Ueeehhh.... NO.

Most mistakes happen at the end of the day. Skipping items when busy is a perilous path, especially under the conviction that the shortcut is common sense. Indeed many have elected to speed things up by not reading a checklist with predictable results. (link to Spanair in MAD here).

The procedure as described by the OP (identical to my understanding of the FCOM book) is inadequate. Respecting a high level rule that PF instructs, a task sharing model is created which increases workload and is inpractical to use. One that is being avoided by trained crews intending their reasonable best in every day line ops.

Almost a poster child how not to do it from https://www.faa.gov/documentLibrary/...AC_120-71B.pdf



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Difference in philosophy, I guess. One of my biggest annoyances is flying with people who don’t stick to SOP. At the same time, our manuals allow us to exercise judgment when appropriate. That specific scenario (AP off with a busy PM) is addressed, and the powers that be think it’s fine for the PF to set it.

Naturally, once the PM is back in the loop, the PF will bring the PM up to speed regarding any changes. This part isn’t in the book, but it’s how it’s done on the line (and in the sim) because it just makes sense to do so. I have no doubt both our airlines operate safely day to day.

Well touching the FCU as PF without AP is a debriefable moment here, and there before too. I would still do the same when needed and follow up exactly as you describe, but get finger pointed.

My note was that underachieving on SOP is the first incline of a slippery slope. A trained pro knows how walk that line, needless to say.

To the original OP dilemma, IMHO the FCOM if fulfilled does not have a workable solution for this basic scenario.

Agree with you here. Intentionally ignoring SOP can be a slippery slope. I still do my best to adhere. Even to the changes I find silly, like “before landing” checklist and not “landing” checklist. Still working on breaking that old habit. I’m sure 2 weeks after I’ve got it down, there’ll be a revision :ugh:

ROFL, will there be a change for After Parking C/L​​​​​​?

You see, aviation has given me the great gift of witnessing first-hand that from the gray matter inside, homo sapiens sapiens are truly identical to the last bit.

Hillarious moment, thanks for it.

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Ha! Not yet. Undoubtedly, the current training manager has been considerate enough to leave that for his successor.

I’ll be sure to point out the discrepancy at my next training event.

When under AP, the PF does not instruct, he just sets the FCU and then tells what he's set.
So this argument does not seem entirely convincing. In manual flight, he could also set the FCU himself, and keep the PM in the loop by saying what he's set, just like AP flight.

I did not understand the end of your message though ?

I qualify my statement by writing that I have not read every post on the thread, but;

I have been constantly dismayed over the years when being checked by, very capable, younger TREs who have "bought" their TRE rating and constantly talk about improving situational awareness by using the the autopilot and flight management system when I see their heads go down to the screen and their eyes never move anywhere else and for those of us of a certain age flying manually massively increases our situational awareness.

Just my tuppence worth, if you know what tuppence is

Miles that reminds me of the time I had strips torn off me here in a thread when discussing an A320 that busted levels steps on a visual approach. PM was head down trying to program the box and they forgot there they were.

i had simply said just disconnect the automatics, look out the window fly it like a Cessna!

The use of managed modes to improve situational awareness can be a double-edged sword. Many people misunderstand is as "go managed at all times to improve your situational awareness". And it's not that clear-cut. The use of managed guidance can pay off in a situation where you've had the chance to instert everything in advance and then just monitor its execution while focusing on the bigger picture. But fiddling with the MCDU in descent instead of flying the aircraft is neither good airmanship, nor a precursor to good situational awareness. If it doesn't do what you want it to do or the situation has changed (e.g. change of routing invalidating your lateral flight plan) - go selected, focus on flying and, if necessary, ask the PM to sequence the flight plan whenever his workload allows for it.

To be honest, I think most of the applications never got past the "must be over 10.000kg MTOW" filter and were probably not seen by proper pilots. But the job sure gave me some very valuable flying skills. Sketchy company, sketchy captains to fly with... Was a proper sink or swim kind of deal. Came out as a pretty decent swimmer and a healthy sense of what not to do and what I was able to do. Would do it again if I had to go back in time.

My company has the same rule during manual flight, not on Airbus though. As PF I am supposed to order all the changes during manual flight, and like I mentioned, I still don't quite understand the purpose or benefit of this way of doing things. But you learn to go with the flow.

I think Airbus are trying to keep both pilots in the flying part of the loop. Which is laudable enough. But if I am flying manually and setting off drift to track a course, it is a right pain for both of us if I keep saying Heading left 3° Heading right 2° etc, just to centre the heading bug. Much easier for PF to click the HDG knob as required.

I would like to think that PM is always watching the PFD, ND and N1/EPR even when talking to ATC or the cabin. I certainly do when I am PM.

When PM has been head down in the MCDU, they should look carefully to see what I might have changed, (I do if I am PM), and I will tell them anything significant as well.

