"Government not ensuring pilot skills are sharp"

Something very ironic about that article.
 
I thought the 1500 hour rule solved all the pilot problems with the airlines. Now your telling me that it didn't?:rofl:
 
When I went for my first jet sim session in 1984 each time I would turn on the AP the instructor would fail it. I flew almost all the session by hand.

When I went for my last jet sim session in 2008 just prior to retirement the AP was to be engaged shortly after TO and left on until just prior to landing. I flew almost the entire session with the AP engaged.

The difference in training philosophies was mandated by the FAA. And now they wonder why pilots are losing their skills.
 
A lot of the blame lies on the pilots themselves. Don't think they're all angels who are being deprived the privilege of flying.

*this comment was made without reading the article whatsoever.
 
dillardrg said:
When I went for my first jet sim session in 1984 each time I would turn on the AP the instructor would fail it. I flew almost all the session by hand.

When I went for my last jet sim session in 2008 just prior to retirement the AP was to be engaged shortly after TO and left on until just prior to landing. I flew almost the entire session with the AP engaged.

The difference in training philosophies was mandated by the FAA. And now they wonder why pilots are losing their skills.
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Pretty much my experience from 1989-2113 too, although we still could fly without the AP. But it was being strongly encouraged with the departure and arrival procedures. I normally flew at least to 10K before engaging the AP.
 
Cpt_Kirk said:
A lot of the blame lies on the pilots themselves. Don't think they're all angels who are being deprived the privilege of flying.

*this comment was made without reading the article whatsoever.
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Granted, there could be more hand flying done. That said, we (and many other companies) have rules about hand flying approaches when the weather reaches a certain limit. Plus, it's discouraged (although not prohibited) from hand flying the rnav departures when there are parallel runways. Of course there is no hand flying allowed in RVSM airspace.

To be honest, I find managing the automation to be more challenging than hand flying. Thus, I try to sharpen my automation skills.
 
Somedudeintn said:
I thought the 1500 hour rule solved all the pilot problems with the airlines. Now your telling me that it didn't?:rofl:
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That's easily fixable. All they need to to do is add a 3000 hour rule. If my math is correct, that will solve twice as many problems as the 1500 hour rule.
 
Somedudeintn said:
I thought the 1500 hour rule solved all the pilot problems with the airlines. Now your telling me that it didn't?:rofl:
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I think you are being a little tongue in cheek here, but not completely.

Point is, a 250 pilot just does not have the day to day experiences that a regional airline guy should have. Heck, I don't think a 1500 hour guy does either but that's a different thread.

It's just a matter of doing it long enough to see many different situations. Training is good, but IMO experience may have the edge.
 
flhrci said:
I expect this from a Cirrus pilot.
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:D
Kritchlow said:
Granted, there could be more hand flying done. That said, we (and many other companies) have rules about hand flying approaches when the weather reaches a certain limit. Plus, it's discouraged (although not prohibited) from hand flying the rnav departures when there are parallel runways. Of course there is no hand flying allowed in RVSM airspace.

To be honest, I find managing the automation to be more challenging than hand flying. Thus, I try to sharpen my automation skills.
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While I don't have any personal experience with 121 SOP's and other restrictions, I do understand that you have more limitations than I do - you have the opportunity to kill more people. With that being said, do you or anyone you know seize just about every opportunity to safely hand fly the airplane? (rhetorical)

The only information I can gain is what comes from my father and his experiences up front in the 737 & others (soon-to-be 777). He has made it a point to hand fly the airplanes when possible and would describe the major differences in flight characteristics going from 10k up to and beyond 30k. The only similar experience I can relate to is hand flying the PC-12 from the runway up to cruise (18k-28k). It's a very different airplane up high.

One of my most memorable impressions in the cockpit is when I was flying right seat in the Pilatus with an owner/operator a few months ago (he has 4k TT in type). He made it a point, regardless of the weather or difficulty in procedure, to always hand fly the airplane up to altitude. While he was a tad rough on the controls at times, his mental sharpness, situational awareness, and ability to "multitask" really made an impression on me. He handled that airplane and completed his portions of the flight like a true professional. I admired it. It's molded the way I manage an airplane. I want to be the best because the people in the back put their entire faith in my ability to bring that machine safely back to earth.

