Asiana Crash and Flight Training

Ghery said:
http://www.pacificnorthwestflying.com/index.php?topic=10877.0 for another take on this case. I make no representations about the accuracy or lack thereof in this initial post. Just something to think about.

BTW, my travel is usually on UA. I've ridden Asiana a couple times, but it's been a few years.
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These crashes are funny in that they run right into the hbd wall. If the answer is on the other side of the wall you will never get there in today's climate. Go the other way and call it blank slate, 100% nurture and you still can't ask or answer the question. Oh well at least these things don't crash often.
 
Art VanDelay said:
I am not a clinician nor a research scientist so the plainest way I can sum it up to you is that they just have an overall better "Air Sense" then the guys that play golf on their days off. Hands down, the best landings (greasers) come from guys that fly tailwheel aircraft.
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Concur. I can usally tell fairly early weather a guy has tailwheel tme. I've flown with a few people that have said "I haven't flown a light aircraft in 20 years and don't want to ever again". I've always wondered what happened to their love of flying when I hear that.
 
Art VanDelay said:
If someone is going to have the HONOR and RESPONSIBILTY of someday flying your children and loved ones around in ALL kinds of weather can the bar ever be set too high ?????
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Yes. It can if the bar gets so high that it becomes impossible to attain and thus cripples the industry.

That said, I don't think were there yet. And while I had objections to the 1500 hour rule when it was first announced, I think you've given a good summary of the benefits. The biggest problem I see is that a lot of pilots aren't getting the sort of foundation flying de-iced piston or turboprop planes in crappy weather before jumping up.

Doggtyred said:
Yet you still have no problem flying a visual approach without navaids, I'm guessing... or autopilot...
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Nope, none. Although actually now that I'm flying less I need to take some of my own advice and make a point of doing most approaches as instrument approaches even when I don't have to help keep my currency up.
 
Ted DuPuis said:
The biggest problem I see is that a lot of pilots aren't getting the sort of foundation flying de-iced piston or turboprop planes in crappy weather before jumping up.
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I agree with this in a way although I have come to think that pilots either get it or they don't way before that point.
 
Ted DuPuis said:
The biggest problem I see is that a lot of pilots aren't getting the sort of foundation flying de-iced piston or turboprop planes in crappy weather before jumping up.
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Yep.


I fly in a region (SE Asia) where a Air Force pilot can leave the military after flying UH-1 helicopters (all VFR) and come to the airline, do a type rating course (A320) and be awarded a ATPL and then fly as Captain. These guys have never flown any fixed wing other than a C-172 for 20 hours or so, never flown a twin engine airplane.

Many of the FO's here are MCPL's (multi crew pilots license) in which they get 20 to 30 hours in a small single engine (C-152, C-172) and then do the rest of their training in the A320 sim. Again, no actual experience.

And yes, both the above Captains and FO's are paired together.

I need to add that we do have some very skilled Captains and FO's here as well.
 
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RotorAndWing said:
Many of the FO's here are MPL's (multi pilots license) in which they get 20 to 30 hours in a small single engine (C-152, C-172) and then do the rest of their training in the A320 sim. Again, no actual experience.

And yes, both the above Captains and FO's are paired together.

I need to add that we do have some very skilled Captains and FO's here as well.
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Wow. Just wow. I tend to believe this is similar to the way these Asiana pilots were "trained". Scary to think that I with my lowly 350 hours might be a better candidate to fly an A320.

So maybe my original post isn't the real answer. Maybe it's simply moving (not raising or lowering, but moving) the bar for professional crews in terms of prior experience. I've always had a problem with everything being based on hours. HOURS don't necessarily represent experience and ability. There have been many points in this thread to reinforce this theory. Surely somebody could devise an "experience logarithm" based on more pertinent factors than just total hours.

Learning a lot. Thanks for all your posts.
 
