Random thoughts

A system for leave

noreply@blogger.com (AndyT) — Sun, 04 May 2008 12:11:00 +0000

Having lived the dire CX leave system for too many years, seen the total indifference of the 3/F and recently taken part in the AOA's leave system trial, I'm left wondering what a good leave system is. I suppose a company that honours it's commitment to the pilots' leave would be a start. Sadly though, not a starting point. I'm trying to find out what other operators use and how their guys feel. Shouldn't be too hard, eh?

But what do we need? It would be nice to know the perceived benefits of the current points system. Shame it ignores the north/south divide. Somehow it doesn't seem to work. Yet BA use points and theirs seems to work. Somehow I feel something based on seniority - I suppose I would say that - might be better, yet like bids and temp bases considers previous success.

Any ideas?

You have to start somewhere

noreply@blogger.com (AndyT) — Sun, 04 May 2008 08:34:00 +0000

For a while now, I've wondered if a better form of feedback would be by the medium of a blog. It's not that I feel there's much merit in my saying anything but it might get ideas flowing. I've decided to do away with the Rant web page, so some of this stuff now includes comments previously made there. ok?

The darkness of Probs, Tempos or Inters

noreply@blogger.com (AndyT) — Mon, 07 Apr 2008 13:26:00 +0000

I've got to say it again. Five (I think) amendments into the DEST/ALTN weather requirements and a restructuring of the ETOPS rules and it's still clear as mud.

Here's a few thoughts:

The non-use of Prob/Tempo/Inter are clearly stated (1-1-1 4.1 A a) not to be considered for DEST forecast visibility. I can follow that. But cloud must be forecast (1-1-2 4.1 A b) at/above the appropriate MDA for a non ILS approach. Presumably PTI apply?

Then we moved down to destination ALTN weather at 4.1 C. No comment here about PTI, except that it refers you to the Notes for calculating the applicable minima.

Move down to 4.1 D and the calculation for the minima for filing as an ALTN. It's worth pointing out that after para D comes paras E-G so the Notes appended here refer to para D, not to section 4 in toto. Here, at an indented Note 6 to a para on Calculation, not application, we have a comment that PTI may be ignored, provided they are at/above the applicable published landing minima. So that would apply to both visibility and weather? If this applies to ALTN weather, it should be clearly stated at para C. If that note in para D applies to para C, it equally applies to para A, hence to cloud ceiling for a non-Precision Approach.

On the subject on Calculation, move back up to Table A and the direction regarding MDH. Consider that Boyd in "Grammar for the Great and Small" stated that "The test of a parenthesis is whether the other words make sense without it." Remove the parenthesised words - (two least restrictive) - and you get nonsense.

Actually the whole Notes section was a mess. Most of these notes did not belong to Calculation. At last some policy items have moved to Policy sections but still... Note 4 re BKN/OVC appeared at 4.1 A b so equally it belongs at 4.1 C. Note 6 re PTI belongs at 4.1 C.

One final thought on the subject of PTI; what about ETOPS alternates? Para F tells us that ETOPS Alternates must comply with Minima for Filing as an Alternate, so that tells us which numbers to use but nothing about the weather. For that, we need to turn a few pages out of the Flight Planning Weather section into the ETOPS section at 2-1-2 2.3 A. Here, we read that both ceiling and visibility are considered but no guidance on PTI. So do we conclude that, as a change from the PROB40 of last year, all PTI are now considered? Who knows.

At least a 60 min airport has become policy but what is an adequate airport? That doesn't get defined until you reach the ETOPS section at 2-1-1 2.2 A! So the use of a non-ETOPS airfield requires a definition provided for an ETOPS airfield.

Comparative: para 4.1 B b, you can only have the more distant between only two points.