But, I don't write the SOPs

I remember back in the 80s flying manually and keeping a good lookout was paramount - not looking out of the window into a turn would get a clipboard round the back of one's head from the IRE/TRE in the sim! Very sadly, the flightdeck is no longer a place for those skills, TCAS has replaced lookout and the magenta line provides a synthetic situational awareness - hell at my company, the raw data ILS is taught with the ND as part of the scan, but if the ND is available, why would you need to fly raw data? If it's for practice, then why increase the scan beyond the necessary instruments.

My colleagues these days on the flight deck have between 200hrs and 3000hrs total time before they are rushed into the LHS...hopefully C-19 will slow this down, but the lack of airmanship that I deal with on a daily basis is simply jaw dropping. They get their RT from you tube, their IF procedures from NAVBLUE, and their common sense (airmanship) from their equally inexperienced 3000hr LHS mates - I won't call these LHS pilots captains, because at most airlines, they wouldn't be captains, they'd have to spend a few more years in the RHS learning the ropes.

Fortunately, I have very few real issues flying the line safely these days as modern aircraft are so much more reliable than the turboprops and second generation twinjets that I flew as a youngster with no FMC or AFDS to programme, but I would contend that the skillset nowadays is completely different - the only similarity being that we are at the controls of many tons of aluminium hurtling through the atmosphere propelled by Jet A1. The generation of youth starting on the Kirby Cadet T3 and progressing to chipmunks and JPs like I did is over, todays pilots are kids who start with Flight Sim, get their Dads to fund their dream career and learn their skills by pushing buttons, going online and pressing CTL ALT DEL when it all goes wrong.

I would mourn the now redundant skills of manual flying or using raw data or VOR point to point Navigation with the help of an en-route chart or taking a VOR or NDB cross cut - or even being able to read a TAF or a METAR and perish the thought of using the basic T scan and the black art of airmanship....but I'd hate to stand in the way of progress.

Sorry if this seems hubristic on my part, but the loss of basic airmanship and common sense I have seen over the years really is jaw dropping.

hec7or

How do explain accidents like Tenerife, Staines and Washington national? Or how about events that were nearly catastrophic like the BA 742 at LHR that nearly hit the Penta hotel and Concorde on low fuel.

My original reply was much longer but you’ve been spared as my WiFi dropped out and I lost it! :{

Lazy solution: "This is my best guess at the heading to lay off drift. I'll be within five degrees of it to fine-tune but won't need the heading bug continuously adjusted."
Lazier solution: "I'm going to fly TRK/FPA".
Laziest solution: "I'm going to stick the green track diamond over the top of the ILS dagger."

The aim of the industry over the past 20 years or so has been to make the path to an airliner flight deck as easy and flexible as possibile in order to have more suitable candidates and hence have better flexibility when handling T&Cs.
One of the main points is to relieve the pilots from having to control the aircraft in manual flight as statistics have historically shown this is where people cock up big time.
If today we are talking about manual flying on the line like a great achievement and something that has to be highly and strictly regulated it is (also) because of the above reason.
The concept today is that aviation is for everybody and everybody can be trained to the required aviation standards but sticking to this will drive us to a not so distant future where autolands will become the norm even in cavok conditions, not to mentions the already available auto takeoffs.

Discovery of more and more human factors is one of the reasons for more and more automation and development towards pilotless aircraft. It's almost an advertisement of how humans are unsuitable for the job. For the industry and the travelling passengers what matters is if accidents have to happen then with pilotless aircaft will fares be significantly less and will accidents reduce?

The comment above is spot on. The truth is: deteriorating flying skills are a result of the race to the bottom of the last 20 years. I get all the comments lamenting this fact and I too used to fly a lot of raw data and visual. Now, however, flying for a European low cost operator that seems a bit too keen on flight data monitoring, fear culture is becoming the norm in Europe too. Why do a visual approach when your safety ops reprimands its pilots for being a few knots above Vapp on a visual in windy conditions? Combine this with a punishing and fatiguing summer roster where everyone is worked to the max, and yes, we are going to start behaving like monkeys flying from ILS to ILS. A lot of us are indirectly being encouraged not to maintain our actual flying skills. We're either too knackered or scared and don't want the hassle of filing ASR's.
Don't blame individuals, blame the whole system that makes this possible.

Absolutely.

The problem is IMHO about the suitability of the candidates in the industry. We can take the Air Force as an example ; they have always worked with very small numbers compared to the airlines world (for obvious reasons) and thus the selection process has always been very demanding in terms of psychomotor skills. Now it is definitely a different job but on the other hand the civilian job went to the extreme with a race to the bottom whereas we need to demonstrate that the most average pilot is suitable to safely operate in a cockpit and we need to design rules and procedures around that.
The wrong assumption is that single pilot highly automated airliners and/or pilotless aircrafts will get rid of the human weakness component because the bar today is set at an incredibly low level.
Experienced, knowledgeable and skilled pilots are expensive, or at least they should be and this does not go well with ultra low cost business models.

