On autopilot?

Captain de Crespigny says that pilots of older aircraft such as the 707 and 747 had excellent flying skills. “They usually flew their approaches and landings without using autopilots and auto thrust because these systems were often too inaccurate or unreliable.

These pilots built a mental body model that included their aircraft – they wore and manipulated their aircraft like it was a fitted glove,” said Captain de Crespigny. “Practising manual flight proved beneficial during emergencies. These skilled pilots could recover their aircraft whether it was stalled, inverted, spinning or on fire. ” Legacy pilots unfortunately underrated their flying skills says Captain de Crespigny. “They took their skills for granted and did not appreciate how much manual flight honed their skills and confidence.

When automation started appearing in the new jets, these old pilots assumed that the automation should be used as much as possible at the expense of manual flight. This iswhen the industry’s skills started to stall then dive. ” He notes that the industry has experienced a steady decline in manual flying skills over the past 20 years. “Second officers are not permitted to fly big jets below 20,000ft. No pilots are permitted to manually fly in RVSM (reduced vertical separation minimum) airspace (FL290- FL410),” says Captain de Crespigny.

“Some pilots say it’s irresponsible to fly using manual thrust for landing. But if they don’t practice using manual thrust, then how will they be able to use it when they have to, like I did during the QF32 event?” He warns that ”modern cockpit designs insidiously induce pilots to focus on just the green and magenta targets (airspeed, attitude, altitude and track) at the expense of awareness of the underlying raw data. ” He also stressed that it takes more effort to operate modern jet aircraft than the older jets. “… the benefits of automation come at the expense of learning these complex mechatronic systems. Pilots must have a deep understanding of the core systems on their aircraft.

Because when these automated systems fail, and they will fail,the pilot must be able to land the aircraft with the remaining systems. An excellent example of this is the telephone says Captain de Crespigny.

“Older generation aircraft were like old telephones – user friendly, easy to use, nothing was hidden.

Pilots of today’s computerised aircraft must understand complicated software logic rules and procedures. If you don’t it could be a disaster. You never want to fly an aircraft that takes control away from you. So you must know when to trust automation and to respect its limitations, when to be sceptical and when to reject it and take manual control. ”

Commander Lovell

Commander Jim Lovell, who led NASA’s Apollo 13 mission supports Captain Crespigny and said that he hoped his message on the effects of too much automation in aircraft controls will sink through.

“Pilots must be confident operating automated aircraft and capable to defer to their hands-on flying skills,” said Commander Lovell.

“The Apollo astronauts and ground teams practised every procedure and every possible contingency, so that we felt comfortable in our spacecraft, capable of flying them when the automatics failed and confident of returning home. This preparation paid dividends for Apollo 13. ” Captain de Crespigny points out the opposite of the Apollo

Pilots of today’s computerised aircraft must understand complicated software logic rules and procedures.RICHARD DE CRESPIGNY

crew training is what he terms “automation complacency” and “automation amnesia”. “It evolves from not turning switches on or off because you forget where they are and you forget where they are because you never use them. ” He cautions that in fact automated systems can increase workload and risk. “The flight computers use many recipes of logic that simplify the phases for climb, cruise, descent, approach and landing. However, some recipes don’t help pilots in unusual circumstances. For example, a ‘Go Around’ and the ‘ILS PRM – Breakout Manoeuvre’ are probably the two most critical, yet poorly flown procedures when using automatics. These procedures are instinctively easier to fly manually. ” On the argument that technology should replace the pilot, Captain de Crespigny points out that while 70 per cent of accidents are due to human causes, this statistic ignores the thousands of near misses that pilots mitigate every day. “Technology cannot replace pilots yet. Pilots must expect the unexpected, anticipate failures and have the confidence and courage to recover their aircraft when the unthinkable happens. ” Captain De Crespigny has strong support in that argument from Professor Najm Meshkati, ViterbiSchool of Engineering and Aviation Safety and Security Program at the University of Southern California (USC). In a scholarly article ‘Operators’ Improvisation in Complex Technological Systems: Successfully Tackling Ambiguity, Enhancing Resiliency and the Last Resort to Averting Disaster’, published in the Journal of Contingencies and Crisis Management, June 2015, Professor Meshkati notes “that system designers can neither anticipate all possible scenarios nor foresee all aspects of unfolding emergency”.

