The buzz this week is a
report stating that the FAA finds pilot’s manual flying skills may be rusty due
to excessive reliance on automation. Although I can agree with some of
their findings, I’m more concerned about the issue of when to use which mode?
I think the bigger problem with automation is when to turn it off and fly
manually? Or, just as important, when should you turn on the automation
and let it do the work the system was designed to do?
So how detrimental is our
generation of automated airplanes (or better said, the automated pilots) to
themselves and the traveling public? When should we, as pilots, switch
from automatic to manual flight…or vice versa? That’s the real question.
The appropriate use of the technology and deciding when it’s best to use
one mode or the other can be tricky, especially when you've been trained to use
all of the newest automated features.
I consider myself an
inter-generational or semi-automatic pilot. I was raised on manual
flying, but taught to use the autopilot to help me do my job. About 10
years ago I transitioned to the Boeing 757/767 which has the advanced
automation features (lateral and vertical navigation integrated with the
autopilot) which now concerns the FAA. It’s easy to flip switches, but the real
concern is knowing when to take over and use our manual piloting skills, honed
through years of experience, to do what the automation seems reluctant to do,
won’t do, or can’t do quickly enough.
Automation works extremely
well to relieve heavy and ongoing workload situations which require constant
monitoring of multiple inputs. Automation is
designed to fly the airplane smoothly and change modes with the least amount of
fright-inducing pitch/power changes. I recall doing my simulator training
on go-arounds/missed approaches one afternoon, then riding on the real airplane
later that evening which had to do a go-around for real. As a passenger, I was
impressed with how smoothly the plane transitioned from descending flight on
the approach to adding power smoothly, transitioning to a climb on the pull-up
to complete the go-around or escape-the-ground maneuver. The automation
did a great job which ensured safety and passenger comfort.
The issues of when to
implement, and how to best utilize automation has always been a concern.
I recall flying the mostly manual MD80 from 1988 to 2003 and hearing lots of
stories about the problems with “automation obsession” which could easily
distract a pilot from that most important of all jobs, flying the
airplane. “Click it all off” they told the pilots flying automated
airplanes. If it’s not doing what it needs to do below 10,000 feet, you need to
have your head up and looking around, not buried in the button-pushing process
of trying to make the Flight Management Computer (FMC) do its thing.
Several other questions
come to my mind as a transitional pilot, given my inbred suspicion of too much
automation:
Do younger pilots, trained
with more video games and simulators have a tendency to use it more or perhaps
too much? Do they use it when it's not appropriate based on growing up in
a highly automated world?
Are they concerned about
someone thinking they can’t hack the automated flight regime, can’t push all the
buttons correctly? Or maybe they really don’t know how to make the automation
do that complex departure?
Are they appropriately
suspicious of what the automation is telling them? Do they back up the use of the autopilot with their own
on-going assessment? That’s where experience comes in. We have a
saying when the automation is doing something weird which can be a real
trap: “Why did it do that? What’s it going to do next?” I
like to have a good plan in mind for what I’m going to do next if the automation doesn't do what I think it should. Does everyone think this way? If not,
why not?
Why do they turn it off
early on an approach, when they perhaps should leave it ON? Most landings
I see performed by younger co-pilots are manual from 1000' down to
touchdown. I, on the other hand, mostly let the autopilot fly the
airplane down to 200’, THEN I turn it off and replicate how the autopilot was
flying, which I watch very carefully, just waiting for it to do something I
don’t like so I can take over manually.
We DO have a choice of
when to use automation and the key is to use that choice wisely.
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