ppragman
FLIPY FLAPS!
Once again, it is getting late! I will definitely read those tomorrow! First logical rebuttal so far rather than rhetoric or line pilot gossip!
I think the point you're bringing up is complacency though. I would argue that you could become just as easily and maybe even more dangerously complacent without standardization though. Gimme a few hours, will read and comment.
Our call outs in the Metro/1900 are 1000 feet for configuration and 500 feet for stabilization. In the 120 it's similar, but Vref is referenced continuously from 500 feet to the ground. We fly ref+10 or 130 for flaps 25 to the threshold, slowing to vref by the threshold. The 1000 foot call matters most obviously, but a quiet FO can get interesting in the 120 if the PF is focused outside too much.
Actually, I don't think I'm bringing up complacency at all. I would agree that without standardization complacency can become dangerous - and the science bears that out. What I am saying is that if a guy misses a minor thing, it doesn't mean he's going to miss major things - the science isn't in yet (at least in this thread it isn't). I think the case could be made that there is a correlation - guys who frequently miss minor things may correlate to guys who miss major things, but correlation ≠ causation. Just because a guy misses something minor, doesn't mean he's going to miss something major.
As for the specific callouts at AMF, what are those callouts meant to do? Are they meant to be a verbal mnemonic for the pilot to remind himself that the airplane needs to be configured at 1000' and stable at 500', or are they meant to trigger config and flight path changes? What happens in practice. Why does the 1000' callout matter the most? I would suggest that if guys are forgetting to put the gear down until the FO says "1000'" then the callout is itself broken. In this case, the callout, "1000'" is meant to identify a specific event - that is to say, crossing the altitude below which you will not descend without having the gear down (and likely some flap setting). Instead this callout has become the trigger for specific action. I've seen something like this before with a rotate callout a couple times. If a guy doesn't hear rotate, sometimes he may not rotate. The callout is broken when that happens, either in the head of the individual who needed to perform an action at that time, or in it's implementation in the system. We need a better error trap.