Big stir in the Citation world

For those following along at home NATOPS stands for Naval Air Training and Operational Procedures Standardization (emphasis added). It was implemented in the '60's in a successful effort to reduce loss of aircraft and lives due to lack of standard procedures in the various aviation communities. The program recognizes that not all situations can be predicted nor procedures standardized and gives guidance (or freedom, if you will) to improvise where necessary but is not a blanket endorsement of rolling your own.

Nauga,
and his big blue sleeping pill
 
Fffflats said:
Actually, NATOPS specifically states, not implies, outright says standards and procedures may need to be rejected in context. They tell you you may need to abandon them. And not just to handle emergency either, to avoid emergency as well. They tell you standards and procedure are not there to replace judgement.

Per CNAF 3710.7, “This manual prescribes general flight and operating instructions and procedures applicable to the operation of all naval aircraft and related activities. This manual is not intended to cover every contingency that may arise and every rule of safety and good practice… In the tactical environment, military exigency may require on-site deviations from instructions/procedures contained here. The existing risk of deviation must continually be weighed against the benefit of deviating from this manual. Deviation from specified flight and operating instructions is authorized in emergency situations when, in the judgment of the pilot in command, safety justifies such a deviation. It is often not feasible to completely specify all situations or circumstances under which provisions of this manual shall apply”

Per F/A-18A-D NATOPS: “… In order to remain effective, NATOPS must be dynamic and stimulate rather than suppress individual thinking… It provides the best available operating instructions for most circumstances, but no manual is a substitute for sound judgment. Compound emergencies, available facilities, adverse weather or terrain, or considerations affecting the lives and property of others may require modification of the procedures contained herein. Read this manual from cover to cover. It is the air crewman's responsibility to have a complete knowledge of its contents.”

Pulled up the T-37 “Dash One,” turns out the Air Force sees it rather similarly: “SOUND JUDGEMENT Instructions in this manual are for a pilot inexperienced in the operation of these airplanes. This manual provides the best possible operating instructions under most circumstances, but it is not a substitute for sound judgement. Multiple emergencies, adverse weather, terrain, etc. may require modification of the procedures.”
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Did the Air Force really misspell "judgment"? I would assume these documents get proofread multiple times, but we know what they say about assumptions.
 
kep5niner said:
Unless you’ve got some lunar landings in your logbook...
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Hmmm... didn't Neil Armstrong throw out the book when he landed up there? Of course, he was civilian-trained now that I think about it.
 
While I'm generally a proponent of 2 pilots in a jet, I'm not sure this effective immediately thing is really making the corporate jet world safer.

My phone is suddenly blowing up with messages from people looking for a 'legal' body to sit in the right seat so they can make their schedules and I haven't advertised in several years since I took the full time teaching job.

Last thing I want to do at this age is pair with someone I've never flown with before in a jet I haven't flown let alone or even thought much about in 2 years.

But how many young aspiring professional pilots would jump at these opportunities? I can see it now - 'you got a multi-commercial and a second class? Cool, let's go do 3 bounces and now just shut up, sit there and don't touch anything while I continue to fly this thing by myself'....
 
Fffflats said:
Actually, NATOPS specifically states, not implies, outright says standards and procedures may need to be rejected in context. They tell you you may need to abandon them. And not just to handle emergency either, to avoid emergency as well. They tell you standards and procedure are not there to replace judgement.

Per CNAF 3710.7, “This manual prescribes general flight and operating instructions and procedures applicable to the operation of all naval aircraft and related activities. This manual is not intended to cover every contingency that may arise and every rule of safety and good practice… In the tactical environment, military exigency may require on-site deviations from instructions/procedures contained here. The existing risk of deviation must continually be weighed against the benefit of deviating from this manual. Deviation from specified flight and operating instructions is authorized in emergency situations when, in the judgment of the pilot in command, safety justifies such a deviation. It is often not feasible to completely specify all situations or circumstances under which provisions of this manual shall apply”

Per F/A-18A-D NATOPS: “… In order to remain effective, NATOPS must be dynamic and stimulate rather than suppress individual thinking… It provides the best available operating instructions for most circumstances, but no manual is a substitute for sound judgment. Compound emergencies, available facilities, adverse weather or terrain, or considerations affecting the lives and property of others may require modification of the procedures contained herein. Read this manual from cover to cover. It is the air crewman's responsibility to have a complete knowledge of its contents.”

Pulled up the T-37 “Dash One,” turns out the Air Force sees it rather similarly: “SOUND JUDGEMENT Instructions in this manual are for a pilot inexperienced in the operation of these airplanes. This manual provides the best possible operating instructions under most circumstances, but it is not a substitute for sound judgement. Multiple emergencies, adverse weather, terrain, etc. may require modification of the procedures.”
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But that’s not “over standardizing.” NATOPs isn’t stating that they just created a bunch of useless rules / procedures so do what you want. They’re simply saying that these are the standards that they’ve come up with through years of experience but in the event of an emergency, you do what’s necessary. Think all the aircraft military units I’ve been in have the same type of wording. Same thing on preflight. A lot of manuals state it’s a guide and it’s up to the PIC to the extent of preflight.