/rant

tl;dr I hand fly every airplane up to cruise, and a majority of the descent because it keeps me sharp for the times I need it.
\__[Ô]__/;1993445 said:
That's easily fixable. All they need to to do is add a 3000 hour rule. If my math is correct, that will solve twice as many problems as the 1500 hour rule.
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:lol:
 
During my training the AP wasn't introduced until the third or fourth sim session. Once I got out to OE, my first check captain noticed that I was using the AP to much for his liking. My hand flying I was also still very jerky. So he made me hand fly the entire flight to Portland from Newark during one of our days together. My second OE Captain had me do a pure visual landing, no FMS or Radio help, into a Class D. It actually turned out to be one of my better landings.

Now days I routinely hand fly to either 10k or 18k depending on the conditions and/or workload. I also love going into small town airports as it allows me to hand fly a pattern to landing. I've only had one Captain who didn't like me hand flying. But that was also the same guy that didn't follow checklists nor did he ever take out a Jepp. Actually got yelled at for asking him to pull out the approach chart. He liked staying chill and relaxed and I was adding work... :mad2:
 
Cpt_Kirk said:
:D

While I don't have any personal experience with 121 SOP's and other restrictions, I do understand that you have more limitations than I do - you have the opportunity to kill more people. With that being said, do you or anyone you know seize just about every opportunity to safely hand fly the airplane? (rhetorical)

The only information I can gain is what comes from my father and his experiences up front in the 737 & others (soon-to-be 777). He has made it a point to hand fly the airplanes when possible and would describe the major differences in flight characteristics going from 10k up to and beyond 30k. The only similar experience I can relate to is hand flying the PC-12 from the runway up to cruise (18k-28k). It's a very different airplane up high.

One of my most memorable impressions in the cockpit is when I was flying right seat in the Pilatus with an owner/operator a few months ago (he has 4k TT in type). He made it a point, regardless of the weather or difficulty in procedure, to always hand fly the airplane up to altitude. While he was a tad rough on the controls at times, his mental sharpness, situational awareness, and ability to "multitask" really made an impression on me. He handled that airplane and completed his portions of the flight like a true professional. I admired it. It's molded the way I manage an airplane. I want to be the best because the people in the back put their entire faith in my ability to bring that machine safely back to earth.

/rant

tl;dr I hand fly every airplane up to cruise, and a majority of the descent because it keeps me sharp for the times I need it.

:lol:
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To be honest, I usually hand fly until about 8-10k AGL, and again somewhere between turning base and short final. Could I do more? Yes. Do I feel as though I'm losing hand flying skills? I don't think so, but there likely has been some sort of erosion. I think the hard part about hand flying would be to turn off the flight director. In the Bus you just follow the FD and that's that. To raw data navigate the Bus is not an easy task.
 
Kritchlow said:
To raw data navigate the Bus is not an easy task.
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That is what my second OE had me do. He said I needed to have done it just in case something were to fail.

During our sim sessions they also made us raw navigate an ILS to landing. I remember being told that I wasn't flying it the way the instructor liked. Apparently the guy had an issue with me using the wind vector as my HSI guide.
 
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Kritchlow said:
Granted, there could be more hand flying done. That said, we (and many other companies) have rules about hand flying approaches when the weather reaches a certain limit. Plus, it's discouraged (although not prohibited) from hand flying the rnav departures when there are parallel runways. Of course there is no hand flying allowed in RVSM airspace.
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We do at least two hand flown approaches during our recurrent checkride. I normally hand fly up to at least 10-15,000' if not higher. I notice our new FO likes to hand fly all the way up to cruise as long as we don't get a level-off in RVSM airspace.
 
ARFlyer said:
That is what my second OE had me do. He said I needed to have done it just in case I had to if something failed.

During our sim sessions they also made us raw navigate an ILS to landing. I remember being told that I wasn't flying it the way the instructor liked. Apparently the guy had an issue with me using the wind vector as my HSI guide.
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An ILS is easier than GPS. There is actually an HSI for ILS backup if you opt for it.
 
Everskyward said:
We do at least two hand flown approaches during our recurrent checkride. I normally hand fly up to at least 10-15,000' if not higher. I notice our new FO likes to hand fly all the way up to cruise as long as we don't get a level-off in RVSM airspace.
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We did the same thing when I trained at FSI. We use to train at the MCO center. Their POI considers raw data using a flight director. The ICT center raw data was.... well, raw data. For the Bus type we needed a couple hand flown. For recurrent I'm not sure.
 
