CanoePilot

I'm not saying you shouldn't know what happens when you push the fuel pump button or what the fault line means. What I'm saying is we need to lose useless info that we have not control over. Why should I have to build the airplane when there is not point to?

forgot to bid

Well, here's a question, should you not turn the standby power to ON?

Let's say you decide yes you will turn it on and now you're on battery, you realize you've got 45 minutes and you land 30 minutes later.

Knowing that if you turn that switch XYZ happens is the new philosophy vs knowing that plus what the tire pressure is in the mains, how much of a certain quantity is required even though you can't measure it, knowing what temperature a valve opens when you can't read the temperature anywhere or how to draw this from memory...



I'm with you on not building the airplane. It's excessive rote learning. I think what they're pushing for now is more correlation than rote. And the people pushing this from the training house are not idiots about their aircraft and hoping to skip out on studying.

BTW, when I first heard it on the 767 that are knowledge needs to be 8 feet wide and an inch deep, I cringed. Then I looked at what they wanted you to know and realized it's more than an inch deep, but the focus is on correlating it.

Now if the checklist is a failure, that needs to be addressed. We need to know that the QRH is tested and trustworthy, because these are complicated machines and skipping a step might cause a problem with another system (something they may have figured out in the sim when they wrote it), or you might forget to go back to what you skipped, etc. It's kind of like taking something apart, putting it back together and have all of these "spare" pieces.

forgot to bid

It doesn't matter to me if it's a 742 or a 748, I'll fly either and I'm sure one is a whole lot easier than the other on the pilot's systems knowledge. What matters to me is that the checklist is right. The checklist should have said (paraphrasing):

ABC. When within approximately 30 minutes of landing:
STBY POWER selector . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . BAT
Go to step XYZ


Which is still the case. That has not gone away.

I think there is some confusion though on the difference in knowing nothing because you don't care but you still can function just fine at work and knowing how many rivets are on the horizontal stabilizer. One is wrong, the other is the waste of everyone's collective time. The solution is in the middle.

DelDah Capt

You should definitely turn it on....however, you should also have the wherewithall to know that when you turn on STBY PWR or EMERG PWR, or whatever they call it on your plane, you are on Battery and the clock is ticking and it's time to get on the the ground (it's worth noting that in this incident, there were issues with the flow of the QRH procedure....but what QRH procedure isn't written generically? They also got some bad advice from MX, but really, your average mechanic has to know 5-6 different models and you probably should know about your systems better than he does...it's your butt in the air on the line)

While certainly not the norm, I do fly with some guys who are literally, along for the ride. Their mantra is "I don't get paid enough/it's not my job". I'm convinced that there are a number of consultants at the Regional Airline Association (and probably the A4A) who believe you can throw any schmoe in the seat and the Aviation System has become so good, that everything will be fine. With automation, advanced warning systems, ATC, etc, you just need a warm body....and when the system is working fine on a VMC day with no MELs, they may even get away with it. But when things don't go according to plan, you need someone with solid judgment, professional acumen, CRM and leadership skills.

I've followed a lot of incidents/accidents, and they rarely occur because the pilot couldn't perform a perfect Split S. 99.9% of the time it's because of a combination of poor decisions based on lack of SA/knowledge with nobody in charge of the situation. Whether it's the AA crew not understanding the electrical system, the Asiana crew not understanding how their automation works, or the Air France crew not knowing some basic pitch/powers combinations, this job has far more to do with cerebral skills than motor skills.

forgot to bid

Well said DelDah.

I will say this about QRHs, it really falls on the people who write them to do it right. I flew one particular aircraft for an airline and all the instructor could do was trash the QRH for having been written wrong in so many places. And he was right. That's not good. And these weren't systems knowledge issues, it was more like completely untested and borrowed from a different make and model.

Now I'm sure you could ask a pilot "how long can you operate on battery power only?" They probably could give you the answer. It doesn't hurt if the QRH, on important topics, reminds one of that fact because they may not correlate it or think about it at that particular moment.

I don't really think one size fits all on this stuff either. The reason a pilot can do fine with little knowledge is dependent upon what they're doing. Give a pilot a 717 or ERJ-145 and you've got a well thought out, simple, reliable, automated jet that's just fun to fly. Their situation is relatively easier than either a corporate pilot with an old jet or an international pilot in any jet over blue water. IMHO of course.

I know a situation on one old business jet and if you don't follow the right sequence on landing you can literally, and it did, blow the cockpit door through the cabin. I talked to a pilot about it and he was like "aw I've told those guys they have to do XYZ on landing (not in the checklist)..." 3 letter acronym came to my mind about that jet. And of course out over the water where you can't land soon, you just need to know more.

I know I'm not being fair there but life ain't fair.

All of that to say, in the case of those who don't care about work and make no effort, go do something else.

DeadHead

I think after Captain Jim Green's groundbreaking level of toolishness we have officially reached Absolute Toolness. Seeing as no one can top this mountainous level of toolness, this thread has slowly begun consuming itself. Very similar to when a star dies, expands, and then collapses upon itself.

Pogey Bait

Laughter.......time to close this thread up and start over.

forgot to bid

You have a point, but I disagree.

Closing the thread means all of the tools disappear. Sure you could say this one super Captain was the greatest of them all but nobody would remember how it all went down and how many tools he beat to climb to the top.

I say let it live on, and no more digressing, me included. This is about tools.

tsquare

Ahhh, OK, so train engineers, truck drivers and shoe salesmen deserve $300K/ year too? And lots of them stay in much crappier hotels than we. Actually, I think the Westins are rather nice. Not the 4 seasons I guess, but I sleep well there and haven't seen nary a bedbug.

tsquare

+1. You are absolutely right sir. 30 years from now, with attitudes like that, his copilot won't be landing or takeoff qualified. They'll pay 'em $30,000/year to read checklists.