The article, co-authored with Yalda Khashe, an engineering doctoral student at USC, asserts that front-line operators’ improvisation via dynamic problem solving and reconfiguration of available recourses provide the last resort for preventing a total system failure. “Despite advances in automation, operators (pilots) should remain in charge of controlling and monitoring of safety-critical systems.

Furthermore, at the time of a major emergency, operators will always constitute the society’s both the first and last layer of defense; and it is eventually their improvisation and ingenuity that could save the day. ” Professor Meshkati draws attentionto Professor Jens Rasmussen who said: “Operators are maintained in [complex technological] systems because they are flexible, can learn and do adapt to the peculiarities of the system, and thus they are expected to plug the holes in the designer’s imagination. ” Professor Meshkati, who has studied complex technological systems failures and has also developed and taught a new graduate course at USC entitled ‘Complex Systems Safety and Resiliency: Safety Culture, System Design and Integration’, refers to captains Sullenberger, de Crespigny and their peers across the world who were able to safely land their crippled aircraft with brute flying skill and improvisation, as the perfect examples and reallife realisation of his assertion concerning the vital role of human operators in preventing disasters and saving the day.

Another one of Professor Meshkati’s “unsung heroes” of commercial aviation is Captain Alireza Kooshki who also perfectly fits and corroborates Captain de Crespigny’s foregoing characterisation of “excellent flying skills of. . . pilots of older aircraft. . . (such as the) 707”.

Captain Kooshki, was in command of a Saha Air Boeing 707 with 170 passengers and crew on a flight from Iran’s capital city of Tehran to Asalouyeh, a small city on the Persian Gulf coast, who on November 20 2002 during the landing at 700ft faced inflight structural breakup. The whole flap on the left wing was torn apart, became separated from the aircraft due to metal fatigue of the ageing aircraft (reportedly it had more than 70,000 hours of service), which also caused its hydraulic control systems to fail. It was only due to Captain Kooshki and his two cockpit crew members’ remarkable

By definition MPL is an apprentice licence, not a fully qualified pilot’s licence. SULLY SULLENBERGER

flying skills, performance, and improvisation that after 30 minutes of daring manoeuvres, he was able to land the crippled aircraft safely on the ground with no injuries.

Reflecting on these incidents Professor Meshkati quotes notable American philosopher and psychologist William James who stated that “great emergencies and crises show us how much greater our vital resources are than we had supposed. ” Professor Meshkati, who in addition to aviation, is a leader in the study of nuclear powerplant control operations over the past 30 years and has visited Chernobyl, Fukushima Daiichi and Daini nuclear power stations, and considers loss of control in flight (LOC-I) as a very serious threat to aviation safety that should vigorously be addressed.

However, he thinks many goodintention efforts, such the one by the International Committee for Aviation Training in Extended Envelope are only focusing on the “effects” of LOC-I and, as such, their sub-optimal remedies are of limited long-term value. The root cause of the LOC-I, based on his teaching and research on aviation safety and human-systems integration in complex technological systems, are to be found in the nature and form of the cockpit automation.

Professor Meshkati believes that on many occasions and in many cases, automation only aggravates the situation and becomes part of the problem rather than the solution. In the context of aviation, studies have shown that automation is even more problematic because it amplifies crew individual differences and it amplifies what is good and what is bad. It causes de-skilling in basic flying ability and its “remission effect” caused by being out of the loop adversely affects the learning curve. In light of recent LOC-I accidents, such as Air France 477, Professor Meshkati believes that the aviation industry needs a serious “soul searching” of its past practices.

The aviation industry must go back to basics and rethink how pilots interface with and are trained for the modern cockpit, he argues.

Unfortunately, many regulators do not yet fully understand the problem of technology, automation and the pilot interface, and are lagging industry because of manpower and funding issues and consequently relegate their responsibilities to trade associations and industry groups.

MPL

A related issue is the multi-crew pilots licence (MPL) requirement of 240 flying hours which pilots such as Captain Sullenberger says is insufficient with the FAA by contrast requiring 1,500 hours.

