan going even during automatic flight. Think about it. Say you are at the bottom of an approach to minimums, runway is in sight, and you are about to kick the autopilot off and finish the job yourself. You don't hit the big red button in the stick first, then start suddenly scanning your PFD and windshield. You have been doing that for a while now, haven't you? As you get closer and closer to pressing that button, there is a "quickening" in your scan (attitude, airspeed, attitude, vertical speed, attitude, director, airspeed, outside.... Etc) but it remains. Even in cruise, or descent (assuming you are actually engaged in flying the aircraft and not reading or playing Candy Crush) you do this, albeit at a vastly slowed rate.
So there is a "continuum" of scanning and engaging the aircraft that continues whether you have everything off and are hand flying a visual approach to a short runway, or you are at 20,000 feet in descent setting up for a CAT IIIb ILS to an autoland.

Well at least you should be doing that. And it would be a lie to tell you I sit in my seat and stare at the horizon and the instruments for 6 hours on a crossing. Though I am stuck at level 147 in Candy Crush, I can assure you that each move is simply one piece of my slow, relaxed, enroute "inverted V scan". Outside.... ADI.... Airspeed.... NAV display..... Move the purple candy on space up.... Airspeed.... ADI..... Space out for a while..... Orange candy to the right..... airspeed.... Like this, see?

When you hand fly remember.... Fly pitch and power. Your Flight Director should be though of as a "Flight Suggestor". It doesn't really direct a damn thing so you should fly the airplane, not the bars. RNP stuff, yeah let the plane fly itself. Your passengers will appreciate when you make your descent, approach, and configurations with as few uncomfortable pitch and power changes as possible. Stay engaged with the aircraft, keep your mental math going even on a managed descent, plan your deceleration, keep engaged and it can be done consistently. Using the full continuum from that broad, relaxed scan that was mentioned earlier down to the metronomic rhythm of a real hand-flown ILS scan all the way to the basic VFR division of attention you learned doing pylon-8's so many moons ago as you get the last part of the job done with finesse.

Asiana never has to happen again. It sounds like those boys (instructor captain included) were not encouraged to fly, to REALLY fly, and were actively discouraged from developing and cultivating the skills of a true AVIATOR by the culture of their training and their airline. Whether or not they previously had those skills (perhaps in the military or years ago flying short-haul) they were not only allowed to rust away, but actively discouraged. They didn't have a chance.

We are all trying to say the same things little differently. Take SFO for instance all the talk that they thought that the auto throttle will wake up is all bull. They were not monitoring speed period. Had they noticed speed is falling checked the thrust and set it themselves 5 KTS less or 10 knots more wouldn't have mattered. On a bright sunny day with serviceable aircraft visual approach is not a great skill it is bread and butter. If you are rusty you may not be accurate but you don't become unsafe provided you have the skill. If you were never taught or practiced then it is different matter. In this forum many times automation is blamed but incidents suggest pilots didn't understand the automation itself. It's the whole package you got have.

Even some of the big European airlines now mandate no manual throttle handing when hand flying.
When in Big Airlines on the B744, the rule was manual flight/ manual thrust levers. But I notice now that the B77 and Airbus fleets require permanent AT use when manual flying, see where that got Asiana!
I notice Lufthansa allow manual thrust when hand flying, even on the A380.

If you don't understand the automation fully, just remember that if you fly it yourself if goes up and down and left and right, faster and slower!! Be it mini Pipena or gargantuan Boebus...

Have just changed type to an "Autothrottle at all times" type, and already feeling pushed slightly out of the loop.. Better to realise now though!!

:oh:

Pretty much everything has EFIS these days, including many aircraft that people train for their commercial licences on. I would put forward that it is difficult to develop or practice a classical instrument scan in a glass cockpit as much of the information is crammed onto the PFD, leading to a sort of glare rather than a scan. Add the hypnotic flight director into the mix and there you go.

As far as the SFO accident is concerned, I don’t think anyone was actually flying the aircraft: the aiming point was well short of the runway for some time without correction. One wonders what was going through their minds, if anything...