ETOPS. Some big changes here. Presumably now MEL equipment items receive the same consideration as all others? A couple of other minor points: 2-1-2 2.3 A, "the crosswind at the time of intended operation will be at or above the operating minima." I hope not. 2-1-4 5.2, and now we are airborne, the weather must be above, not at/above, landing minima?

Talking of definitions, what's the Planning Stage? We know when dispatch is: 1-1-1 para 2. We know we need minimum planned contingency fuel, 1-2-3 para 3.1 B b. But when is that? The next piece of guidance is "once in flight, an aircraft may continue towards destination... [with] sufficient fuel available to proceed from present position to destination." 1-2-9 para 4. No CONT. But what do I need at sitting on a taxiway waiting to get airborne?

And on the subject of clarity ... 3-3-11 takes the time to clarify "Clear" and its misuse. Move down the page to Operating Practice and "when cleared to radar departure control." Ohps. More clarity: 3-2-9 7.4 B b "Holdover times must not exceed the times indicated in the Guide." Turn the page, 3-2-11 below Table 2 "When the holdover time has expired, a visual inspection must be performed."

Why is it that when given to a climb to a FL, we remain on QNH until the Transition Altitude yet when given a descent to an Altitude, we instantly set QNH even when tens of thousands of feet above Transition Level?

One of these days, I'm going to get to wet/damp/etc.

The Vol 8 Conundrum

noreply@blogger.com (AndyT) — Sun, 01 Jul 2007 13:22:00 +0000

Here's a thing - the Vol 8 Conundrum. Well, the conundrum is "why the piece at all"? I'd guess 4 out of 5 CX pilots have their own notes. Perhaps the question should be - why? Might it be that CX tech manuals are not up to the task, that the 2 main Ops manuals are impenetrable, that the style of line training and checking, rather than developing all weather defensive operators, revolves around the alpha-male smart-arse I-know-what's-going-to-happen-next approach. Why would a BTC chastise a JFO for not knowing that he should remove the /+8000 at TD? How could he know? How could he know that this question even existed? We have a system that is increasingly driven as knowledge based with an unnecessary need to know copious amount of info that can easily be looked up. It's lazy training because it's easier than teaching people to fly and operate. Bang on about poor NPs and technical knowledge and the job's done. Factor in the vagaries of various checkers and their personal opinions that can fail you a check and it fast because obvious why Vol 8 exists. As Jack White of the White Stripes said "you just can't take the effect and make it the cause".

Pushing that Pushbutton

noreply@blogger.com (AndyT) — Fri, 07 Jul 2006 14:00:00 +0000

I can't recall exactly when I wrote this; I'd guess 2 years back....

Isn't it a little weird that for a couple of years I've had the para below sitting here on my rant and nobody said anything and nothing happened then I take the page down and, bang, an NTC arrives as quoted in italics.

Where did popping up the PA pb every time you turn on the seatbelts in the cruise come from? I'm told it's Good Airmanship - blah! Suddenly we're at F350 in the cruise and, maybe because we've little else to do, it suddenly becomes important to check that the ISM is doing her job? The ISM is obligated to report to the Captain that the cabin has been checked; it says so at Vol 2 Pt 2 1-8-5. It's a legal requirement that the pax receive a Safety Briefing before take-off but do we pop up the PA pb to check that it's happening - I don't think so! Do we check that they have started the meal service? Maybe not!

Cockpit crews are reminded that Volume 2 Part 2 stipulates the following reporting procedure shall be followed, once the seat belt signs are switched on during light turbulence:
1. Upon completion of the cabin safety check, Cabin crew will report the cabin status to their Section Leaders.
2. Section Leaders will inform the ISM that their safety check has been completed.
3. After receiving confirmation from all section leaders, the ISM is required to report to the Captain that all safety checks have been completed.

Wow, maybe I should put the stuff back up and we can re-find policy for the rest of the missing jigsaw puzzle?

