Airbus Preaches to the Spanish Choir

Airbus, Boeing, Fly by Wire, Fly by Wire with override, Air Travel, Air Safety....

In the WSJ Airbus just preached to the choir by calling for massive changes in pilot training including an emphasis in hands on flying so that when the computers turn themselves off or partially off, the pilots actually know what to do and how to do it and have actual experience really flying an airplane.

Redundancy and reliability lead to complacency and complacency is not safety.

"...too many veteran aviators have come to view recurrent training sessions as an unwelcome annual or semiannual chore that can endanger their jobs if they perform poorly—rather than an opportunity to fine-tune skills, improve decision making and learn new safety concepts using increasingly realistic simulator technology."

The obvious problem is that heavy handed pilots flying the airplane cost fuel and no matter what time and efforts are devoted to making the "button pusher" a better pilot, the chances grow ever more likely that he will always be a button pusher because systems are so reliable. Even in simulators, the simulator performance review teams have often had no flying experience, just button pushing experience. Their knowledge of real flying is largely hearsay.

Newly trained pilots only get unusual situation training to meet basic standards, not to actually use those skills in real emergencies.

Airbus, Boeing, Emirates, Middle East, Far East, .... all the answers will soon depend upon carriers making serious training decisions and operational decisions so that pilots although always expected to push buttons really know how to actually fly an airplane.

http://www.wsj.com/article_email/airbus-official-urges-major-pilot-training-changes-1428853600-lMyQjAxMTI1NjE4MjAxMjIzWj

We have far too many airlines and government agencies who only want to train to and fly to minimum competence levels. Any further is too costly and results in skills that will probably never be used or will be used when that pilot has moved on to some other airline.

Reliability, back up systems, make push button flying safe enough. Lawyers and speech writers can take care of the unusual events, they are cheaper than actually training pilots who know how to fly rather than how to push buttons.

I'm surprised Paco is not all over this... what with his grave concerns for the policies and intent of the Emirates Airlines.. They are the ones who have the money to make this shift in their massive training programs. Chinese airlines won't do it, particularly Low Cost Carriers, won't do it.

The speaker was addressing pilots but should be addressing the Sheiks who make the decisions, not those cheering "Ole" (Oh-Lay).

Quote: Fleastiff

I'm surprised Paco is not all over this... what with his grave concerns for the policies and intent of the Emirates Airlines..

Emirates has never had an accident involving a fatality since their founding on 25 October 1985.

Fatal accidents involving the latest generations (last two decades) of large widebody jets like A330 (8 hull loss, 339 fatalities), A340(5 hull losses, zero fatalities), A380 (zero hull losses, zero fatalities), B777 ( 5 hull loss , 540 fatalities)
Jul 6, 2013, when Asiana Airlines Flight 214, 777-200ER crashed while landing at SFO , 3 dead of the 307 on board
Mar 8, 2014, Malaysia Airlines Flight 370, 777-200ER, 239 people lost at sea
Jul 17, 2014, Malaysia Airlines Flight 17, a 777-200ER eastern Ukraine, anti-aircraft missile (all 298 people dead )

The A320 with many more flights had far more accidents (33 hull loss accidents with a total of 1,099 fatalities as of April 2015)

Singapore Airlines suffered loss of both engines at 39,000 feet and lost 13,000 feet in recovery efforts. A330.