At 76 years old Im just back from a six leg day in a cabin class twin, four circling approaches, one straight in precision and one straight in visual onto a very short "black hole", the young lady I have put in the left seat hand flew all of them with great skill and precision ,{I take the left seat only to stay current} So there are young pilots getting the skills needed, just give them a chance to get that experience , how this is to be done is the problem as more flight schools degenerate into "puppy farms" rather than teaching the basics. Having owned flight schools and retired from the "heavy metal" sixteen years ago, and having flown both Boeing and Airbus products along with the latest corporate tin, the decline in basic piloting skills is disturbing to say the least, there are good reasons the great mechant ships masters train in little sail boats to obtain the knowledge in ship handling required when the "magic" fails. Of one thing Im sure, unless the industry comes up with a solution ,perfectly serviceable aircraft, on perfect flying days, will continue to crash into perfectly flat ground. {by the way, as soon as the insurance company say OK to the young lady , I will at last get to retire!}

Vila, I think what main_dog means is that for YOU, automation is not a problem, because you have thousands of hours of manual flying, and the manual flying for so many years on some classic types was the opportunity for you to acquire a perfect scanning habit.

This is not the same story for today's baby pilots, who, with 200 hours under their belt, join companies operating today's most advanced, but also highly automated airliners, where they will routinely disconnect the autopilot a few hundred feet before landing. The rest of the time, it's just sitting here watching the clouds drift by.

I bet it took you more than 200 hours of manual flying to achieve the level of proficiency you undoubtedly acquired.

The FAA requires now 1500 hours before flying for an airline (I don't know the specifics). It is a first step in acknowledging, maybe, that the industry lacks experience and/or manual flying experience. But it does not force the airlines to change their view about automation and manual skills proficiency once the pilots have joined.

I see 1223 "views" on this thread so far and it was only started yesterday. That is an encouraging sign. I wonder how many of these people are in senior operations management, be they airline or regulator, and have the inclination and influence to initiate the changes needed to fix the problem we are seeing of automation addiction?

Either Autopilot/autothrottle ON or OFF but NOT a mixture of both.
SOP in all companies I flew for, both Airbus and Boeing.

NEW PILOTS' PROFILE
 

In all domains, the modern life taught us to increase our knowledge with IT, not to replace our old technical skills.


Aviation is not different in that that management, law, building our houses, aso.
Young pilots have to learn BOTH, hand flying AND using and understanding systems.


A condition is to hire others pilots profiles (pluridisciplinarity), and to train much much more.
There is enough money vasted in leasing rates.

Not in BA. Manual thrust handling forbidden on 777 and Airbus. Training dept say it is safer than letting the pilots manage!!

Wow!!! what a concept. Just think if management encouraged maintaining flying skills in the first place, this article would never have been printed.


I still a hands on line training captain. Pilots need to demonstrate their airmanship prior to being released to the line. I've been criticized and praised by both sides of the fence. I never wanted any of my students to be part of a new article ala Asiana.

And if you fly an aircraft that is capable of single engine autothrottle, and even single engine CAT 3B................... Even the sim ILS thrust is done for you!!

Used to do the odd flight with an a/thr inop in a previous life, and was confident.. Not so now!!

:\

I understand from company sources, Virgin Australia (737NG) leave the AT armed when flying manually on final approach but de-select the speed function. I understand that this was the technique used by the former Ansett Airlines of Australia on their Classics before the airline folded over a decade ago. Pilots of AAA who joined the then start up airline Virgin Blue brought that technique with them regardless of Boeing recommended philosophy. Qantas NG AT philosophy started off leaving AT armed for manual flying then reverted to Boeing recommended procedures of AT off when manually flying unless in climb after take off.

FLEXPOWER
What you said is only partly correct. The basic flying skill has two aspects acquiring it and maintaining it. This applies to all irrespective of experience. SFO accident was not caused by 200 hrs guys. So what was the problem did they lose the skill or never had it in the first place? I have seen even some of the experienced pilots have weak areas which are not addressed in the refreshers and keep getting worse. Here the airline and ethnic cultural issues may come in. I am not against practicing basic skills but if you have the ability it is not that difficult to retain it.

So is an unservicable A/T still allowed in the MEL? If pilots are not allowed to practice using manual thrust under any circumstance because of the danger it presents then an A/T should be considered a no-go item if it is U/S.

Seeing the accidents' statistic, it seems the problem of excess of SOP dependance is typically a civilian problem.

How do Military manage that modern piloting method schyzophreny ?

Is the aerobatics training a solution to maintain enough brain's independance ?

