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Question For Professional Pilots

Tonard Bales

Well Known Member
A news report on TV this morning stated too many airline pilots are lacking in stick and rudder skills, which means they are relying on automation. Obviously you folks flying RV's do so because the flying characteristics "float your boat" and reward smooth use of controls.

The question is: In your opinion, do you agree with the news report?
 
Believe the newscasters; they know everything!

I've been retired from the airline business for ten years so things might have changed somewhat, but I never noticed that when flying. However, many airline pilots would have a great deal if difficulty flying a light aircraft.
 
Oh Yeah-But not Just Airline Pilots

With the proliferation of EFIS, Synthetic Vision, Full-Function Auto Pilots, etc., even low time home builders are flying more with their heads in the cockpit and relying on servos to fly their planes. Interestingly, while all of this gear has the ability to enhance situational awareness and offer assistance to the pilot, the accident statistics don't seem to indicate a positive contribution.
My Christmas wish is that all pilots just practice "flying".
Terry, CFI
RV9A N323TP
 
I had a dozen of riders in right seat who fly commercially or military on different levels. Almost all of them were able to land my RV9 safely on first try. Only once I hold my finger limiting the stick move in the flare. I disagree with TV people on this one.

PS How are you Tony? Long time no sea :)
 
What has brought all this to the lime light is the Asiana crash where a couple of guys with a lot of "flight time" but very little tactical sense flew a perfectly good 320 million dollar airplane with 300 people on board into the ground and crashed while frantically pushing buttons the whole time. This, even by the most automation dependent "weenie" out there, was a travesty and way out of the norm. But keep in mind there are cultural factors involved in that case that go well beyond "stick and rudder". Well beyond.

You have to understand something critically different about flying high performance jetliners across the globe, specifically the kinds that are advanced, highly efficient and quite large (heavy) machines. I don't mean 737 crews shuttling 4 legs a day, I'm talking long haul widebody jets like the Asiana 777. They start to become something critically different than "an airplane" at some point and more resemble a very expensive, complicated and highly risky business venture more than "an airplane". This is true in terms of how they fly with massive momentum and also in what environment they fly with guys getting 1 landing a month due to the nature of the schedules and also ramification of how the business culture reality plays into it.

Having said this, I will cut to the chase and say "yes" in so far as "some guys" have moved well too far to the right and are way too conservative and use the new style automation way too much. It can be argued still however that other flight operations out there have yet to master effective automation management skills and clearly have to "rely on basic flying skills" far too much to the detriment of their own operation. In another 10 years the automation lacking group may have moved into too much automation where the automation dependent group today may be well balanced tomorrow.

It has been preached for so long that automation saves fuel, saves workload, widens the situation awareness out of the pilots so much so that they can be proactive. This is true to a point, and everything is relative. But clearly the point of diminishing returns has passed us by with some groups. We always have to take each advance and each tool given to us in context and use relative strengths without enabling latent weaknesses to embed threats into the operation. Each airline and each fleet within an airline will lie somewhere on the spectrum of too little use of automation to too much use of automation.

In the early 1990's I was flying scheduled airline service up and down the east coast in turboprop airliners that did not have autopilots installed. Was I sharp? Sure, with stick and rudder. Was I efficient? Not as much as I could have been if I had an autopilot and a moving map with radar on it and GPS approaches. I flew very tactically and met threats as they were noticed. When I moved to small Boeing aircraft I hand flew a lot because I really enjoyed flying. I felt pretty comfortable about my abilities with raw data and automation. Now I fly heavy jetliners that can be very tricky to hand fly without a lot of planning and finesse without getting close to a speed, maneuver or comfort limit thanks to high weight, high momentum and efficient wings. But I have some really nice automation that allows me to fly way more strategically and avoid the need to be so tactical - I can avoid whole areas of threat and operate very efficiently. I still hand fly though, but it is tempered by more automation that captures every move I make through a flight safety innovation called "flight data analysis" or "flight operations quality assurance". It's a black box that records if I bust any standard operation profile, or buffer zones of any type; if so, it is recorded and I get to see the results pop up on tracking programs giving us our "operational health" reports. This alone is a reason some guys tend to use the autopilot more than they should - it's less risky as the autopilot can be a buffer. I still hand fly more than most, because I love to fly and hand flying is the cheap reward for putting up with all the rest of the managerial aspect of the job. When I fly little GA planes, I hand fly 100 percent of the time and don't want an autopilot on the airplane let alone anything looking like it turned on.

As far as some airline pilots not being able to fly little airplanes, we joke about it all the time but I've taken many experience autopilot jockeys out to fly little planes and they all get in and ride it like it's a bicycle even if they haven't flown a light propeller plane in 30 years. And yes they all remember how to use the rudder pedals too. Stick and rudder is the easiest part of the job that's why it's a tragedy when it's not as sharp as it should be because it can and will be deadly. No excuse for it.
 
PS let me add that most "western" style pilots who were trained in small aircraft, having moved up to more capable machines, tend to "hand fly" better as hand flying is the language of flight to them - and ingrained within their very nature.

A big threat IMHO is the move toward the "virtual pilot" cadet who is trained from day one in a simulator to operate very complicated machines and to use the automation as a primary method of control. This is very "chic" in Europe today and has moved over to Asia as well.

