Is checking the altimeter for the 3rd or 4th time going to make it all better? Getting back on topic....

The organizational failure in quality training and standards is giving the safety reporting department lots of job security. Training since the merger has been dumbed-down, over simplified, and spoon-fed .... without consequence (when was the last time you had any kind of oral exam during a check?).

The point of this thread is; UAL internal memos show that flying solely based on the way they train you to can be inherently unsafe.

 

So your beef is checking the altimeter twice instead of checking it only once? Isn't it more conservative and thus more safe to check it twice? Do you want more safety or not?

 

Or checking the MCP for the 3rd or 4th time??? So which way do you want to go?

 

Diminishing returns. If 2 is "more safe" than 1, then 3 is "more safe" than 2! Therefore, we are being "less safe" by not checking it 3 or 4 times. Why not just add it to every checklist? Check it every 1,000' in climb and descent.

How many times do we need to check an altimeter? If you checked once and its where you wanted it, and no one changed it, it should still be the same.

If your argument is "well maybe they missed it the first time" then that is a different problem altogether. The risk is also that they could have the proper setting the 1st time, but they change it to a wrong setting the 2nd time. So maybe a 3rd check will check if they did that.

 

How many times do we need to check the MCP?

BTW, on the approach descent you check only the altimeter, on the approach you check altimeter and minimums.

You can argue it's an annoyance but can't argue safety because if anything it errs on the safe side. And if you are arguing for checking the MCP more than once you can't argue against this practice either.

 

I just keep checking everything every second. The Captain usually asks me "why won't you look at me when you talk to me" and I say "because it interrupts my scan of every switch, light, instrument and read-out in the cockpit."

 

Hey, I like the way you think.

 

The Captain usually asks me "why won't you look at me when you talk to me"............... Oh, Nevermind

 

Every time you change something on it

 

Altimeter, MCP, and all the other bells, whistles, and switches - I'll probably look at them at least another half dozen times between the gate and the runway.

Once I get to the runway, I'll check and double check that I see the right runway, and that the jet is expecting that runway in the FMC, and that that the mag compass agrees just incase the Earth's magnetic field changed overnight. I'll look at a myriad of other things that aren't in the FOM, FH, or on the checklist. Why? Because I'm safer than you!

Like an ADHD teenage girl on her period, this thread keeps missing the warning that training is creating a culture and cockpit workflow that diminishes SA and CRM and is replacing it with an emphasis on procedural steps. Once they started removing the meat from the FOM and FH, and replacing it with "how to enter a holding pattern" type filler we've been on a downward slide.

For any pilot who's been doing this for a while, it's probably not an issue. But, for the new-hires, upgrades, and mixed-legacy crews at the new company and flying a new aircraft on new routes with new procedures, safety reporting says it is an issue. It's a cultural issue that flight ops management is so far behind on that they'll be lucky to even identify the problem before it's a smoking hole. Then there's flight ops the credibility issue, even if they did come up with a reasonable plan, who would listen?