100% agree.
All of that is simply WRONG ! I am still lucky to work for a European legacy carrier (effin' covid 19 permitting) where common sense still prevails, but I am well aware of all the BS going on within the industry - especially the kind of stuff You have exposed above.
This way of doing things is typical of those places where nobody wants to get any sort of responsibility or use their brain/airmanship and thus if Vapp +10 is ok, Vapp +11 gets you a warning letter.
With things like that it is obvious that sooner or later the industry will end up pilotless, as the machine will maintain the speed better than us untrained pilots who are too afraid to try !

It's true that for civil flying that high psychomotor skills are not required but the pendulum is shifting to the other side. In developing countries because the pilot salaries are high as compared to other professions some people with financial resources and some gambling with what they have but with very little aptitude are drawn to flying. Flying club is a business and won't turn down a customer who is shelling out 100000 USD no matter how poor is his performance. TRTOs are just an extension of this business they do not turn away any mediocre trainee who shells out 20000USD. This chain continues in the airline from poor copilot to poor Capt to poor trainer. Then one day someone finds the runway is short, the rain is too much or flight time is too tiring. There were five RW excursions in India last monsoon despite all the criticism of RW condition and contamination etc without exception all of them had landed halfway down the RW because they were high and fast. In one case the pilot turned down ATC offer of suitable RW to opt for downwind landing and got stuck beyond the end in the gravel. On ATC query about ops normal he confirmed in the affirmative but when given taxi instruction asked for a tow. It's hilarious.

:}:D

This brings back fond (and frustrating) memories.We can all imagine why he’d lie, but how he thought he’d get away with it...sigh. Some things never change :ugh:

Happens to me often: Press the internet back key at top left of page - takes you back to what you have written. Tap to select all, (of your own post) then tap Copy. Try submitting again. If it asks you to sign in, do so and if it auto-saved it should say proceed and publish your post. If not, you can sign in, reply to thread again and paste what you copied :ok:

Uplinker

Many thanks for that top tip. Briefly, I wrote that I don’t buy into this theory that all the youngsters now are rubbish and that they are below par FOs that become equally sub standard Captains and Trainers. I’m not a trainer but friends of mine that are, in a large orange airline, say that they only thing they lack is experience. Give them a few years of intense low cost short haul and they’ll be as capable as say Hamble or Oxford cadets of old.

On the subject of hand flying I do think it is worth practicing but when appropriate and I will accept that is open to debate. Good handling skills are essential but they are not the ONLY skills required. Lastly, I think humans have always and will always make mistakes. I simply don’t see any evidence that the younger generation have a monopoly on such events. That was my point in referencing accidents and incidents from the pre EFIS era.

I would get seriously worried about someone if they've got a couple of years of EU LCC experience and haven't improved one bit since the beginning. I would even say that, to me, this sounds completely nonsensical. Those who make it into these companies are subjected to a substantial assessment, far-above-average level of training and lots of hours and sectors in every month afterwards. So, if you get into one of those places and you're half-decent, in a couple of years you stand all chances of becoming a skillful, competent, above-average pilot. And I would feel totally safe getting on a plane that's in the hands of such a pilot.

What I feel is the cause for concern are some smaller, worse-known places. Of course, there are brilliant pilots there as well and people have all sorts of reasons for ending up somewhere like that rather than in a major airline - but, IMHO, that's where you're most likely to find people with significant lapses in their skill set. There's often no true common standard there and newbies pick up the way of working of whoever they get paired with - and, having never seen otherwise, take everything they hear on trust and soak in all the good and bad habits of whoever they fly with. One other problem is that this sort of bottom-feeder carriers often only fly in the summer. So, on one hand, this often means little to no exposure to cold weather ops, LVO and all the other joys of year-round flying. I've personally seen someone with 5 years of experience in an airline like this who had never done de-icing/anti-icing just because he had only flown in warm temperatures! On the other hand, it means that the pilots routinely have long interruptions in their practice, which is not a good thing, especially combined with low experience. And the lack of firm skills and confidence resulting from all this can very easily translate into overreliance on automation. Someone who flies infrequently or doesn't fly at all for most of the year, paired with a colleague who is not happy with the AP being disengaged at any time above 1000 ft AGL, is likely to never develop his manual flying skills to a good standard.

Hey! Deicing is a sensitive topic here 🙂. We have pilots who work haven’t seen snow in years. They wouldn’t know where to find the deicing checklist. I’m trying to be one of those pilots.

More to your point though, I’ve flown for airlines that have small fleets (under 50 planes) and large fleets (a few hundred). The larger fleets required more robust SOPs and safety management. There were more techniques going around at the smaller company.

After a few months of flying the line with no instructor, my point of view has, fortunately, changed.
During the line training, the instructors tend to be "more of a royalist than the king" so they tend to respect the task sharing rules as per the manual to the maximum possible extent.
This extent often stops when ground asks to disconnect external power. The manual says that PM unplugs the GPU and PF answers "you may unplug" to ground.
(In practise, 95% of cases even with instructors, the same pilot will both unplug the GPU and answer to the ground crew.)

With normal captains, even instructors but outside of their instructing missing, I find the method much more reasonable and closer to what some people described here. I can now very easily fly manually and most captains will manage most of the FCU as required without having to ask.

I think I will open a new topic to discuss automation dependency.