Perhaps at some point this will not even be an argument as technology leap frogs again to the point where backup control or "manual flight" will be via a keyboard and mouse, or even more advanced links to human - control interfaces.

That will be a sad day. I'm an aviation blacksmith at heart I suppose. Very old fashioned.
 
Question

This topic really evolved from the Air France crash where the airplane was stalled at high altitude and remained in a stall all the way to the ocean.
There was an excellent article ion Sport Aviation a few months ago regarding basic flying skills. The final sentence was something like this- In this regard the lowly J3 Cub stands tall.
 
I like where we are at

In my work aircraft we have what I feel is just about right. We have an Automatic Flight Control System, but it is not at all coupled (except for one regime). It will hold altitude, airspeed, and heading. It can trim the controls in any position, full throw. The coupled part is to a hover (we use it to get to a 70 ft hover over the water, especially helpful at night in low visibility).

This allows us what feels like a good balance between hand flying (we always are telling it what to hold using the controls vice inputting a number via knob or pushbutton) and automatically driving by itself.

Since we do not have GPS/ILS I see no reason for coupled autopilot.

All that being said, I do notice a difference between the new replacement pilots we are getting out of the pipeline that "grew up" with all glass vs us steam gauge guys...not all bad, just different. The new kids seem to be lacking some sort of innate SA that you get from an old 6 pack scan/analog vs digital gauge/something that us steam gauge guys have...BUT they seem much more adept at running(and, a key point, RETAINING) the complex layers of buttonology required to "fight" the mission systems in our military machines. Certainly flying at this level takes a back seat to running the mission systems. I am not saying it is less important, but you need to be good enough and with the help of automation systems be able to "let it fly" so you can operate all the radar/sonar/etc mission systems.

I feel it is an evolution, neither good nor bad (if you can afford sufficient layers of redundancy that you can outlive the MTBF)
 
Short answer : yes

As a retired USN pilot and retired airline pilot I can state that yes there are some airline pilots who fly the autopilot well but have let their manual flying skills decay. A really sharp "manual" flyer can use the autopilot to increase his situational awareness and monitor more things. A pilot who uses the autopilot as a crutch will become overwhelmed when it quits on a dark and stormy night. Not to mention a pitching deck ... but I digress. "Sully" on CBS said it best this morning when he said it's an issue that needs to be addressed in training. Please don't read anything into my post - the majority of the pilots I flew with in my airline career were fine. A small percentage (maybe 1 per cent) fell into the "not so sharp" category. Not bad enough to kill me but sloppy enough to get my attention. I bet a lot of Captains said the same about me :)
 
I will both agree and disagree.
For quite a while now the emphasis in training has been to get the crews to use the automation. You are starting to see rumblings from our friends in ok city that perhaps that this is leading to a decrease in plain old flying skills.


As A6 noted, in the right hands automation can be a great tool to shed workload but there are some who are over reliant on the magic.
 
Watch the airspeed!

I'm a weekend warrior, and only have flown light airplanes (Pipers and the mighty Citabria and her friends). The Asiana crash happened just up the road at SFO; it has a bit more significance for me since this happened at my "home" big airport.

Drilled into my brain: airspeed is life. Approaching the airport, I'm looking out the window at the runway and primarily at the ASI and then the altimeter (nothing else is really important). Keep the airspeed happy, keep the runway looking right (which is equivalent to being on glideslope and on center line -- the right altitude and the right distance from the threshold). All else is secondary.

It seems so fundamental to me to stay on airspeed and glideslope on final, so much so that any deviation would kick off all the alarm bells -- "danger danger Will Robinson" -- and a go-around would ensue as the natural and preferred correction.

Automation is awesome, and I can see how it would significantly improve en route performance (I love autopilots on cross countries), when it comes to landing, the fundamentals have to dominate.

</soapbox>
 
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I as a line check captan at my airline and what you are reading was true there.
I would give ioe's to new pilots, both F/O's and Captains. They could fly the heck out of the FMS, but turn it all off and then watch them flail.

Not 100% true, but you can only knock a group on the head about using all the automation available for so long and they do in fact rely on it too much.

The industry brought this on itself. We were taught to turn on everything as soon as possible and let it work. The FEDS blessed every bit of it. Now they act surprised that they created a bunch of button pushers.

Stick and rudder skills were not high on the list at my airline since the magic jets came on scene in the early eighties.

This will probably offend some of the heavy drivers here but that's the way it was.
 
Greetings Vlad.....

I had a dozen of riders in right seat who fly commercially or military on different levels. Almost all of them were able to land my RV9 safely on first try. Only once I hold my finger limiting the stick move in the flare. I disagree with TV people on this one.

PS How are you Tony? Long time no sea :)

Vlad, I am fine and thank you for asking. Life and family responsibility called and been busy responding. I would love to meet you at Gabreski on a weekend morning and treat you to a great breakfast. Maybe do a quick lap around the Twin Forks in your bird. Share some stories about your beloved friend. So very sorry for your loss...
 