Kritchlow said:
An ILS is easier than GPS. There is actually an HSI for ILS backup if you opt for it.
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Yeah the GPS technique they teach us is kinda complicated. We have to go into the maintenance functions of the FMS and do an at least seven step process to get VNAV data. Which never works the first time, so you end up going down chasing the issue.

In the real world I just load the damn thing and do the mental math to figure out a ball park VSI rate.

Plus our FMS and AP like to go crazy if there is any wind. If I leave George on during windy days the plane ends up hunting the needle or justs never captures.
 
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ARFlyer said:
Yeah the GPS technique they teach us is kinda complicated. We have to go into the maintenance functions of the FMS and do an at least seven step process to get VNAV data. Which never works the first time, so you end up going down chasing the issue.

In the real world I just load the damn thing and do the mental math to figure out a ball park VSI rate.
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Lol!!!! I've never even trained that method!
 
Kritchlow said:
Lol!!!! I've never even trained that method!
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I was told it is because we haven't upgraded to the new Honeywell software release. So Honeywell's solution was to hide the VNAV page nested VERY VERY deep inside the FMS. Apparently it still ****es them off because our dated version is "technically" not approved for VNAV functions by them.
 
Kritchlow said:
To be honest, I usually hand fly until about 8-10k AGL, and again somewhere between turning base and short final. Could I do more? Yes. Do I feel as though I'm losing hand flying skills? I don't think so, but there likely has been some sort of erosion. I think the hard part about hand flying would be to turn off the flight director. In the Bus you just follow the FD and that's that. To raw data navigate the Bus is not an easy task.
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I make it a point to turn the FD off. I don't really count that as hand flying.

Like I said earlier, you all are under specs that I'm not and have consequences that I don't. What I do doesn't realistically apply to your situation. Do what you can with what you have.

On another note, it was my understanding (being told this by a recently retired TRS 717 Capt), that you were allowed to hand fly in RVSM as long as you had the proper equipment installed and working correctly. I haven't actually gone and looked it up.
 
Cpt_Kirk said:
On another note, it was my understanding (being told this by a recently retired TRS 717 Capt), that you were allowed to hand fly in RVSM as long as you had the proper equipment installed and working correctly. I haven't actually gone and looked it up.
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I think it depends on your company SOPs. I had this discussion some time ago with a person who worked at another company. We can hand fly in RVSM airspace as long as we are climbing or descending. We are not allowed to hand fly in cruise. But the person at the other company said that they could.
 
Cpt_Kirk said:
I make it a point to turn the FD off. I don't really count that as hand flying.

Like I said earlier, you all are under specs that I'm not and have consequences that I don't. What I do doesn't realistically apply to your situation. Do what you can with what you have.

On another note, it was my understanding (being told this by a recently retired TRS 717 Capt), that you were allowed to hand fly in RVSM as long as you had the proper equipment installed and working correctly. I haven't actually gone and looked it up.
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Not sure about the rvsm thing. I know the AP must be operational, but not sure if you need to actually use it. That said, airplane pitch gets pretty sensitive up high.... Proceed with caution.
 
Kritchlow said:
I think you are being a little tongue in cheek here, but not completely.

Point is, a 250 pilot just does not have the day to day experiences that a regional airline guy should have. Heck, I don't think a 1500 hour guy does either but that's a different thread.

It's just a matter of doing it long enough to see many different situations. Training is good, but IMO experience may have the edge.
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What I was thinking is that one could accumulate 1500 hours flying with an autopilot with coupled approaches and not get much hand flying experience at all. Heck a lot of those hours are sitting there watching someone else fly the airplane. Someone else could have 500 hours of hand flying in hard IFR and have more valuable experience. I agree that more experience is better than less experience, everything else being equal, and have a lot of respect for anyone who has managed to accumulate 1500 hours.
 
Somedudeintn said:
What I was thinking is that one could accumulate 1500 hours flying with an autopilot with coupled approaches and not get much hand flying experience at all. Heck a lot of those hours are sitting there watching someone else fly the airplane. Someone else could have 500 hours of hand flying in hard IFR and have more valuable experience. I agree that more experience is better than less experience, everything else being equal, and have a lot of respect for anyone who has managed to accumulate 1500 hours.
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We are talking two different kinds of experience. Your kind, hand flying, can be mastered quickly (although needs to remain proficient through practice).

