FLY SAFE By Matt Callan
Is Technology Killing Us? Pilots need to maintain basic stick-and-rudder skills.
W
HEN I WAS A BRAND-NEW US NAVY officer and pilot in the SH-60B Seahawk, one of my first commanding officers was a
guy feared among the newbies for being extremely demanding during training flights. If you flew with him, it was almost guaranteed that he would secure the hydraulic boost in the aircraft at
instructor pilot and pilot examiner myself, I continued to shoot many an instrument approach with the stability augmentation system and trim secured (and yes, even the hydraulic boost), and I frequently required my stu- dents to do the same. It was that adherence to basic stick-and-rudder skills that kept me right side up on many a dark and stormy night when, after essential sta- bilization equipment failed in flight, I had to depend on my instrument skills to get the crew home safely. This was typically at the worst possible moment (think dark nights over the water with no visible horizon, or flights through driving rainstorms). Advancements in aircraft stabilization have created
stability augmentation systems, autopilot, flight direc- tors, coupled flight, and now the ability to fly from point A to point B completely hands-off. Some commercial air- liners are now equipped and certified to fly required navi- gation performance (RNP) radius-to-fix (RF) terminal arrivals, and then descend on a glide slope to a landing— all without a human hand on the controls. This all sounds wonderful—but not at the expense of basic flying skills. Many of the younger pilots today have never experienced flying an older generation aircraft equipped with steam gauges and “the basic six,” arranged for viewing in a circular scan pattern during instrument flight. Yes, pilots have benefited from safety technology
such as HTAWS or ADS-B In. And there’s no question that electronic flight bags, GPS, and other flight aids have made our lives easier.
some inopportune time during the sortie. There were times when he would go hydraulic “boost-off” almost immediately after lifting into a hover, and then leave it off for nearly the entire flight. For this reason, he earned the “affectionate” nickname Boost-Off among the wardroom pilots. I’m sure that, like me, some pilots still think back to the dreadful flights they had with him. I now realize that those training flights with Boost-Off
were not so dreadful. The skill he forced me to practice made me into a proficient instrument pilot. In fact, that earned skill could have been responsible for saving my life more than once. As I advanced through the ranks and became an
72 ROTOR SPRING 2019 But according to the US Department of Transportation
and the FAA, pilots are becoming dependent on technol- ogy to the point of losing their stick-and-rudder skills. Overreliance on onboard computers and cockpit compla- cency has been named by the National Transportation Safety Board as a contributing factor in some recent high-visibility international mishaps. In the world of helicopters, could pilot overreliance on
technology be causing deterioration and breakdown of pilot instrument skills and scan habits? This could be a causal factor in the all-too-common accidents involving loss of control and controlled flight into terrain that plague our industry.
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38 |
Page 39 |
Page 40 |
Page 41 |
Page 42 |
Page 43 |
Page 44 |
Page 45 |
Page 46 |
Page 47 |
Page 48 |
Page 49 |
Page 50 |
Page 51 |
Page 52 |
Page 53 |
Page 54 |
Page 55 |
Page 56 |
Page 57 |
Page 58 |
Page 59 |
Page 60 |
Page 61 |
Page 62 |
Page 63 |
Page 64 |
Page 65 |
Page 66 |
Page 67 |
Page 68 |
Page 69 |
Page 70 |
Page 71 |
Page 72 |
Page 73 |
Page 74 |
Page 75 |
Page 76 |
Page 77 |
Page 78 |
Page 79 |
Page 80