During my entire airline flying career I never flew with a pilot who exhibited inadequate stick and rudder flying skills. I started my career with steam gauges, and progressed through first generation glass (757/767). However, things have changed gradually with rapidly improving technology. We taught our pilots to use the technology to control workload and to help you manage your assets to conduct your flights safely. This was with a US air carrier. The US - where aviation is embraced and anyone can fly if they have the determination. Some of the foriegn carriers I've dealt with in my post airline work are far different. Many countries have no general aviation at all and their military aviation is on a much smaller scale than we have here, so there is no 'pipeline' supplying trained pilots to the airlines. They are forced to find pilots where they can. Former US airline pilot 'Ex-Pats' supplied the left seat expertise for a long time, being backed up with a co-pilot of limited experience. Most of these guys - some of them, my friends, are getting old and finally retiring for good. There is no question there are pilots at some carriers that got to the airline cockpit with minimal experience. They are operating the jet the way they were trained - specifically with maximum use of automation. As long as everything is working, this is fine. Where will all of this lead? It doesn't take a huge leap in imagination to see that eventually they will improve the automation to the point it is practically fail proof. This is easier than figuring out how they will ever train pilots and get them experience. There simply are not enough trained and experienced pilots in the world to fill cockpit seats going forward. These shortages are not yet evident in the US, but will be before long. At some Asian, Middle Eastern, and African carriers, there are more aircraft on order than they have pilots for - worldwide. As time goes on, pilots will more and more become systems managers and eventually not have an important role at all in the cockpit of an airliner. Airlines really will have no choice. It takes too long to 'grow' a pilot. We are unique here in the US, and a few other places because of general aviation. But eventually it will catch up with us too. GA is declining here and the military will be pilotless before the airlines are. Airline passenger safety will continue to get better because of technology, and an accident like the Asiana crash will be a thing of the past, because the pilot will be basically engineered out of the equation. I'm not saying a good pilot is unsafe. A well trained experienced crew is the best safety 'device' there is. Unfortunately, demand for experienced pilots far exceeds and will continue to exceed supply on a global scale.
 
Wasted time in a "Check Ride"!

I will both agree and disagree.
For quite a while now the emphasis in training has been to get the crews to use the automation. You are starting to see rumblings from our friends in ok city that perhaps that this is leading to a decrease in plain old flying skills.


As A6 noted, in the right hands automation can be a great tool to shed workload but there are some who are over reliant on the magic.


I agree here with this post. My big problem with the "reaction" of the FAA and the so call "need" for more training is that they are missing the point!

They insist on having the "archaic" check ride on the last day of training. I don't care if its Initial or recurrent training - a last day check ride is a waste of valuable training time! If I can fly a steep turn on the first day I think I will be able to fly it on the last day! And if I can't fly it the first day...well...i guess the instructor should stay on the "steep Turn" lesson plan until its perfect!

Yes, most of the time most of us can get a progressive check ride thought out the week, but it takes a qualified instructor and basically part 91 to allow this. ( sorry airline guys, i don't know 121 and just assume you get last day checkrides).

The business and finacial needs of airlines, corporate or private just can't allow pilots to train for a recurrent more then a week.

Make every checkride for every professional pilot a progressive checkride and you will gain a full sim day to hone those flight skills, squeeze in more scenarios and make us better!
 
Europe and Asia different!

I fly in Europe and the experience levels are quite different. It's not unusual to have a second officer on a B737 with less than 200 hours total time.
Yes they are good at controlling the automatics and fine at radar vectors to a ILS. But if you point out a runway 20 miles away and say fly a visual approach on a perfect day most will not be able to do it. Let alone take the autopilot out and hand fly it at the same time.
Given time and experience most are fine. But it's a pretty low starting point here. At least in the states most people have been through a regional before they get on a jet.

Peter
 
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Interesting thread.

I have 40 years flying experience. I started in gliders, moved through military jets and ended up on large airliners. Yes, I find the guys I fly with these days don't have the skill that I have collected over the years. On the other hand, I find that they don't know how to monitor. Flying a big jet these days is very little about hand-flying and more about watching what the automatics are doing. That's what went wrong with both the Air France and Asiana accidents. Big jet pilots need to do less and watch more.

Light aircraft flying is different and I find some of the cockpits that are being designed really scary. Six glass panels, ADS-B, TCAS, Synthetic weather etc etc..... The real world is outside the cockpit and all these supposed enhancements detract from that. I'm not suggesting that you abandon glass instruments or GPS (I have Skyview fitted) but let's remember where the real world is.........
 
It happens

Years ago I was flying right seat on a 767 from CLT to SFO. It was the captains leg and the autopilot failed at altitude. He was unable to maintain altitude within 500 feet! He "graciously" handed control to me for the remainder of the flight. He was a 30 year veteran of the industry and was embarrassed to admit that he had become a slave to automation and vowed to do something about it. I'll give him credit for the admission. I'm sure this is not an uncommon problem.
 
Hmmmmmm.......

Years ago I was flying right seat on a 767 from CLT to SFO. It was the captains leg and the autopilot failed at altitude. He was unable to maintain altitude within 500 feet! He "graciously" handed control to me for the remainder of the flight. He was a 30 year veteran of the industry and was embarrassed to admit that he had become a slave to automation and vowed to do something about it. I'll give him credit for the admission. I'm sure this is not an uncommon problem.