My kind of experience is seeing a variety of different situations, regardless if the AP is flying, the FO is flying, or the PIC is flying. It's strictly about seeing a variety of situations. That I believe is the reason for the 1500 minimum. The Colgan crew had never really experienced ice. I'm not sure ice was the cause, but that came out regardless and it was shocking to the public.
 
Kritchlow said:
We are talking two different kinds of experience. Your kind, hand flying, can be mastered quickly (although needs to remain proficient through practice).

My kind of experience is seeing a variety of different situations, regardless if the AP is flying, the FO is flying, or the PIC is flying. It's strictly about seeing a variety of situations. That I believe is the reason for the 1500 minimum. The Colgan crew had never really experienced ice. I'm not sure ice was the cause, but that came out regardless and it was shocking to the public.
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And all I'm getting at is that making an hour requirement doesn't guarantee that one will see those situations. It relates to anything, not specifically hand flying, that was just the relevant issue I chose. In regard to ICE one could easily accumulate 1500 hours flying VFR in Nevada with no experience even getting close to ice. If they want you to have experience with ice then incorporate it into sim training, etc. I agree with you that the more hours someone has the higher the likelihood that they have experienced some of these problems, but in a lot of cases, you still are not solving the problem.
 
Hand flying a jet via raw data is a very perishable skill. Just like shooting a handgun quickly and accurately it requires repetitive training to maintain the edge. The gist of this article to me is - if the FAA doesn't mandate it airlines won't train it. That's the most important part.
 
Art VanDelay said:
Hand flying a jet via raw data is a very perishable skill. Just like shooting a handgun quickly and accurately it requires repetitive training to maintain the edge. The gist of this article to me is - if the FAA doesn't mandate it airlines won't train it. That's the most important part.
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At this point they're probably still more worried about people failing than machines, though.
 
Kritchlow said:
That said, airplane pitch gets pretty sensitive up high.... Proceed with caution.
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It sure does. I can't imagine how a two hundred thousand pound machine would feel up high and how big of a delay the response from the inputs would be. I've also never flown anything with a hydraulic system so I don't know how that affects the feel either.
 
My take on the article is not that pilots are lacking in hand flying skills or training but that they aren't getting enough training in simply monitoring a screen for 4 or 5 hours straight. I don't know how you'd train for that. Maybe lock him in a room for 8 hours with a screen that is completely static but at some instant during that period is going to display an anomaly.

The subject would have to be screened before entering the test cubicle though because I can't think of anything else that would be more apt to drive you to commit suicide than that. They'd probably have to leave their belts and ties outside. :rolleyes:
 
Sigh, please don't scare the FAA, they'll just make rules for the sake of making rules.
 
Silvaire said:
My take on the article is not that pilots are lacking in hand flying skills or training but that they aren't getting enough training in simply monitoring a screen for 4 or 5 hours straight. I don't know how you'd train for that. Maybe lock him in a room for 8 hours with a screen that is completely static but at some instant during that period is going to display an anomaly.

The subject would have to be screened before entering the test cubicle though because I can't think of anything else that would be more apt to drive you to commit suicide than that. They'd probably have to leave their belts and ties outside. :rolleyes:
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Well then you completely missed the point. The point is the FAA needs to come up with requirements for part 121 training programs to mandate hand flying. Not staring at screens, we do that already.
 
Kritchlow said:
We are talking two different kinds of experience. Your kind, hand flying, can be mastered quickly (although needs to remain proficient through practice).

My kind of experience is seeing a variety of different situations, regardless if the AP is flying, the FO is flying, or the PIC is flying. It's strictly about seeing a variety of situations. That I believe is the reason for the 1500 minimum. The Colgan crew had never really experienced ice. I'm not sure ice was the cause, but that came out regardless and it was shocking to the public.
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The Colgan crew had 3379 hours (Captain) and 2244 hours (FO). What would you recommend as "enough" experience?
 
Wheels said:
The Colgan crew had 3379 hours (Captain) and 2244 hours (FO). What would you recommend as "enough" experience?
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The Colgan FO was on the tape saying she hopes to never need to de-ice an airplane. So, to answer your question, at least enough to recognize that at some point in your career you will need to de-ice.
 
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