FAA maybe not so stupid?

Crop Duster said:
"Remember Bucharest!"
"Instead of saving them, the autopilot kills them!"

I'm likely one of the staunchest advocates for training on this board. All for training. Initial. Recurrent. Supplemental. It's all good.
But if kicking off the A/P and holding the controls during an exigent circumstance is the kind of stuff that needs to be re-trained to experienced AA pilots, I'm done with this industry.
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While I like Warren Vanderburgh (RIP) presentations, his accident stories are way off. About the Bucharest, he says 128 people would still be alive if the FO had his hands on the throttles. It was TAROM flight 371, and in one of those RAREST cases ever, the autothrottle failure happened at the same time the freakin CA had a heart attack and died! The FO was dealing with a passed out CA, while dealing with a plane rolling over due to the autothrottle failure that brought one lever to idle while the other stayed in climb. I mean, damn. What are the chances of an autothrottle failure AND a CA dying at the same time? And it was 60 fatalities, not 128. 11 crew, 49 pax.

In another case he says the Nagoya A300 stalled and went nose down into the ground. Not quite, it stalled and hit very hard in a high nose up/landing attitude. Most nearly all died but 7 survived, seated in rows 7-15. Had it nose dived into the ground like he implied, that would have been entirely fatal with 0 survivors.
 
Crop Duster said:
"Remember Bucharest!"
"Instead of saving them, the autopilot kills them!"

I'm likely one of the staunchest advocates for training on this board. All for training. Initial. Recurrent. Supplemental. It's all good.
But if kicking off the A/P and holding the controls during an exigent circumstance is the kind of stuff that needs to be re-trained to experienced AA pilots, I'm done with this industry.
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Just so you know, you’re about 20 years late on your anger.
 
bLizZuE said:
Just so you know, you’re about 20 years late on your anger.
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Yes, I understand that's an old video. I'd love to see the recent ones, but they've been on lockdown since AA was embarassed by this one that escaped to the wild. (I'm sure the info hoarding is now "legitimized" by some BS "security directive" cover.) I stated similar ~20 years ago.

My position hasn't changed. Whatever year or decade, if you have an organization full of folks at the zeniths of their careers and alleged to be the best at their craft, who don't instinctively understand that they need to drop the A/P when it starts acting funny... yeah, that's a problem.

It's not anger. It's incredulity and massive cognitive dissonance. Humans are so capable of excellence, and yet their social structures so regularly impede their achievement of it.
 
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While I agree with your argument that people need to know to kick off the automation when it's "acting funny," the reality is that the computer is rarely what's acting funny. It's almost always doing exactly what it was told. The problem is the old geezer who doesn't know how to use his automation, and that's why he's constantly saying "what's it doing now?" Telling people to just kick it off is a crutch, and that's leading to problems. What really needs to happen is incredibly thorough training of the automation.
 
SlumTodd_Millionaire said:
While I agree with your argument that people need to know to kick off the automation when it's "acting funny," the reality is that the computer is rarely what's acting funny. It's almost always doing exactly what it was told. The problem is the old geezer who doesn't know how to use his automation, and that's why he's constantly saying "what's it doing now?" Telling people to just kick it off is a crutch, and that's leading to problems. What really needs to happen is incredibly thorough training of the automation.
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Heartily agree.
 
SlumTodd_Millionaire said:
While I agree with your argument that people need to know to kick off the automation when it's "acting funny," the reality is that the computer is rarely what's acting funny. It's almost always doing exactly what it was told. The problem is the old geezer who doesn't know how to use his automation, and that's why he's constantly saying "what's it doing now?" Telling people to just kick it off is a crutch, and that's leading to problems. What really needs to happen is incredibly thorough training of the automation.
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Where I think you’ll disagree with a lot of people is that in order to be competent when the automation does fail, you have to “practice” without it very regularly.
 
Screaming_Emu said:
Where I think you’ll disagree with a lot of people is that in order to be competent when the automation does fail, you have to “practice” without it very regularly.
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I think @Autothrust Blue nailed it. ...We need BOTH.

Airmanship encompasses understanding one's equipment and automation, as well as how to fly the airplane when the equipment or automation fails.

Systems thinking. Connecting Dots. Consequences of Consequences. Passion. Curiosity. Interest. Frosty Observation. Big Picture Awareness.

It's never the one thing. Sadly, there are many vested interests who get rich by exploiting "the one thing"... in many cases to the exclusion of the many, many other things that ineluctably affect and change the one thing.
 
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Screaming_Emu said:
Where I think you’ll disagree with a lot of people is that in order to be competent when the automation does fail, you have to “practice” without it very regularly.
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Yeah, that is where we disagree. Sure, you need SOME practice. But honestly, not very much. Nowadays I only fly about 100 hours a year, at best. Sometimes I go three months between flights. The hand flying isn't what you lose. It's the flows and such. Hand flying after you've been flying for 20 years is like riding a bike. People just like to push it because it's an ego thing.
 
SlumTodd_Millionaire said:
Yeah, that is where we disagree. Sure, you need SOME practice. But honestly, not very much. Nowadays I only fly about 100 hours a year, at best. Sometimes I go three months between flights. The hand flying isn't what you lose. It's the flows and such. Hand flying after you've been flying for 20 years is like riding a bike. People just like to push it because it's an ego thing.
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Lost you on this one.

Tell that to a bike racer.

We're not talking about being able to bounce a 172 back onto the ground after a long non-flying hiatus. "This is the majors, son."
 
Crop Duster said:
Lost you on this one.

Tell that to a bike racer.

We're not talking about being able to bounce a 172 back onto the ground after a long non-flying hiatus. "This is the majors, son."
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If you think airliners are harder to hand fly than GA airplanes, you've either never flown airliners, or it's been too long since you've flown GA.
 
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