Ron, thank you for your post. Is it difficult to trim a 767 for hands off flying as we do a GA airplane?

BTW I laughed out loud when I read the quote under your signature:

"The average Fighter Pilot, despite sometimes having a swaggering exterior, is very much capable of such feelings as love, affection, intimacy and caring.
These feelings just don't involve anyone else."
 
Is it difficult to trim a 767 for hands off flying as we do a GA airplane?

I have found that, with few exceptions, the heavier an airplane is the easier it is to fly. When I say "heavy" I am referring to wing loading. The F-105 was the smoothest airplane I ever flew and it had the heaviest wing loading of any I have flown.
 
Having had the pleasure of flying back seat with Widget, I can truthfully say he has the stick and rudder skills!
Gee---maybe all airline pilots need an RV to stay sharp!
Tom
 
When automated flight was introduced by Boeing on the 767 its use was recommended - at least with the company I worked for - because it saved fuel. Engage it at 500' and disengage just before landing.

I always felt a smart monkey could be trained to do that.

Within a year it was evident flying skills deteriorated when guys came back for recurrent training and were required to hand fly an ADF approach in the simulator. The "recommended" statement remained in the FHB because it did save fuel but was de-emphasized. Some pilots use automation as a crutch rather than an aid and do have problems disengaging the automatic stuff.

I believe that can be a problem flying an RV also. Those who spend a lot of money on automation are going to use it and fly heads down playing with it.

I prefer to go skinny with this stuff, I need to fly to stay current plus it saves money which is a real problem building an airplane.

Sometimes airline pilots get bashed by writers out of envy. They fly 60-80 hours a month and love it. That grates on some who wish they were there. Most of the guys I flew with were very competent, some could make an airplane talk, some could not, but everyone had to pass the check rides which were not easy. The FAA showed up at the gate unannounced regularly doing their thing, the entire process was never without someone checking on how you were doing plus documentation was everywhere.

I once flew a DC-9 to Nashville from St. Louis and had to return because the cross wind exceeded the FHB number by a couple knots. The landing could have been made without difficulty but the ATIS would have documented the violation and that was not a smart factor to ignore. A country star on the flight was furious after the returning to STL and probably considered the pilot incompetent. Tough, lady, but I am not going to hang my butt out to dry no matter how many hits you've had on the charts.

Airline pilots do get bashed sometimes for simply doing their job. Take what is written in the press with a grain of salt, it isn't always the complete story.

(This is not to infer the incident with the singer was reported in the press, it was not as far as I know, but she did publicly rage at the crew getting off the airplane)
 
Is it difficult to trim a 767 for hands off flying as we do a GA airplane?

I've never flown a 767, but a 737 can easily be trimmed to fly hands off; some years ago we were departing Houston and I was hand flying the climb out. I had it trimmed for hands off... it was so smooth and stable that I sorta forgot that I was still hand flying it, duhhh. Departure control gave us a turn, so I spun the heading bug and nothing happened... "the autopilot is broke" thinks my feeble brain; nope, it works, just gotta turn it on!
 
Well, I think I have GREAT stick and rudder skills, yet at my last line check we had a deferred autopilot (INOP). Go figure! Well, the leg I flew was from MSN to ORD. No problem right..ugh..no. We took off out of MSN and more or less were vectored straight to ORD. The problem I had was, we, like most airlines, require you to back up all your approaches with an ILS, even though you are VMC. So, on the short flight to ORD, we were still getting landing performance data, running checklists, calling ops, calling the FA's, calling the folks in back, etc and then given a pretty lousy vector for the visual with a several thousand foot descent to an intercept altitude. The whole time instead of just flying the airplane, which is no problem, I had to divert a fair amount of attention to my automation just so all the pretty lines on the screen were all in a row. Well, during all this my non-flying pilot didn't hear me ask to switch my nav freq from stand-by to active. All my pretty needles were pointed off into la la land (our SOP has the non-flying pilot tune the freqs). Of course, I was not following needles, cause...I am a RV pilot and the visual approach in VMC should be flying 101. But. the check airman goes ballistic. "WTF...you really F that up..." Classy guy!. Uh. no.. Still. I transferred controls, quickly realized that he was po'd about my pretty needles, fixed that, re-assumed the controls and finished my landing. Moral of the story...most airlines require heavy use of automation. Most pilots I know, fly just fine without it. There are some that need to go and get some tailwheel time to get back in full stick and rudder mode but you seldom get to just "fly" the plane. You are always required to fiddle with the automation. By the way, my de-brief with the check airmen went pretty well. He admitted that I flew well, just need to make sure that I make sure my radios are tuned properly prior to going to "green needles". I received that correction and am certainly more conscious of it now. I did not blow through the localizer and there was no violations. I passed the line-check.
 
In their defense, I know quite a few airline types that own T-6's and Stearmans and so on. You can't safely fly and land those airplanes if you're a klutz.

Best,
 
You really need an airline simulator that keeps all your skills sharp
flight_sim.jpg
 
Apples to apples

I hope most of us who have been flying for a while are not comparing "my stick and rudder skills to these new clowns" and instead trying to objectively compare OUR stick and rudder skills when we were that new clown to these new clowns!