TexasPilot71 said:
I've always had a problem with everything being based on hours. HOURS don't necessarily represent experience and ability. There have been many points in this thread to reinforce this theory. Surely somebody could devise an "experience logarithm" based on more pertinent factors than just total hours.
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Yeah but then I would never have been hired by anyone except another mapping company. I had something like 6-7,000 hours, all piston, almost all VFR, when I was hired at my first (and only) turbine job. I thought it was a huge disadvantage. The airlines wouldn't even look at me. The company that did hire me was wary but, luckily, the CP gave me a shot at it. Even I couldn't believe I was getting hired to fly King Airs single-pilot with actual passengers.
 
Everskyward said:
Yeah but then I would never have been hired by anyone except another mapping company. I had something like 6-7,000 hours, all piston, almost all VFR, when I was hired at my first (and only) turbine job. I thought it was a huge disadvantage. The airlines wouldn't even look at me. The company that did hire me was wary but, luckily, the CP gave me a shot at it. Even I couldn't believe I was getting hired to fly King Airs single-pilot with actual passengers.
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When I did my charter flying gig the reason my boss specifically wanted me was because he knew that I'd get the trips done and wouldn't crash. My dog flying background convinced him of that. My background was pretty ideal for flying charters or other professional IFR flying - I was actually flying easier, shorter trips when I was getting paid for it. Of course, I ended up leaving that gig for a number of reasons. Today is one year since I sharted back in engineering, and while I miss the flying, I don't miss the trade-offs.
 
Ted DuPuis said:
When I did my charter flying gig the reason my boss specifically wanted me was because he knew that I'd get the trips done and wouldn't crash. My dog flying background convinced him of that. My background was pretty ideal for flying charters or other professional IFR flying - I was actually flying easier, shorter trips when I was getting paid for it. Of course, I ended up leaving that gig for a number of reasons. Today is one year since I sharted back in engineering, and while I miss the flying, I don't miss the trade-offs.
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I think the CP hired me because I was local, had flown all over the mountains, had a stable employment history, and, best of all, met their minimums, which are very high. I think they were something like 3,000 total, 2,000 PIC, 1,000 multi. I was hired in 1999, the height of hiring when they were losing people to the airlines and fracs like crazy. I also showed that I was trainable. I blew the little sim ride the first time but as I got out I confessed that I had never tried to fly a sim before. He said to practice because all the training was in a sim plus the fact that it would be a very new airplane. I practiced and he gave me another chance a few months later. I should have known to practice before the first try but part of my problem is that I was way out if touch with the whole pilot culture. I still am in a way.
 
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Flight hours don't necessarily mean a pilot is particularly good at flying the airplane, they simply equate to exposure over time to many of the things that help fill the experience bucket, and hopefully the judgment and skill buckets as well. Experienced pilots generally agree with the "hours of sheer boredom interrupted by moments of sheer terror" as an accurate definition of their job, so logging the hours is a pre-requisite for accumulating the knowledge base while dealing with and surviving the terrifying moments.

From the vantage point of a sim instructor who trained and observed some of all three groups who typically show up for both 135 and 91 classes (old hands, new hires, owner pilots) I knew that there were really good pilots in all three groups, and unfortunately some really scary ones as well.

I also knew my biggest challenge during training would be to teach them the APFD. Although the systems don't appear to be all that much different than a KFC-200 (couple rows of buttons and some bugs) new pilots struggle mightily with the systems in the King Air and Citation that most turbine newbs drew as their first assignment along with the old 20-series Lears.

Even though the systems on the turbo-props and low-end jets weren't all that difficult to understand and manage, they were much more capable and feature-laden than the equipment most pilots had been using in their prior planes and I could bet that many would need at least one extra session in order to become proficient in their use.

So if a pilot like Mari showed up for King Air training with 7-8,000 hours of single-pilot flying a bug-smash mapping single I could be pretty sure she had reasonably good flying skills and understanding low-altitude weather, but also know that she would probably be lost-ball-high-weeds insofar as managing the Collins or Sperry APFD systems and probably need some extra time to sort it out.

