Professional Pilot, February 2019

Pilots need to practice manual flying skills as automation can misbehave W hats your favorite airplane to fly is a common question posed to pilots Those aviators who have weathered the low points of the fickle aviation industry might respond with the sardonic answer its the plane thats currently responsible for providing a paycheck While thats true for some most pilots have a favorite At the early stage of ones career the answer tends to favor fast and glamorous An aircraft that climbs quickly or looks fast just sitting on the ramp garners a lot of affection Others prefer smooth handling characteristics However seasoned professional pilots come to love an aircraft that makes life easier and more comfortable Although its fun to reminisce about flying a Cessna off the grass or performing loops in a weathered military trainer that reeked of air sickness from the thousands of pilots that came before the thought of having to return to those days can be unsettling especially in the later stage of life 50 PROFESSIONAL PILOT February 2019 So perhaps the relevant question is twofold whats your favorite airplane to fly for fun and what do you prefer to fly for work A professional pilot that enjoys flying a Piper Cub to an airport barbecue has a different answer when faced with flying an ILS to minimums in Boston during a February noreaster Flying automated aircraft The unwritten expectation when it comes to pilot career advancement is that increasing seniority corresponds with better equipment and lower workload and higher pay In pilot parlance less mental gymnastics and physical labor for the same or better compensation An experienced pilot that has acquired a large knowledge base and skill set expects to employ less of it over time All things being equal a fully automated aircraft requires less effort to fly What skills are necessary is a function of technology and correspondingly the operating environment The demise of the NDB Non Directional Beacon serves as an example The ADF needle still exists on some instrument panels even though GPS has supplanted the NDB ground based navigational system at least in US domestic airspace Although pilots who were trained to fly fixed card NDB approaches might be able to annunciate the mnemonic that on course occurs when the intercept angle equals the deflection today only a small percentage could fly an NDB instrument approach much less a hold to ATP tolerances without some coaching Nor would they need to Its a lost art but one that is completely superfluous in the modern era as even when used to define an airway in international operations pilots almost assuredly use GPS or a flight management system instead However the fact that a pilot cant perform an NDB approach does not mean the pilot is complacent Technology has simply rendered the skill obsolete On the other hand complacency does occur when a pilot is unaware that a necessary skill has deteriorated or vanished Overreliance on technology and automation can mask or contribute to a deficiency hence the adage Given enough automation a good pilot will turn bad and a bad pilot good Proficiency lapse A leading cause of proficiency lapse is an autothrust autothrottle system From a definition standpoint an autothrottle moves the levers while changing power whereas an autothrust system leaves the levers in a fixed position However both systems are tasked with increasing or decreasing thrust The most troubling example of this occurred in July 2013 when Asiana Airlines flight 214 a Boeing 777 struck the seawall while on a visual approach to runway 28L in SFO KEEPING SHARP Remaining proficient requires self awareness and dedication to basic airmanship Pilot flying Airbus 319 on final approach A visual approach is an opportunity to decouple the automation and assess whether skills have deteriorated By Shannon Forrest President Turbine Mentor ATP CFII Challenger 604 605 Gulfstream IV MU2B