I say clowns jokingly, because I see the stupid (through my experienced glasses) mistakes being made that I also made when I was just a 300 hour pilot. One of the hardest things to do is try to compare apples to apples, especially in the wake of new technology...what would YOU have done.

Off track, but an example, I recently admonished my baby brother for sending a message on Facebook from Army basic training. The more I thought about it though, rules aside, if I could have I am sure I would have if it were available to me.
 
With the proliferation of EFIS, Synthetic Vision, Full-Function Auto Pilots, etc., even low time home builders are flying more with their heads in the cockpit and relying on servos to fly their planes. Interestingly, while all of this gear has the ability to enhance situational awareness and offer assistance to the pilot, the accident statistics don't seem to indicate a positive contribution.
My Christmas wish is that all pilots just practice "flying".
Terry, CFI
RV9A N323TP

Something must have changed. We use to average three CFITs (controlled flight into terrain) every year, out here in mountain country. That statistic has appeared to have really dropped.

Since I've had a high interest in CFIT for several decades, I always made it a point to overfly a CFIT accident site (when in that area) , with moving map GPS, just to see and document what the accident pilot apparently didn't see. These accident sites also included IFR rated CFI's.

Hand flying or not, the availibility of modern technology, makes an enourmous difference when the chips are down. Just study all of the commercial airliner (as well as military and GA) CFIT accidents from the 1930's to the present, to see the benefit.
 
please do not generalize

Ladies and Gentlemen,

Please do not generalize or speculate on things you do not know for fact. The world today is full of misinformation about what does and does not go on within a specific airline cockpit. Emotion has taken over from fact in guiding what rules are placed on todays professional pilots. The professional pilot crowd does not need more coffee cooler speculation about how poor they fly airplanes. It is always easy to blame the pilot when something goes wrong, and takes years to derive root causes that are fought down by industry interests who do not want to highlight their design flaws.

Here is fact: If you do not exercise your personal flying skills, they will erode. Just as a light aircraft pilot is not very sharp if they only fly once a month, or only get 3 landings in 90 days, so too is a pilot who doesn't touch the yoke/side controller except to lift the nose off the runway or set it down. If you have never been trained to recover from a stall, you will struggle to recover from a stall. If you have never been trained to perform a task, you will struggle to perform that task when the moment arises.

Here is an observation: Nearly nothing you ever see in the mainstream media will be factual. heres one: the witness who saw the airplane on fire and smoking before it hit the ground was actually watching an afterburner scream out the aft end as the pilot loaded up so much AOA the vapor poured off the wings before he exploded in a fireball.

much like Doug asks us to not speculate on causes of accidents, lets not let this discussion veer off into what you think is happening, rather what you know to be happening.
 
The whole time instead of just flying the airplane, which is no problem, I had to divert a fair amount of attention to my automation just so all the pretty lines on the screen were all in a row. Well, during all this my non-flying pilot didn't hear me ask to switch my nav freq from stand-by to active. All my pretty needles were pointed off into la la land (our SOP has the non-flying pilot tune the freqs).

Due to Stump's post, I will caveat by saying that I am not an airline pilot, nor have I ever been in the cockpit of an airliner, but I have a decent amount of experience with 2-pilot crews/CRM in aircraft that don't necessarily want to fly right side up. The above would worry me much more than anything else in that sim period. I'm not sure if SOPs prevent it, but as the pilot not flying, I would set up everything and give the pilot flying warnings and reminders for everything - courses/radios set, upcoming turns/directions, upcoming altitude changes, repeat MDA/DA while on final, etc. I would be very concerned, even if he missed my callout, if a non-flying pilot missed something as obvious as ensuring a final approach course is set. Please understand I am not bashing your instance as there easily could have been extenuating circumstances in this instance - just explaining my take on 2-pilot ops.

LAMPSguy brings up an excellent point which is definitely something that seperates ok instructors from excellent ones (among other aspects). It's easy to forget what you didn't know way back when?

As far as being envious of an airline career ? not too sure about how many are envious when they really learn the ins/outs. There was a time when I entertained attempting this career path post-military retirement ? then I talked to current/previous FOs/regional CPTs. Wow!! Very eye-opening to how the system operates. Flying 60-80 hours a month only carries so much water to make up for pay/lifestyle issues.
 
Just thought I'd add a quick point. I'd be pretty careful not to lump all pilots of any type into a stereotype. My background is quite varied: I flew fighters in the AF for 14 years, transitioned to a Major Airline and flew for several years, flew for a regional airline for a couple years after my major had furloughed me, and am now back in the AF flying RPAs. I also, of course, have my RV-8 which I fly on the side.

In every one of those experiences I saw strong pilots and weak pilots. Even in the fighter world we had a few guys which were only questionably safe to shoot an instrument approach. But by and large most of the pilots were quite good. To say that all, or even most, airline pilots are overly reliant on automation is simply not true. There are certainly some...but quite honestly there are some (a small number) that probably just shouldn't be flying at all.

