Originally Posted by
III Corps
You said in a post standardization, training and automation has created a non-thinking robot that just follows procedures. I found that in an highly automated aircraft, one had to study even more to understand all the defaults and assumptions that were built in the automation. For example, the Boeings default to speed in a descent, Airbus defaults to a Vertical speed (if I remember correctly).
In the training dept, I found the guys who relied strictly on the automation were real weak sisters (sorry for the old term) and the guys who could use their knowledge and THINK had a walk in the park.
Is there a heavy reliance on automation that induces one to sit back and vegetate? No doubt. But it is up to the individual to have personal standards that exceed the minimum.
And finally, as noted earlier, when the automation does fail, it usually fails in a very unpredictable way. The flier who is the robot is toast. The AVIATOR still has a chance.
Happy Thanksgiving to all..
I was involved with training as well. The trend I noticed was that systems have become so complex that airlines are not going very deep into teaching them anymore. A pilot is given a cartoon picture of a general depiction of how a system works and that is all. A typical line pilot does not need to reach an engineers level of understanding when there is little they can do about it anyway.
If something goes wrong just follow the checklist. More often I have seen pilots make matters worse when they try and trouble shoot a situation. It is true that going the extra mile
can help a pilot at times however what is the benefit to the individual in doing that? A pilot only needs to be able to pass the check ride not to be able to re-engineer the plane. Polluting the situation with layers of irrelevant information can make matters worse. For the most part mindless button pushing is good enough.
If something does not react how you think it shoud then start punching buttons until it does or call maintenance control. Why should a pilot be taught anything more?
Skyhigh