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Old 10-18-2022, 09:28 AM
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MCRN
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Joined APC: Jul 2018
Posts: 85
Default It's Time to Rethink the PED Rules.

I get it, I do. Personal electronics are distracting regardless of what activity you are engaged in. Obviously in some scenarios their inappropriate use can kill, especially while driving. In the cockpit their use during the pre-flight phase at the gate or parking stand, and during all sterile cockpit phases of flight can do and has caused critical items to get missed.

However, where I think there needs to be some re-thinking is established at cruise altitude on long flights. I got into a debate with my niece on this as she does follow the rules, I taught her right, but gave me some things to think about. Namely, why and how specificlly is their use during cruise flight an actual safety problem?

Gone are the days that I came up in when we had nothing but a wing leveler, raw nav data HSI/CDIs to follow and a whole lot of round dials that required constant monitoring. Let's face it, those of us opposing the use of PEDs in long range cruise flight I think are just suffering throwback syndrome. Lets be honest, the modern jets in use at today's airlines just don't need that level of attention in cruise as the old Diesel 9s and 727s some of us used to put around in. The current generation of aircraft (with some cargo company and 135 exceptions) pretty much do all the monitoring for you do they not? When something goes awry they yell at you. What needs constant monitoring? Really? I mean set aside the instinct to be against this for a moment and game it out? What scenario in say an Airbus 321 at cruise could turn into a disaster because a pilot was playing Candy Crush, reading a Kindal or watching football? Before you say missed radio calls: A, I'd love to see an example of a missed radio call turn deadly and B: I missed a helluva lot of radio calls over my tenure without an ipad or cell phone in hand. You don't need gadgets to mentally tune out ATC unwittingly. What else? What am I missing?

What is the true workload at cruise in these modern jets? Then you throw in CPDLC and what's left? Twiddling your thumbs asking the guy/gal next to you: "are we there yet?" After listening to my young padawan whine about this I started to see her point. What's the harm really in watching a movie, playing a silly game or reading while on long cruise flights? I think there should be some basic rules established here such as minimum time at cruise, off during briefings etc, yet as much as I pondered this I really couldn't come up with any other argument against her points that were anything other than old school pilot thinking.

Listen, not saying this should be done, just thinking it should be reconsidered for discussion sake.
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