Are you using other methods to train ? (Perhaps military keep secrecy about their AF447 type LOC, or SFO type short landing ?)

Is it a problem of human factor inside airlines to destroy benefits of experience , and Unions strength in generation competition with the pretext of technoology ?

Quote:
Not in BA. Manual thrust handling forbidden on 777 and Airbus. Training dept say it is safer than letting the pilots manage!!

Sadly a legacy from the "good old Trident" with the non flying pilot holding the throttles. Demonstrated admirably by Manx at Cork a couple of years ago.
Fools never learn.
On a happier note met my first black BA pilot on thursday at the Caribean pilots exhibition at RAF museum Hendon...a bl@@dy long time coming.:ok:

I usually fly, with my hands and eyes, the first thirty minutes of about half of all my departures. Frequently, F/O expects that I'll put on the autopilot after we are cleaned up. I just keep using my eyes and hands all the way to FL and then some. This is really where the crosscheck is learned. At Mach0.84 a one degree pitch change produces an 840 foot vertical either up or down. So to keep it smooth one must learn how to do changes less than a quarter of a degree. There are times when the ATC load becomes busy and the A/P is connected. But when not I keep my hands and eyes trained.


One the way back down, I'm again on the eyes and hand below ten thousand.


The auto throttle issue comes to fuel burn. I have yet to see a manual throttle pilot beat the auto system. The savings maybe small but ten kilos of fuel saved each hour by a fleet of 40 aircraft save the company money.

Another reason Pilots of modern airliners are reluctant to practise manual flight is the data monitoring which sends a ping every time a company specified parameter is exceeded. This is especially prevalent in Asia where exceeding a parameter can result in a tea and bicky session followed by fines, demotion, loss of face and loss of a Job.
Being a good pilot that knows their limits through practice and past experience isn't important anymore. Being a cheap bum in the seat who can recite SOP's and push buttons is.

Dutch roll
 

I'm still waiting a "DUTCH ROLL" SOP to apply in case of degenerating yaw damper failure, or cable tension failure :mad: The latter happened on MD83, happily the captain was able to hand fly that problem.

In my previous company the disconnection of all automatics was actively encouraged. Crews often flew approaches fully manual. I personally have total disrespect of the A330 A/T in gusty conditions, and since gusty was common in that part of the world it made perfect sense to disconnect it.

In my current company it is only passively encouraged, and crews seem to prefer leave the automatics in. You rarely see the FO suggesting to do a manual approach.

Recently I did an approach where the AT was behaving abysmally (I had left it engaged since that's really the unspoken norm here). So, I did the obvious and disconnected it.
Afterward the FO whinged that I hadn't briefed him before the approach that I'd be disconnecting the AT.
The 'norms' and ' SOP's' are so firmly ingrained now that logic is out the window.

Lookleft, re: BA

It is on the 777..and I agree with your subsequent comments.

b.p.

:confused: Well FWIW "it's" been going on a bl@@dy long time, in fact some of us joined BA at the same time as a black Caribbean lady pilot in the late 80's......

I offer my F/Os 3 out of the 4 legs we may fly in a day. I encourage my F/Os to manually fly up to the mid 20s and disengage the A/P and deselect speed below FL150.


Many enjoy turning off the FDs too.

The airlines may have policies on automation but no one tells you to fly on autopilot unmonitored. All these incidents happened because pilots were not scanning. Aircrafts like A320 hold the flight path then what else is left to do? The N1 from level flight at green dot to descent on glide path does not vary by more than 15% and with trend arrow guiding you at all times it is not a great skill. Proper training and sincere refreshers should be able sort this out. Too much manual flying in congested air traffic environment can create its own problems.

People keep saying stuff like this, but really I don't see why manual flying would be particularly problematic. Looking at the ASRs at my place, it seems most screwups in busy ATC environments where because intended autopilot mode changes were not properly monitored and automatic mode changes were not noticed.

I would conclude that autopilot flying requires forced concentration and discipline, whereas manual flying imbibes such qualities. Therefore autopilot flying just a skill as manual flying is just a skill. Do enough manual flying and one wonders what all the fuss is about.

You might want to Google KC-135 Kyrgyzstan and see that the Air Force also has a problem with over reliance on automation. Due to flight control problems the aircraft developed Dutch Roll and it broke up in flight. The report suggested that the crew might have been able to recover the aircraft if they had taken manual control but they instead had attempted to engage the autopilot.