Captain Sullenberger states in the RAeS report: “Every safety protocol that we have in commercial aviation is predicated on having two fully qualified pilots in every airliner cockpit, not a captain and an apprentice. A fully qualified pilot is required in both pilot seats to be able to fulfil the roles of pilot flying and of pilot monitoring. Everyone who occupies a pilot seat in an airliner must be the absolute master of that aircraft and its systems in every situation. Air France flight 447 reminds us of the need for pilots to possess the hands-on skills and situational awareness to calmly and logically assess and respond to all automation, mechanical, environmental and situational threats they face, simultaneously and continuously throughout the flight. ” Captain Sullenberger, who is at the forefront of a bid to stop MPL in the US says that “by definition MPL is an apprentice licence, not a fully qualified pilot’s licence. ” He then warns: “Not insisting onthe highest levels of safety is like playing a game of Russian Roulette: the fact that one flight went safely is little comfort for the next. ” MPL, which has wide industry but not legacy pilot support, was developed by the International Civil Aviation Organization and introduced in 2006. To pass pilots must have a minimum of 250 hours of flying training, and 750 hours of theoretical knowledge instruction. MPL was a significant development in training professional pilots and is the first time in 30 years that ICAO had significantly reviewed the standards for the training of flight crew.

Many pilots interviewed by Australia Aviation about MPL agree with Captain Sullenberger. “I feel like we are babysitters,” said one captain. “On one occasion flying into an airport in uncontrolled airspace my co-pilot wanted me todo the radio calls because he wasn’t confident enough. ” Other pilots said that the MPL pilots increased stress levels because a higher level of vigilance of their performance was required.

“Sometimes I have found that MPL pilots have done the opposite of what they are instructed in a critical phase of flight because they don’t understand basic aircraft behaviour” said another. “There is no doubt in my mind that if the captain is incapacitated some MPL-endorsed licensed pilots would be struggling to land the plane in challenging conditions. ” There are a number of solutions to these problems says Captain de Crespigny.

More hands-on flying

“The first is obviously more handson time at the controls. ” The FAA has already responded and theyhave released the Safety Alert for Operators #13002 (FAA) in 2013 which encourages operators to “promote manual flight operations when appropriate. ” But complicating matters says Captain de Crespigny is the fact that air traffic control agencies are putting more challenging and distracting constraints on pilots as a result of the skies becoming more congested. This reduces the ability for manual flying around airports.

“My airline has also responded and we now have procedures recommending manual flight in low-risk environments. Other airlines should also respond,” said Captain de Crespigny.

Deliberate practice

“A second solution is to introduce new training,” Captain de Crespigny said. “Pilot training philosophies are out of date and should change. Theaviation industry should embrace the concept of ‘Stress Proof Deliberate Practice’ as a means to achieve resilience. ” He points out that Harry Nelson, a former vice president of Airbus’s flight test department has said that current training programs that airlines have relied on for decades are too predictable and fail to improve pilots’ skills.

“Aviation training currently consists of developing a broad range of skills to an acceptable level.

There is insufficient simulator time to employ the military training methods to ‘Demonstrate, then Direct, then Monitor’ sequences.

Aircraft conversion courses now expose pilots just once to the very critical but improbable emergencies.

Pilots have the symptoms and outcomes displayed to them and are rarely given an opportunity to repeat the sequences and to improve,” said Captain de Crespigny.

“This method produces adverse training outcomes, often with the pilots finishing the sequence with negative perspectives and little confidence. Many pilots finish simulator exercises feeling trepidation, under-confidence and hoping that they never see that problem again. For example, pilots receive infrequent and insufficient simulator training to master the difficult scenarios, such as flight into volcanic ash, engine fires and approaches using minimal electrics. ”Captain de Crespigny reflects; “Wouldn’t it be great if we could research, then train to become confident to handle these emergencies? Wouldn’t it be great to not just think like Neil Armstrong when he said: ‘Expect the unexpected’ but to be truly confident to handle it, and courageous enough to think ‘bring it on!’?” Nelson has called for fundamental changes to improve manual flying proficiency and other cockpit skills that have been de-emphasised over the years. He is critical of the current trainers that “focus too much on complying with regulatory requirements instead of teaching pilots new safety approaches and helping them to become resilient. ” The industry is partially responding to this request says Captain de Crespigny. “ICAO and IATA now recommend that airlines introduce evidence-based training (EBT) to provide competency-based training to counter known threats. ” But there is a problem he warns.

