Originally Posted by
sailingfun
Airmanship is the problem. Airbus made a big point in their development that they intended to design a aircraft that did not require airmanship. Sadly it has not worked out quite like they planned. We have also watched as most airlines eliminate basic flying skills from training. If you don't require those skills you open the profession up to a larger group and can then lower wages. What does it say when a pilot at a major airline is not comfortable when cleared for the visual on downwind in a 757 flying a standard visual pattern and instead has to fly out to the OM before turning back into the field. They are not even comfortable with their own skills to fly the aircraft. When the chips are down and things go very bad it will not be a matter of trying to fall back on old skills, there will be no old skills to use and the result can be predicted in advance. More and more accidents are along these lines. Many pilots today could not pass a sim check from 25 years ago. The solution is make the check rides easier and easier. That falls back on management desire to expand the pool of pilots to keep wages low.
I think you're spot on with all of your points and consequences Sailing. But I want to expand though on this thought:
Originally Posted by
sailingfun
What does it say when a pilot at a major airline is not comfortable when cleared for the visual on downwind in a 757 flying a standard visual pattern and instead has to fly out to the OM before turning back into the field. They are not even comfortable with their own skills to fly the aircraft.
I cannot offer a solution to fix this ^^^ and wouldn't try to as I am not a LCA. But I can tell you what imho makes this true- stabilized approach criteria.
We can't deny that it's there for good reason for the criteria so everyone seemingly abides by it, especially knowing FOQA is watching us. So given the issues with close in visuals we now see the command to move towards OM visuals. So that degrades those visual skills. Tack on that no-fault-go-around policy seems to be adhered to by the company and the FAA but not necessarily the guy next to you and frankly, rightfully so. Thus you can see how there is less of a desire to "experiment" and therein not refine one's visual skills. Add on the severe consequences of an altitude bust and you can see why guys out of self preservation don't hand fly more and are not keen on the other guy hand flying more because they're not in the mood to baby sit them either.
Like I said, I don't have a solution that I think the company or FAA would buy off on, so that's just an observation of some of the things working against keeping one's basic airmanship skills current.
Now, I think we could be aided overall in basic flying skills if imho:
- In recurrent we would run an MEL that says no FMS, no AP, no FD (although that might not be allowed), and no autothrottles. Which I know the DC-9 guys say that's life out of ATL every day for them, but for the rest of us, it'd honestly be great thing to have hanging over ours and our instructors heads leading up to a LOFT.
- We also heard "if in doubt click off the AP" as much as we hear "VNAV to the marker! VNAV to the marker!" IMO I think we should have a no-fault-FMS-screw-up policy that says "the FMS can't keep up or is screwed up, probably my fault, don't care, AP is coming off and don't try to fix the FMS, thanks..."
That's all I can think of to add to your great post.