Even to a rank land-lubber armchair simulator "aviator" like me, the lapse in the training philosophy under which some Korean airline pilots earn their wings is alarming, to say the least.

If this report is anything to go by, there exists, in at least some Korean airlines, NO contingency plan for those exceedingly rare but nonetheless possible occasions when one or more of the independent auto-pilot computers of a modern airliner decides to take a coffee break on short finals, jeopardising the auto-land sequence.

My favourite quote from this news story is from the Korean pilot trainee who informed his American trainer that he " didn't have to know" about the "archaic" skill of hand-flying. Hell, with that quote in mind, Boeing might as well remove the flight yoke and rudder pedals from all new passenger aircraft shipped to Korea, since those bells and whistles would only distract and confuse the pair of systems administrators seated in the cockpit.

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-...al-flying-former-trainers-say.html?cmpid=yhoo

 

That's nuts. How is this not a worldwide standard for commercial pilots?

 

My favourite quote from this news story is from the Korean pilot trainee who informed his American trainer that he " didn't have to know" about the "archaic" skill of hand-flying.

I can't help but to think about people around here who say you don't need to use archaic electronic design now that microcontrollers are available.

 

And folks around here who claim that they don't need to learn the archaic practice of programming in assembly language when C++ is available.

 

However, to play the devil's advocate, training curricula cannot aggregate the technological discoveries of all past decades, while still taught within a fixed period of time.

If we want pilots to be able to use the onboard computers effectively, something must be left out.
I have the same opinion for almost every other subject, such as electronics and programing.

 

I quit flying about 30 years ago when I saw half a pint of hydraulic fluid squirt out of a wing and the lady with the drinks told me that was accepted as, "normal". Now somebody has accepted as normal, a pilot that can't operate the controls? Lucky me. I made a good choice.

 

Did you guys see the TV reporters screw-up? http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/wor...ting-fake-racially-offensive-pilot-names.html Funny.

 

@#!2 -- I quit flying when the Air Traffic Controllers were fired in the aftermath of the PATCO strike.

 

I quit flying about 10 years ago. It was hard on my wings.

 

Rim shot for MrChips.

 

Even to a rank land-lubber armchair simulator "aviator" like me, the lapse in the training philosophy under which some Korean airline pilots earn their wings is alarming, to say the least.

Yeah, one might even say that the excessive reliance on computer simulators handicaps people from not having enough real world experience.

What a novel concept......

 

If this report is anything to go by, there exists, in at least some Korean airlines, NO contingency plan for those exceedingly rare but nonetheless possible occasions when one or more of the independent auto-pilot computers of a modern airliner decides to take a coffee break on short finals, jeopardising the auto-land sequence.

There was a famous case of the south american airline crash where icing blocked off the air speed tube which caused the aircraft to immediately shut down auto pilot function..... that plane stalled and fell like a stone because the pilots could not recognize what happened or take appropriate action.

 

Good thing they had a computer to fly the plane for them!

 

I see alot of the youngsters naively thinking they can skip over leaning the fundamentals because they have the new, whizbang device that does everything for them. They assume to lecture older, learned technologists on what technologies are a waste of their time to learn or use. The never realize those things that are taking the place of learning and doing in their lives are merely tools, and aren't intended or able to solve every technology application. In so doing, they rob thierselves of the beauty of using simple solutions to their needs. They never witness the simple joy of learning how to apply elegant solutions that perform as good, and in many cases, better than their new, "zowie" tools. But what can you expect from a generation that grew up texting and playing video games?

 

The "useless" technologies I skipped were the slide rule and machine language. I hope you can forgive that. Still, calculators were allowed in my math and science classes because they would do you no good if you didn't understand the problem, and Basic, Fortran, and Cobol (and probably a few more) were invented before I got to where I needed to run programs on a computer.

Hey, works for me.

 

Well, I hope you at least learned long division.

 

Well, I hope you at least learned long division.

That was taught in school in my day. My brother showed me how to find the square root of a number. I think I can still do it.

 

In many countries an airline pilot gets a license without every having even ridden in a light aircraft. It is all simulator time followed by OJT in the cockpit with a huge reliance on automated systems to do their work and thinking for them. It is very sad. Even here airlines have to contend with striking a balance between maintaining pilot skills and the costs associated with doing so.

The more capable the machines become the less capable the operators have to be and so the less capable the operators do become.

It's another embodiment of the Cash Register Syndrome.

 

#12 Here's a slide rule for you ... if you need to brush up.

http://www.antiquark.com/sliderule/sim/virtual-slide-rule.html

 

Not bad. Except on my slide rule you cannot make the cursor fly off the rule.