“Something else is needed, however, because EBT does not provide additional simulator time to resolve the problem of declining hands-on skills.

Nelson did not mention it says Captain de Crespigny, “but he was probably inferring that the aviation industry also needed to embrace deliberate practice (DP), a concept about learning devised by Anders Ericsson. DP provides the methodsto become an expert, or how to reproduce excellence reliably on demand. ” Captain de Crespigny says that “DP requires hard, effortful and repetitive practice that focuses on tasks beyond your current level of competence and comfort.

There are no shortcuts with DP. It requires years of struggle, sacrifice, feedback, honest often painful self-assessment and debriefing.

It involves developing individual skills in a staged process of iterative and increasing successes, with the skill and confidence rising together until they peak at a condition where excellence and confidence creates courage and fearlessness. DP creates resilience by attaining excellence in an atmosphere of confidence. ” A normal one hour flight experience is not as good as one hour of DP in the simulator argues Captain de Crespigny. “Stress proof deliberate practice (SPDP) is the goal. It is to undertake DP until the task is stored in our instinctive and rational mind. We should practice the hard stressful things until we can achieve excellence with confidence and courage and with little or no effort and stress. Proxies for stress include the heart rate, sweat, iris and pupil behaviour. ” And Captain de Crespigny warns that experience is no defence! “Many doctors and pilots still make serious errors well after having reached an expert level. It turns out

Simulator times have not increased to compensate for the trending reduction in hands-on flying. RICHARD DE CRESPIGNY

the experienced doctors and pilots make mistakes when they become overconfident and either cease to maintain their skills or cease to obey the rules and boundaries that they expect others to follow. Overconfidence leads to taking high risks with diminished margins for recovery. ” A good example, says Captain de Crespigny, is “the old military pilot instructor who decides to let his student continue with an unstable approach below minima, believing that he (the instructor) can take over when/if required. It is no wonder that these types of pilots eventually get into trouble. ” And once you achieve excellence it is another subject to sustain it.

“Having achieved excellence in the past is not a vaccine that protects us during a future crisis, cautions Captain de Crespigny who speaks from personal experience. “I was very busy after the QF32 incident and I let these distractions interfere with my duties. I turned up for a simulator training exercise having not memorised two of the checklists word perfectly. I was correctly scolded and I have vowed never to embarrass myself again this way. ” This story is not uncommon says Captain de Crespigny, with “many management pilots allowing their management duties to distract them from their requirement to maintain their flying skills. They too became unstuck in the simulators. ”

Global simulation?

Captain de Crespigny cautions that current flight training systems are not producing or maintaining resilient pilots. “Simulators have been used to comply with outdated regulator checking requirements instead of providing deliberate practice. Simulator times have not increased to compensate for the trending reduction in hands-on flying. ” In his article he details the reasons why current aircraft simulators are too expensive to be used for hand-on flying and SPDP. “The costs for these simulators will not reduce substantially and aircraft manufacturers will probably be forced to act as they face an increasing risk to their brand if the hull loss rate rises because of declining pilot skills. ” Captain de Crespigny says that there are significant savings and benefits for aircraft manufacturers who [provide the third solution to] solve these problems.

“While existing flight simulators will continue to be used to meet regulatory requirements, the future points to aircraft manufacturers likely hosting high-fidelity aircraft simulation services for pilots’ personal use. I predict that within five years pilots will be able to conduct low-cost high-fidelity simulated hands-on training in their hotel rooms anywhere and at any time. They will only need a personal electronic device, virtual reality goggles, artificial throttles and a sidestick.

Reflecting on all these issues Captain de Crespigny says that “Change needs to be made globally and urgently. ICAO needs to raise the bar.

“It’s no good CASA raising the bar just in Australia because airlines like mine already take a [cost] hit for training pilots to higher levels [of safety] than others. While the safety graph is trending down towards fewer accidents, I am saying it might curve up. Everyone I speak to agrees. ” Summing up, Professor Meshkati warns that “the aviation industry needs an urgent paradigm shift when it comes to its blind trust and embracement of more and more automation in cockpits. ”