San Francisco again

Cessna_Pilot

http://avherald.com/h?article=465e38db&opt=0


Second time lucky...:eek:

Razor44

Are basic fly skills being rundown that far in some airlines? Im guessing, as a lay person in the aviation world, that as a min a pilot should be able to hand fly his aircraft on a visual approach.?

Tenger

Razor44 wrote: »

Are basic fly skills being rundown that far in some airlines? Im guessing, as a lay person in the aviation world, that as a min a pilot should be able to hand fly his aircraft on a visual approach.?

Commercial pilots are increasing losing hands-on experience as aircraft become more standardised and automated.

Think of an older pilot (says 60's now) he probable trained on small Cessnas, then light twin then joined his (legacy) airline on a 'junior' fleet, ie Shorts, Fokker, Bae146, Embraer, etc. He slowly moved up the seniority list to switch to B737, then perhaps B767, and finally B747/B777. SUch a pilot has a wealth of experience.

Modern pilots may earn their CPL on light single/twin engine aircraft. But on arrival at their first job may be type rated on a B737/A320 from the start. Most non-legacy airlines are standardising their fleets to 1-2 types per operation. This pilot in 10 years time may be on their 2nd commercial type which is an A330/B777.

This is not the only factor in play but it is something that the aviation world has been looking at since the AF447 loss.

shedweller

Well, somethings going to have to change. Either we train airline pilots in the basics of flying manually. Seat of the pants stuff if you will.
Or we make the automated systems better. I was more or less told to feck off in the other san fran thread with my heretical talk of automated systems taking over fully but here we are again in more or less the same situation.
Whats it going to be?

LeftBase

I'm having a hard time believing that 2 aircraft can descend below glideslope on the same runway at the same airport and it is a coincidence...

Automation is a necessary tool for large commercial jets. However the attitude of pilots to these systems is an the issue. The system may control the aircraft but the pilot controls the system and that is the attitude all pilots must have. If you suspect the system is wrong them it goes off and you take control. The prime concern for a pilot is control...if you have control of the aircraft then you have as much control as you need of the situation.

The simple PPL rule of "where am I going, how fast am I going there and what altitude should I go there at?" applies from day 1 to retirement.

smurfjed

Leftbase, how often do you hand fly visual approaches with the auto throttle off? And how many of these approaches were over the sea?

@shedweller, there is nothing wrong with the automation on the 777, but there does appear to be a problem with how certain operators source and train their crews.

smurfjed

LeftBase

smurfjed wrote: »

Leftbase, how often do you hand fly visual approaches with the auto throttle off? And how many of these approaches were over the sea?

Company allows for hand flying with a/t off if stablised at 1000' and visual with the runway. AP can go off when visual with the runway below 1000' but a/t stays on. Crew can elect to keep the AP on as long as needed but most guys I've flown with and indeed myself like to actually "fly" some of the sector at either end.

Honestly couldn't tell you how many were over the sea.

IRLConor

shedweller wrote: »

Either we train airline pilots in the basics of flying manually. ... Or we make the automated systems better.

Can't we have both?

shedweller

IRLConor wrote: »

Can't we have both?

We could i suppose but its hard to stop lads getting complacent with automation.

Irish Steve

The problem comes when for whatever reason, the automation can't be used, so it has to be hand flown. on an approach that is normally flown using automation.

What seems to be causing the problems is that the beancounters, fleet and training captains have come together in an unholy trinity that seems to be insisting on the use of all of the automation whenever possible, even when hand flying would be possible. The end result is that the crews are losing their skills through lack of use, and the other issue is that if some of the systems on the ground are out of action for whatever reason, the crew then has to fly with diminished information, and if they have become accustomed to following the magenta line, and there now is no magenta line, their scan, operational procedures and whole SOP is blown out of the window, and we've seen the result in the recent incidents.

As was seen with the AF 447 outcome, it's NOT just the Far East that is having problems, a good few years ago now, a relatively simple procedure that required hand flying without guidance from any approach aids was given to a number of 747 first officers in the simulator in London. 2 of the 3 were unable to fly it, and ended up breaking the aircraft in the air because they didn't have the skills to fly raw data. What was more worrying was that the same exercise had been flown without problems by a number of CPL rated pilots, and several PPL level pilots, and none of them had broken the aircraft, despite not being type rated. What they did have was well developed raw data flying skills, so they were able to interpret and use the data that they had, which the line pilots who were type rated and flying the aircraft on the line were unable to do.

This problem is not new, I saw it coming a long time ago as a result of some of the specialist simulator work I was doing at that time, but changing the underlying bean counter influenced mentality that allowed it to come about was another story.

Part of the problem is that the bean counters are never on the front line when it comes to dealing with bereaved relatives, they are invariably well insulated and removed from the front line, and always able to find credible and viable justifications for whatever change has been implicated in the events.

In a similar vein, I was horrified to discover that when the A380 uncontained engine failure happened, it took a heavy crew, with much experience, nearly 5 HOURS to work through all the check list issues that came up. The implications if they had not been heavy crewed, and had been faced with more performance and operational degredation as a result of the failure is worrying, if there had been more damage, or less benign weather in the area, it is very possible that the time available to resolve the check list issues would not have been available, which could have placed the crew in a very compromised position.

The race to the bottom on costs also has to bear some responsibility, but cutting crew experience and skill levels in order to reduce costs is a dangerous road to be exploring,

All in all, there will have to be changes, but it's going to take some very brave decisions by the regulatory bodies to ensure that some of the known but hidden issues are addressed before they are responsible for some very significant hull losses.