So its not just a civilian problem. It has a lot to do with reducing training to the absolute minimum and hoping that the only non-normals experienced by a crew fit neatly into the QRH and ECAM/EICAS.

If you are too lazy to operate the MCP while your FO wants to flay, just man up and tell them.

IMHO it is not a training problem, but a culture problem. The TQ & base training should create a solid foundation for GH skills. The culture of the airline then encourages, or not, the development and maintenance of those skills. Before EFIS my airline actively encouraged manual flying. The autopilot was so basic that it was easier to do so. The F/O had only CWS and no A/T anyway. Manual visual circuits was the norm so skills were high.
I then flew B757/767 with other airlines and manual flight, visual approaches into small quiet airfields was the norm.
Later airlines with the new wizz-bang computer a/c said, very quietly, that manual flight was allowed, but then actively discouraged it. All through the winter fully automated procedures had been used. In the first week of CAVOK summer there were too many Go-rounds from screwed up manual visuals, and that meant lost money & time, so very restrictive procedures were put in place that effectively shut that door. Use of automatics and LNAV/VNAV etc. meant that the very basic skills which had not been taught that well were now in the land of Dodo.
You can increase the legal training all you like; you can increase the minimum base training circuits all you like, but if the company doesn't like its pilots to use those techniques it ain't going to happen.

As an aside, here's a discussion topic.

The modern B737NG & A320 family can be flown on the automatics like a play station. Rotate, 400' and engage George all the way to 400' in front of the runway at the other end. Trained monkey stuff. Write an extensive set of SOP's and train & check them with a vengeance. You can now expand your airline anywhere and as fast as you like. Every pilot goes through the same sausage machine process and there are base captains and local trainers to enforce the SOP's. Head office can have confidence that even cadets can twiddle the correct knobs and buttons at the correct time with any captain they meet; the captain will be doing the same and it works for any airfield. 20-30 new a/c per year spread over many countries flown by pilots from multifarious backgrounds. You have a central control with local oversight. The a/c can be flown this way, and all airfields are also to a standard. An approach plate is an approach plate, and ILS's & radar are in abundance, in Europe.
Could the same rapid massive safe expansion have been possible in the 70's & 80's when the basic a/c were B732, B727 & DC-9's? Many airfields were non radar and NPA's. No way would you take cadets into that environment; they needed an airmanship grounding first. captains had >5000hrs and should be able to watch over the neewbies, who might be ex-QFI's, military, turbo-prop, airtaxi etc. They knew about manual flying and were comfortable in the air. It was not a play-station. The a/c had to be understood and they had to be flown. The charter guys flew to some very basic places, in all seasons and all weathers. SOP's were based on FCTM and the company culture, which was more pilot orientated than accountant, as today.
IMHO the massive safe expansion of LoCO's we've seen over the past 10 years could not have happened with the equipment of the 70's & 80's. However, and here is my curiosity, SWA DID expand rapidly and used B732 and basic B733 with a down-graded instrument display. It seemed successful. Perhaps those on the inside could enlighten us. But, does anyone believe RYR could have expanded from 25 - 300 a/c over 45 bases in 12 years if they still used B732's?

Thank you Lookleft for that worthful reference. It shows too that never described strong forces build a glued 3D net around the plane during developped dutch roll, not explained to pilots, AND not understood by classical aerodynamic rules who matters only about airflow very near of the plane.
It is how successive airfoils wristed around the plane and around oneanother with different AoAs.
Systems and autopilots ignore that modell, so "automation" (what I used to call "butterfly" from the fractal equations building lift and drag) cannot bring a good response to that degenerating system, if time delays and sensitivity of the FCS are too low (and too cheap, of course). A good handflying pilot with aerobatics training (fighter pilots) is better able to feel more quickly the limit of acceptable actions.

Developped dutch roll is the easiest PIO to overcome because degree of equations are the lowest, but that degree increases with bad reactions.

We know that PIO often develop in FBW rate limitation resulting from digitalizing vs analogic solutions like Concorde (Mc Ruer and others).

Automation is like a drug near the airports : folks buy houses near the airport because they are cheaper, and then complain about noise to get money. Airports ask greater precision in lateral path, airlines request more automation during departure and arrival.... There is no limit ! At some moment you get a safety saturation.