Original rant

noreply@blogger.com (AndyT) — Thu, 28 Feb 2002 07:36:00 +0000

Be very clear this is just a personal rant; it contains MY views, nothing else. To me it seems that we persist in following some very odd dogma. Life in an aeroplane is pretty simple in many ways: flying is still the same as when we learned - pull back on the stick and the houses get smaller. OK so Airbus have improved thing for us and the secondary effect is no longer that they get larger again but that we get TOGA and A/FLOOR, move the stick laterally and we get a roll rate demand. But flying is still flying. We don't need the Ops Manual or the NPs or the myths and legends or any of the bullshit.

From a legal point of view, we must adhere to the AFM, we would be wise to stick closely to the Limitations or else the machine might come unglued, from a point of view of standardisation, it would help if we all used the NPs but we don't need to. It says so on page 1: "the Captain retains the authority to vary procedures if and when circumstances dictate". With the advent of the FCTM, we now have the operating procedures in the FCTM and a bullet point outline in the Normal Procedures which far from being Procedures are actually Policy. The current revision of the NPs has removed much of the procedures. So how does non-compliance with the Mandatory Go-Around criteria get to be a Line Check fail?: Vol 1 2-1-1 says that "the Commander shall not permit any member of the flight crew to operate an aircraft in a careless or reckless manner..." Anyway 1000ft is too high to need to be stabilised at VAPP.

On top of that we have the Airbus myths and legends. Now some of these really are myths and legends, just listen to some of the trainers. Sure, on top of NPs, we also have custom and practice; we've always done it that way so why change. Maybe it makes it easier if you do stick with that old ways but you're under no obligation to do so. Where's the quality control in the new Loadsheet procedure that it so weak that we now need a Before Take Off checklist item to confirm completion? Who thought of the term ACKNOWLEDGED? That does not slip off the tongue for most of use and it seems the locals find it something of a tongue twister! If you need such a system, it should be implemented such that the Acknowledge function is embedded in INIT B and the MCDU/FM flags a missing key-press when the TO Config pb is pressed.

Where did popping up the PA pb every time you turn on the seatbelts in the cruise come from? I'm told it's Good Airmanship - blah! Suddenly we're at F350 in the cruise and, maybe because we've little else to do, it suddenly becomes important to check that the ISM is doing her job? The ISM is obligated to report to the Captain that the cabin has been checked; it says so at Vol 2 Pt 2 1-8-5. It's a legal requirement that the pax receive a Safety Briefing before take-off but do we pop up the PA pb to check that it's happening - I don't think so! Do we check that they have started the meal service? Maybe not!

And then there's that little gem of manually tuning LC during and approach to 07L or 25R. Why? "To fill in the blanks". Hmmm, do we randomly tune an ILS when we are making a VOR approach - no. How is LC going to help? Presumably all is going well prior to ToD when you formulate this master plan of manually tuning LC. Passing Limes, GPS Primary drops out. Shucks, we are down to Nav Accuracy High: well, we flew like that for years and crossed the Pacific many times. 25d NLG and Nav Accuracy drops to LOW, so we are now raw data, let's press on. 21d NLG turn right and the ILS fails, well I guess a really smart crew have SMT up for confirmation of the centreline and press on for a managed VOR. But alas SMT fails heading 040. So now tell me how you are going to use LC. Me: I'd turn right 073 and go-around. There's nowhere LC makes any sense.

Nor does it make any sense to ditch the Secondary F.PLN that has a return from Envar as you climb through F150 and autotune navaids that are doing a great job.

Our normal operation is becoming increasingly tainted with weird little customs and practices that are no such thing. Vol 1 tell us that we are "responsible for understanding and conforming to the contents of the operations manual at all times." What does that mean? FCOM 3 forms part of the suite of operations manuals. An engine fails at 500ft on approach, so does that line require me to complete the FCOM 3 procedure for an engine failure? Or go around to do it. But, hey, back up top, we noted that the Captain could vary the procedures.