Cheers,
Mark
 
Well said Mark. There are good sticks and ham hands in every facet of aviation... Then there are Docs I wouldn't send my sick rat to and financial consultants I would not trust my spare change with and the polar opposite of each as well. People... what are we gonna do with them! We are all just way too flaky. :D
 
Colgan Air Flight 3407

The Colgan Flight that crashed in Buffalo, NY came to mind when I heard the news report about reliance of automation. The final NTSB report blames the captain's incorrect reaction to a stall once the auto pilot disengaged. I also recall reading the captain had failed three prior check rides yet still was allowed to fly. I agree that every profession has bad apples, but only one that I know of requires a pre-scheduled aptitude test for as long as they are employed. If in fact it is determined a pilot lacks sufficient skills to safely command a commercial airliner I would hope the employer has the right to terminate employment. An inept pilot is unlike any other profession. We aren't talking about buying a poorly recommended investment or getting a crappy nose job here.
Am I wrong?
 
I agree. There is a loss of basic skill; we are trained to use the automation to the greatest extent. I believe that the pendulum is getting ready to swing the other way.
I am a Line Check Airman at a major airline. Today?s new hire pilots are getting hired with 5000TT, most were hired into an RJ and flew w/ EFIS, FMS and a great AP on day one. They did not cut their teeth flying night freight in AeroStars, Barons and Navajos for 1000+ hours. There is some fundamental finesse that was never acquired?I don?t fault them, it is just the flow of events at their career progression.
I see the same thing in C17 pilots and lack of smoothness in fighter pilots. A friend who fly?s F18s has told me that they have guys in their squadron that enter the break with the autopilot on (he said they NEED to have it on). Today (& prior) the automation lets you hide this lack of skill. That is going to change.
Look at the accident rate of the Cirrus drivers---automated airplane but most crashes cite lack of basic and fundamental skill in aircraft control.
It?s hard to compare the Asiana crash?their pilots climb into the right seat at 400-600 hours. They never instructed, flew charter, freight, etc. Those crews fly 8-10 hour legs on AP and barely maintain landing currency. The cockpit dynamic is also very different, the Captain is CAPTAIN and the First Officers assume a much more subservient role.
I participated in a NASA program a few years ago on pilot complacency. The pilots that flew steam gauges reported fewer errors than the EFIS drivers because they HAVE TO pay attention and mind the store constantly. TECHNOLOGY is not always the answer.
The moral of the story: the autopilot should serve as a workload reduction tool, not a replacement for skill (or lack of it).
 
Still, all of this all has to be taken in context and it is relative.

If you look at statistics from various sources including "Journal of Patient Safety" - medical mistakes share claim to the lives of 210,000 to 440,000 patients EACH YEAR, only within the tiny USA. That's 1 death at a time. This would make medical mistakes the third leading cause of death in the US according to some sources.

On the other hand.... We are talking 20 to 200 deaths at a time for airline accidents and those rates constitute a few hundred deaths a year for western airlines world wide. If you include 3rd world airlines the rate is higher but still paltry when the entirety of global figures are taken in context.

Of those small global figures, very few deaths are at the hands of pilots whose hand flying skills have deteriorated to low levels.
 
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I agree. There is a loss of basic skill; we are trained to use the automation to the greatest extent. I believe that the pendulum is getting ready to swing the other way.
I am a Line Check Airman at a major airline. Today?s new hire pilots are getting hired with 5000TT, most were hired into an RJ and flew w/ EFIS, FMS and a great AP on day one. They did not cut their teeth flying night freight in AeroStars, Barons and Navajos for 1000+ hours. There is some fundamental finesse that was never acquired?I don?t fault them, it is just the flow of events at their career progression.
I see the same thing in C17 pilots and lack of smoothness in fighter pilots. A friend who fly?s F18s has told me that they have guys in their squadron that enter the break with the autopilot on (he said they NEED to have it on). Today (& prior) the automation lets you hide this lack of skill. That is going to change.
Look at the accident rate of the Cirrus drivers---automated airplane but most crashes cite lack of basic and fundamental skill in aircraft control.
It?s hard to compare the Asiana crash?their pilots climb into the right seat at 400-600 hours. They never instructed, flew charter, freight, etc. Those crews fly 8-10 hour legs on AP and barely maintain landing currency. The cockpit dynamic is also very different, the Captain is CAPTAIN and the First Officers assume a much more subservient role.
I participated in a NASA program a few years ago on pilot complacency. The pilots that flew steam gauges reported fewer errors than the EFIS drivers because they HAVE TO pay attention and mind the store constantly. TECHNOLOGY is not always the answer.
The moral of the story: the autopilot should serve as a workload reduction tool, not a replacement for skill (or lack of it).


I would talk with your F18 friend again. I think he is pulling your leg. I never witnessed or heard of anyone entering the break with the autopilot on. In fact I can't even imagine how you would do it with that autopilot. It's also a easy task compared to almost everything else your required to do in the aircraft. Someone who needed a autopilot for that would never make it aboard the ship or for that matter ever make it through flight school let alone not kill himself. One of the interesting things about flying a fighter is you can't hide poor performance.