At the time, the little entry-level sims didn't have glass panels (EFIS) or FMS systems installed. If so, we simply would not have been able to complete the the initial training during the 2-weeks allotted.

As glass cockpits became standard, the training centers realized that even the high-timers would need additional training, so they increased the initial training time from two weeks to three for pilots without glass experience.
 
wabower said:
So if a pilot like Mari showed up for King Air training with 7-8,000 hours of single-pilot flying a bug-smash mapping single I could be pretty sure she had reasonably good flying skills and understanding low-altitude weather, but also know that she would probably be lost-ball-high-weeds insofar as managing the Collins or Sperry APFD systems and probably need some extra time to sort it out.
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That was absolutely true. I had never flown with a flight director before and had not used an autopilot except for heading/altitude hold. I was OK raw data but I can remember the instructor saying to me, "Your company is spending a lot of money to teach you this automation so you need to learn how to use it." Luckily my sim parter was on the other end of the experience scale. He flew P-3s in the Navy then flew a 1900 for Mesa before being hired at the same company. He gave me a lot of help and even some of his sim time. No this is not the same person some of you have met.
 
I can relate to that. As someone whose flying career for the first 1500 hours or so included "Never trust the AP, it wants to kill you," going to turbines with capable APFDs took a little getting used to from an SOP perspective. The big disconnect for me was that I wanted to get to hand fly the planes a bit so that I'd know the feel before spending much time doing the APFD. My boss also had a tendency to think I just knew how to use every piece of equipment in a plane (because that was more or less our history), so he didn't spend a lot of time telling me how to use it.

He then started yelling at me for hand-flying a night ILS to mins in snow and ice after 8 hours of flying already that day, at which point I yelled back that he had 8 hours to teach me how to couple the AP for an approach, and failed to utilize that time to teach me. So I was going to revert to what I knew. When I saw the runway lights at 200 and runway at 100 with the needles centered, it seemed the bit of hand flying had paid off since that was the first ILS I'd shot with the plane, or with any turbine.
 
Ted DuPuis said:
He then started yelling at me for hand-flying a night ILS to mins in snow and ice after 8 hours of flying already that day, at which point I yelled back that he had 8 hours to teach me how to couple the AP for an approach, and failed to utilize that time to teach me. So I was going to revert to what I knew. When I saw the runway lights at 200 and runway at 100 with the needles centered, it seemed the bit of hand flying had paid off since that was the first ILS I'd shot with the plane, or with any turbine.
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That reminds me that back in the day they used to take the new hires out for three touch-and-goes before sending them to school. My training partner got his touch-and-goes in one afternoon but it was getting late so the CP said he would take me out the next morning. The next morning it was snowing and at minimums so I figured no way until he told my training partner and I to preflight the airplane. When out of earshot my training partner looked at me and asked, "How do you feel about this?" I told him it wasn't like I was going alone so I felt OK about giving it a try. Instead of three touch-and-goes I wound up doing three ILS approaches to minimums. Of course the CP set everything up for me and luckily it was in the oldest 90 with old instruments which were familiar. It ended up being a real confidence-builder for me since I had never flown in bad weather. I'm sure the CP knew that and that's why he did it.
 
Everskyward said:
That reminds me that back in the day they used to take the new hires out for three touch-and-goes before sending them to school. My training partner got his touch-and-goes in one afternoon but it was getting late so the CP said he would take me out the next morning. The next morning it was snowing and at minimums so I figured no way until he told my training partner and I to preflight the airplane. When out of earshot my training partner looked at me and asked, "How do you feel about this?" I told him it wasn't like I was going alone so I felt OK about giving it a try. Instead of three touch-and-goes I wound up doing three ILS approaches to minimums. Of course the CP set everything up for me and luckily it was in the oldest 90 with old instruments which were familiar. It ended up being a real confidence-builder for me since I had never flown in bad weather. I'm sure the CP knew that and that's why he did it.
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The boss (who also taught me how to fly) was very good at confidence builders as well. Something like your experience would be excellent.
 
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