Look like the Legals are just trying to stitch us up. Another flap retraction incident and a mandate to re-read the the PowerPoint presentation. But the crew knew the system inside out and still fluffed it. Why? The more rules that you write, the greater the risk that you take that what actually happens is that crew spend their time desperately searching for the rule that they have missed that will drop them in the guano. The more rules you have, the more chance that you will miss one. The NPs are fast becoming a script from a play, miss a line, the prompter drops his copy and the show stops. See para 1, it's just an aeroplane, fly it. That's a pretty compelling reason why Adverse Weather should be re-written as a standalone procedure that overlays the NPs. Right now it's everywhere. I tried that once, it was turned down. And while I'm on weather, oh, just read the Darkness comments!

And here's a weird one: aircraft depressurises - you'd like to squeeze every ounce of fuel to make filed destination but that would be the hardest bet as filed destination, and it alone, require you to carry alternate fuel! Divert to a CX on-line port anywhere nearby and ALTN not required. Go figure.

Anyway, how many N1 fan blades are there on a Trent? How did that ever get to be a reasonable question for a line check? Then there's a couple from the - er - tech quiz the guys do prior to their upgrades: state the fuel imbalance limits for an A340 and what's the formula for the aquaplane speed. Now this just shows where the C&T thinking is going: anything in the limitations section is fair game. Huh! So that somehow makes it ok to force pilots to learn utterly irrelevant data that is available in seconds? The more limiting A330 says that the limits "maybe exceeded without significantly affecting the aircraft handling qualities." The answer to this odd question must simply be "FCOM 3.01.28" and look it up; when is knowledge of such numbers ever going to be time critical and of such importance that the risk of a 3 type CCQ pilot using the wrong numbers is worth the risk? As for aquaplaning, presuming that you get the dimension right - you know, PSI and knots, not bar and mph - given that we operate in a region with significant rainfall and wet runways, you would therefore expect to see some advice in SPs, FCTM or V2P2 on the subject but there's not a lot. Care to ask SUB Tower for the depth of water on the runway? PEK don't even tell you the surface is icy!

Here's the latest bizarre training concepts; the need to know where the handcuffs now live. Hmmm, they were removed from the flight deck so that the sterile cockpit did not need to be breached in a potentially troublesome situation. The checker argument now goes that some ISMs do not know where the handcuffs are. Have you tried explaining this, given the different types, over the interphone? If the checkers have an issue with the ISM's technical knowledge, they should get onto the Safety School and ISD and fix the problem, not mandate more trivia for pilots. Ever been asked what the inboard sawtooth on the 'bus leading edge is for - no, thought not! Or the "advice" that taxiing in, the APU should be started as pass behind the tail of the aircraft parked immediately prior to your stand. Wow, a notional 60 seconds to start, you will now learn about the APU fault moments before you set the Park Brake. Why introduce a Just-In-Time element anywhere in the operation when the rest of the time, we aim to manage events in a timely manner?

Isn't it odd that Boeing/Airbus have gone to so much trouble and expense replacing the FE with a handful of silicon chips and now we, as pilots, have to replace those chips. The aircraft gives you a perfectly good visual aid synoptic of each system but, no, in CX we have to be able to draw that system ourselves. Any good scientist and, logically, knowledge worker such as a pilot, shouldn't spend time learning facts that are easily available in a manual. This also applies to fuel imbalance values and, actually, pretty much every value in the Limitations for 3 types and their different variants that we operate, that are automatically monitored by one of those silicon chips, which won't get bored, nod off and they do a better job of it than humans. Interesting that we have 6 green FCOMs and 2 white ops manuals, which contain very little airmanship (FCTM possibly excepted) so is it any surprise that we've drifted into teaching dry facts rather than operational flying skills? We (I accept some personal responsibility for this) may have re-written the NP/SPs but it seems that we failed to change the culture in the check and training department; all the old trivia is drifting back in. Sigh!