Originally Posted by
sailingfun
I was not advocating a unstable approach. We have a published VFR pattern. Many however refuse to fly it and take the aircraft out to beyond the marker. When tower calls you 3 times to remind you that your cleared for the visual that is a hint.
I think, it is possible to not "develop" airmanship at the airline. Instead, we just apply the procedures.
In general, we fly a sid to a visual ILS backup. Its a tragedy to hear that someone might be a little befuddled by a visual pattern.
We do our thing in the sim, but those are generally rote responses to "scenarios."
This isn't the military where a good bit of the flying is pushing the pilot...hard. This job is boring and its our job to keep it that way. If a pilot comes to the airline withour flying skills and airmanship, this is not the place to learn it and the sim is not the tool where it can be taught either, just reviewed.