I have flown in many different aspects of Aviation. The pilots coming up in the current system for the most part do just fine. The young pilots coming into my airline work hard and are very good. Don't believe everything you read in the news. There will also be more emphasis on hand flying skills going forward.
George
 
Yes the Colgan 3407 crash came to my mind as well... If no one has read the NTSB report or saw the animation on youtube, it is a real eye opener! The FAAs fix to this crash was to require ATPs and Type ratings of FOs. I would argue that it wouldn't have helped in this crash. Because the FO on this flight already had a ATP and a type rating! More effective solution rather than to wreck havoc on the airline industry with the bogus requirement would be to require stalls be demonstrated to the fully stalled condition and not to the first indication as they are now. Also I believe mandatory spin training and upset recovery training for commercial pilots would be a more appropriate response to this crash.

http://www.ntsb.gov/doclib/reports/2010/aar1001.pdf

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=33NUAy3eomg
 
I would talk with your F18 friend again. I think he is pulling your leg. I never witnessed or heard of anyone entering the break with the autopilot on. In fact I can't even imagine how you would do it with that autopilot. It's also a easy task compared to almost everything else your required to do in the aircraft.

+1. When flying fighters I never used, or knew of anyone using the autopilot for anything more that altitude hold when up at cruise altitude transiting to and from the training areas. The sophistication of the autopilot was much lower than that in airliners, we could not even couple an approach...always flown by hand. If one is looking for piloting faults in fighter pilots, hand flying (stick and rudder skills) is probably not the right place to look. Hard IFR (instrument procedures) and an over reliance on the HUD (HUD babies) are areas that ring much more true. When I first got to the airlines, I was amazed by how bad of weather we actually flew in. In the fighter world when the weather got bad we went to the O-club.

Mark
 
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When I first got to the airlines, I was amazed by how bad of weather we actually flew in. In the fighter world when the weather got bad we went to the O-club.Mark

+1 I had to chuckle at that one, my thought exactly. Unfortunately in the airliner world, it does not matter what the weather is, we are going anyway.
 
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+1. When flying fighters I never used, or knew of anyone using the autopilot for anything more that altitude hold when up at cruise altitude transiting to and from the training areas. The sophistication of the autopilot was much lower than that in airliners, we could not even couple an approach...always flown by hand. If one is looking for piloting faults in fighter pilots, hand flying (stick and rudder skills) is probably not the right place to look. Hard IFR (instrument procedures) and an over reliance on the HUD (HUD babies) are areas that ring much more true. When I first got to the airlines, I was amazed by how bad of weather we actually flew in. In the fighter world when the weather got bad we went to the O-club.

Mark

Mark, That is not a completely fair statement. We did not always go to the Oclub. Sometime we went to Hooters!

George
 
I would talk with your F18 friend again. I think he is pulling your leg. I never witnessed or heard of anyone entering the break with the autopilot on. In fact I can't even imagine how you would do it with that autopilot. It's also a easy task compared to almost everything else your required to do in the aircraft. Someone who needed a autopilot for that would never make it aboard the ship or for that matter ever make it through flight school let alone not kill himself. One of the interesting things about flying a fighter is you can't hide poor performance.

Reminds me of a retired Navy F-4 Phantom pilot that I was checking out in an aerobatic aircraft. He had the hardest time with the airplane, always so far behind it. I couldn't understand how he could land a jet that large on a deck that small, at night, and still have trouble flying a tailwheel airplane.

On the other hand, I also did a tailwheel endorsement for a guy who was transitioning into the U-2. Kind of a low time pilot, at least by civilian standards, but he was so good it was scary. Almost thought he was pulling my leg. "Are you SURE you've never flown a tailwheel before?"
 
If he already had some stick time in a U2 he was already a taildragger pilot :) The U2 is indeed a tailwheel aircraft, just not the exact same kind of configuration we are used to - sure, much different in so many ways... but interestingly enough the U2 is a little like a Grob glider with it's tailwheel type setup (resting on the ramp it sits on it's main center gear and rests on the tail wheel and if you land it on the main and let the tail come down too quickly, off you fly again just like a taildragger... and if you two point it - like a 3 pointer - you are almost done flying except you aren't... just like a taildragger).

Interesting link
http://www.ladieslovetaildraggers.com/blog/guess-which-lady-taildragger-pilot-is-flying-the-u-2/
 
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In regards to the skills, yes, they do deteriorate if you don't use them. I felt I was at my sharpest in an airliner while based in LGA because I was doing a lot of visual approaches there, and at DCA that couldn't be flown by the automation. When I switched to ORD I noticed the approaches at LGA were getting a little ugly simply because I wasn't doing them on a daily basis.

As far as the colgan crash, yes. The ATP rule was a result of that. The FAA is also pushing for a fundamental change in stall recovery because of this crash, and the Air France airbus. In the past we have focused on adding power and maintaining altitude. The FAA is now more focused on reduction of angle of attack and return to safe flight as soon as possible with "no" regard for altitude loss. It's interesting to try and undo decades of learned behavior regarding stall recovery with my clients in the simulator but the reduction of AOA usually leads to less altitude loss than the attempt to maintain altitude and power out of it.
 
In regards to the skills, yes, they do deteriorate if you don't use them. I felt I was at my sharpest in an airliner while based in LGA because I was doing a lot of visual approaches there, and at DCA that couldn't be flown by the automation. When I switched to ORD I noticed the approaches at LGA were getting a little ugly simply because I wasn't doing them on a daily basis.

