Originally Posted by
newarkblows
It really wasnt flamebait. 6-7 yrs ago my company had ATR's and it wasn't "reguired" to be configured until 500'. Now we are given a more arbitrary 1000' requirement which seems excessive especially in visual conditions. There will always be examples of poor airmanship even with a new 1000' requirement. People landing with power in, floating down the runway trying for a soft touchdown, people being afraid to use thrust reversers, and there will always be people skidding off the end. It happens every winter even with these new rules so why am i ignorant? maybe they should up it to 1500' and then we will be sure no one will go off the end of the runway::sarcasm::.
If the culture at an airline frowns upon going around I see it as more of a threat then being configured by any certain point. We were once required to have judgement and airmanship. We now have rnav departures that REQUIRE the use of an autopilot. Little by little our jobs are losing everything that requires skill. Call me ignorant but i dont like the trend. I fly the book but that doesnt mean i like it.
I'm thinking you were at Coex too (i.e. EWR blows and ERJ FO, right?) then it was 500' VFR and 1000' IFR stabilized. Then it just went to 1000' if I remember right when it was all jet.
I would say people come off the end of the runway every year, quesiton is, did they follow the rules from stabilized approach criteria, land within the TDZ and follow the proper procedure with runway braking actions? A lot of that never gets out. The CLE Coex overrun, from what I remember in class, was a hand flown approach in a white out with strong crosswinds all the way down to minimums and he was on speed and pegging the loc and gs perfectly. Then what happened?
And btw, when the FAA figured out everyone who had shot that approach before and after had done so even though reported vis was below notam'd vis mins for the runway and they wanted to violate everyone before them, I think it was a 30 minute time period where vis was reported by tower and ATIS to below NOTAM mins but above charted mins prior to them commencing the approach. I think CAL, Coex and UsAir and ALPA had to fight that on behalf of their pilots who were legally wrong for having shot the approach.
Here is the bigger quesiton, if you outlawed the 1000' and TDZ rules because it is castrating the good pilots out there, then when a pilot brings a 737-800 in at 25 kts fast and touches 5000' down the runway at DCA, how do you say he did anything wrong? I mean at this point doing what you ought to do is a technique, not a requirement, right?