As we say “SOPs are written in blood.” There’s generally a good reason for policies / procedures and the topic of discussion, CRM.
 
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flyingcheesehead said:
OK, so they're better by a very fine hair. But none of that is going to matter in a real emergency when they've probably never experienced it in the sim or in an airplane.
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Oh I heartily disagree. Having someone who knew regular and emergency procedures during this event may have changed the outcome.
 
mryan75 said:
Oh I heartily disagree. Having someone who knew regular and emergency procedures during this event may have changed the outcome.
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I think you're missing his point. Just doing the minimum FAA legal log entries doesn't achieve that. I'm just being a realist here.

This ties into my comment a couple of posts earlier: right now I envision a bunch of SP operators scrambling to get folks on short notice to sit in the right seat. They have confidence that they can fly the airplane by themselves. Many have been doing it so long they may not even know HOW to fly as a crew. But now they must have a 'qualified' body in the seat next to them. So they grab anyone they can find to check the block and sign off that they covered the 'minimum' requirements and hopefully they let them actually do the 3 landings and not just pencil whip it. But still these sudden SICs aren't getting the same knowledge and experience as if they went to a training center to get their SIC type, because that's not required in the US. The only thing that the FAA has accomplished is add a sudden variable on the flight deck which can actually be more dangerous than the original SP issue they were trying to 'fix' in the first place.

When I started out trying to build turbine time as an contract SIC I went the extra mile and paid for the schoolhouse. I wanted to actually be useful and not some seat warmer.

And that same attitude is why I am turning down job offers right now because at the moment, I'm not anywhere close to proficient in the airplane to be useful for someone who understands how to fly as a crew and at the same time I am not willing to sit there as legal deadweight for someone who doesn't want or know how to use me.
 
Would it be correct to say flying a P Baron or perhaps a Areo Star in the same ATC environment single pilot is harder or more demanding than say an single pilot Citation?
 
mryan75 said:
Oh I heartily disagree. Having someone who knew regular and emergency procedures during this event may have changed the outcome.
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Fearless Tower said:
I think you're missing his point. Just doing the minimum FAA legal log entries doesn't achieve that. I'm just being a realist here.
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Exactly. There will be plenty of people who get an hour of training from someone who doesn't do much training and they'll get their logbook signed and then they'll be in the right seat of a jet they know a tiny tiny bit about, and they won't be particularly useful in an emergency.

Someone who actually knows procedures, sure, that's good. I just don't think doing the minimum required by 61.55(b) is anywhere near "knowing".

Fearless Tower said:
But still these sudden SICs aren't getting the same knowledge and experience as if they went to a training center to get their SIC type, because that's not required in the US. The only thing that the FAA has accomplished is add a sudden variable on the flight deck which can actually be more dangerous than the original SP issue they were trying to 'fix' in the first place.
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Bingo.

bonefishpete said:
Would it be correct to say flying a P Baron or perhaps a Areo Star in the same ATC environment single pilot is harder or more demanding than say an single pilot Citation?
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Eh, maybe... But while it can be busy to fly those, there are also lower expectations of piston pilots. If you're flying a piston and you start to get behind, you can pull the throttles back and nobody bats an eye. If you slow a jet below 250 before you need to, you're gonna hear about it.
 
Tarheelpilot said:
Mine as well but a citation accident in statesville, NC this year was specifically referenced in the letter to operators as being causal in the policy review.

Was there another one besides Biffle?
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Well, sort of. Going back to the 1980/90's I used to fly my boss's son to car races where he was a pit crewmember. After the race I'd sometimes drop his team owner at SVH on the way home. One time I told the car owner I thought there would be a lot of time saved if they had a fleet of jet aircraft available to position drivers and other personnel from race to race. I could see the wheels turning when I said it. Next thing I knew, he'd gone out and learned to fly and, faster than I ever would have thought possible, he himself was flying around in Citations and Learjets as a service business. The next thing I heard, he ran a Citation off the far end of the runway at AGC, injuring his reportedly attractive copilot. So, maybe it's a race car cultural thing? :dunno:
 
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dtuuri said:
Well, sort of. Going back to the 1980/90's I used to fly my boss's son to car races where he was a pit crewmember. After the race I'd sometimes drop his team owner at SVH on the way home. One time I told the car owner I thought there would be a lot of time saved if they had a fleet of jet aircraft available to position drivers and other personnel from race to race. I could see the wheels turning when I said it. Next thing I knew, he'd gone out and learned to fly and, faster than I ever would have thought possible, he himself was flying around in Citations and Learjets as a service business. The next thing I heard, he ran a Citation off the far end of the runway at AGC, injuring his reportedly attractive copilot. So, maybe it's a race car cultural thing? :dunno:
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So that’s a no?
 