As far as the colgan crash, yes. The ATP rule was a result of that. The FAA is also pushing for a fundamental change in stall recovery because of this crash, and the Air France airbus. In the past we have focused on adding power and maintaining altitude. The FAA is now more focused on reduction of angle of attack and return to safe flight as soon as possible with "no" regard for altitude loss. It's interesting to try and undo decades of learned behavior regarding stall recovery with my clients in the simulator but the reduction of AOA usually leads to less altitude loss than the attempt to maintain altitude and power out of it.

It's amazing to me that the FAA doesn't listen to ALL our seasoned flight instructors out there. I am not an instructor, but have a TON of Sim time over the years.

I have been given scenarios or should i say "demo's" over the years such as this one and many others that per the FAA regulations are not required, but the insturctors feel it is important for a better understanding.

It is a "controlled" environment where you don't have 1 instuctor making things up. These guys and gals are professionals and research these things. Most of what they "demo" are a coming from the weakness they see in thousands of students.

But, the FAA still doesn't recognize the value and it has to be there idea, which takes years for them to change.

So! Thanks to the instructors out there for keeping me safe!
 
It's amazing to me that the FAA doesn't listen to ALL our seasoned flight instructors out there...
But, the FAA still doesn't recognize the value and it has to be there idea, which takes years for them to change.

So! Thanks to the instructors out there for keeping me safe!

This is slowly changing. Sadly it's changing at the speed of government bureaucracy. As the saying goes, the regulations are written in blood.
 
From the other side of the radio, as an observation, the RJs seem to do all of the hand flying while the foreigners and main line guys are the ones going around due to unstable approaches or complaining about a late runway/approach change. They just don't seem to be able to react to changes well. I don't know if it's a cultural, proficiency, or technical issue.

Many times we won't even bother asking a long hauler for a favor and tend to just work around them. Whereas an RJ will eagerly take a parallel runway or make a quick adjustment for us to keep the traffic moving.

It was the same when I was working in a small tower where you knew which pilots were proficient and willing to help and which ones were unable to help or would fight you the whole way in.
 
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To be fair -

I have to say it is much easier to change to a parallel runway in a smaller aircraft (such as an RJ) than a wide-body airliner. I flew at the commuter airlines before we even had autopilots (yes, turboprops) and later flew the wide-body jets across the pond for a major airline... and it is definitely more difficult to make a "quick change" in a heavy jet! :)
That being said, I have found excellent pilots in all types of aviation from all varieties of backgrounds, as well as the usual few that are somewhat lacking in basic skills (or courtesy - such as helping out the controllers)...
 
I think a lot of it has to do with the individual carrier's ops spec. At the regional I used to work at we used 500agl on a visual for stabilized approach criteria for a long time. It later switched to 1000. However, I think the performance wasn't as much of an issue. In a 170 as long as you have 5000feet factored landing distance you're pretty much good to go. Another big factor regarding the proficiency is the simple fact that those RJs are logging a lot more approaches and landings. When I was based in LGA I'd average 6 legs a day. Over the course of a 4 day trip I'd have 12-15 approaches and landings. Most long haul pilots wouldn't log that many in 2 months.

There is also a big cultural difference involved. I know the NTSB will do a thorough job investigating the SFO crash and I don't want to question the judgement of the crew but there are a few facts that have already been presented. First, while the captain had much more time than the check airman he was flying with, he was new to the plane. CRM in some cultures is far behind was most of the western world has. The check airman didn't intervene until it was too late. Second, there is a huge amount of faith put into the automation in many cultures. A good friend who flies for one of the larger Asian carriers was explaining to me that it's procedure for them to utilize the automation, including autoland, all the time. Any hand-flown procedures are to be flown by only the captain. Also, the path to flying these large jets is very different there. Pilots in many countries are flying large jets with very little time as a result of ab-initio programs. They don't have the military or even civilian experience that pilots in the US and Canada have and as a result don't have the solid fundamentals that many of us have. It's much like Lebron James. He had a ton of raw talent when he was 18 years old but it took some experience to become the player he is today. If you don't practice, you lose the skills. If you don't have the foundation, you don't have the skills either.
 
From the other side of the radio, as an observation, the RJs seem to do all of the hand flying while the foreigners and main line guys are the ones going around due to unstable approaches or complaining about a late runway/approach change. They just don't seem to be able to react to changes well. I don't know if it's a cultural, proficiency, or technical issue.

Many times we won't even bother asking a long hauler for a favor and tend to just work around them. Whereas an RJ will eagerly take a parallel runway or make a quick adjustment for us to keep the traffic moving.

It was the same when I was working in a small tower where you knew which pilots were proficient and willing to help and which ones were unable to help or would fight you the whole way in.

Most RJ airlines are not working under a FOQA program. Most major airlines with perhaps one note able exception have FOQA or the snitch as it is more commonly called. Every landing is essentially graded. Bust any stabilized approach criteria and your phone will be ringing later. Bust any limitation inflight and again the phone will be ringing and worse yet the jet will be grounded wherever it is at for inspection if you did not make a log book entry at the time it occurred. Exceed VMO by 1/2 a knot and get one click out of the over speed clicker and the snitch swings into action! With winglets reducing max speed on many jets normal operating speeds are often within a few knots of limitations. It's really frustrating when the auto throttles/autopilot exceed a limit and then the jet turns you in!
George
 
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