Tarheelpilot said:
So that’s a no?
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Parsing your post a little slower, I can see "another one" refers to the mentioned Citation in the report, not "another one" Citation accident related to Statesville which is what came to my mind. So, the answer is "yes", there was another Citation accident mentioned in the report, but it didn't say where. It did say enough to know it wasn't the one I was thinking of though.
 
flyingcheesehead said:
Exactly. There will be plenty of people who get an hour of training from someone who doesn't do much training and they'll get their logbook signed and then they'll be in the right seat of a jet they know a tiny tiny bit about, and they won't be particularly useful in an emergency.

Someone who actually knows procedures, sure, that's good. I just don't think doing the minimum required by 61.55(b) is anywhere near "knowing".
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All of which is acceptable provided both the PIC and the SIC both think that additional teaching/learning should occur beyond that hour of training. But I’d bet that the majority of former SPE operators who don’t think an SIC adds safety are going to help their SICs learn enough to add safety. Because then they’d be wrong. :eek:
 
flyingcheesehead said:
Exactly. There will be plenty of people who get an hour of training from someone who doesn't do much training and they'll get their logbook signed and then they'll be in the right seat of a jet they know a tiny tiny bit about, and they won't be particularly useful in an emergency.

Someone who actually knows procedures, sure, that's good. I just don't think doing the minimum required by 61.55(b) is anywhere near "knowing".


Bingo.


Eh, maybe... But while it can be busy to fly those, there are also lower expectations of piston pilots. If you're flying a piston and you start to get behind, you can pull the throttles back and nobody bats an eye. If you slow a jet below 250 before you need to, you're gonna hear about it.
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If all you’re going to do is argue that people are just going to violate the regulation, the discussion is completely pointless.
 
Requiring NOW an SIC is not a “rule making change” to the original FAR then ….
 
Cesarmx said:
Requiring now an SIC is not a “rule making change” then ….
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Nope. The rules have been there. The exemptions expired and/or were rescinded, and most of them were gone before the announcement was made. Many of the operators flying single pilot last week were already illegal. One of the reasons the exemptions were rescinded is that there was no method in place for the exemption holders (the trainers) to tell the pilots that they were no longer authorized to fly single pilot, so the FAA had to make the announcement.
 
It's pretty much summed up by the first few paragraphs of the FAA Notice. The rule hasn't changed. The FARs says you have to follow the operating limitations of the aircraft. This is just a change of the policy for setting those requirements. Their mentioning of the Biffle crash is pointless fluff as that plane didn't have the exemption and nothing in the new policy would have affected that plane or it's operation had it been in place. It's akin to using crashes involving tour operators as an excuse to restrict non-tour operators over the Grand Canyon, or expanding the class B when aircraft WITHIN the class B collide.
 
mryan75 said:
If all you’re going to do is argue that people are just going to violate the regulation, the discussion is completely pointless.
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I'm not saying they're going to violate the regulation. I'm saying they're going to do the bare minimum required by the regulation, which is not nearly enough to have an SIC that is useful in an emergency situation.
 
dtuuri said:
Parsing your post a little slower, I can see "another one" refers to the mentioned Citation in the report, not "another one" Citation accident related to Statesville which is what came to my mind. So, the answer is "yes", there was another Citation accident mentioned in the report, but it didn't say where. It did say enough to know it wasn't the one I was thinking of though.
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Thought I was going crazy. Lol

Probably am…
 
flyingcheesehead said:
I'm not saying they're going to violate the regulation. I'm saying they're going to do the bare minimum required by the regulation, which is not nearly enough to have an SIC that is useful in an emergency situation.
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Define “enough” and “useful”. Someone who has done the required training is infinitely more helpful than a 172 pilot who knows absolutely nothing about the airplane - or even jets at all perhaps - flying the airplane unaided by the captain, in IMC in an emergency.
 
mryan75 said:
Define “enough” and “useful”. Someone who has done the required training is infinitely more helpful than a 172 pilot who knows absolutely nothing about the airplane - or even jets at all perhaps - flying the airplane unaided by the captain, in IMC in an emergency.
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Just like .00001 is infinitely more than 0. Certainly not enough to fly the airplane unaided.
 
mryan75 said:
Define “enough” and “useful”. Someone who has done the required training is infinitely more helpful than a 172 pilot who knows absolutely nothing about the airplane - or even jets at all perhaps - flying the airplane unaided by the captain, in IMC in an emergency.
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"Enough to have a SIC that is useful in an emergency situation" means they've at least seen and dealt with some emergencies in a full motion sim, and probably that they have at least enough stick time in the plane that it feels natural to fly.

"Useful" means that they can either fly the plane completely unsupervised, in IMC, with one or more major malfunctions happening, if they're the PF; or they have a level of familiarity with systems and controls that they can understand the abnormal/emergency checklist and execute things without having to look around for stuff. They don't need to be able to find a switch without looking, but they do need to know their locations well enough that their hand goes in the right direction without thinking and gets there at the same time as their eyes.

Yes, someone who has done the training is going to be at least marginally more useful than a random meat bag that's only flown a 172, but seriously, would you put your family in a jet behind a crew where one pilot only had three hours in the plane and some non-standardized, probably incomplete systems training?
 
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