![\"atl](\"https:\/\/airlinesafety.blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/05\/atl-final.jpg?w=640\")
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Several years ago my company had a number of senior pilots transitioning off of traditional \u201cround dial\u201d airplanes, such as the B-727 and DC-10 as the airplanes were being retired from the fleet.\u00a0 The pilots were moving directly to the left seat of advanced 4th<\/sup> generation glass cockpits, and quite a few did not take to the transition easily.\u00a0 It was a big jump, although to be fair, the DC-10, and even the B-727, were far more advanced than what was present in the 1960s, with much more sophisticated autopilots and flight directors.\u00a0 Both airplanes were certificated for Category III autolands, for example.<\/p>\n I was teaching at the time, a Line Check Airman, so I would take students for the line operating experience portion of their training.\u00a0 For those outside of the airline industry, this is done after the conclusion of the student\u2019s ground training, which includes systems, simulators, a type-ride, simulator \u201cline training\u201d and the rest.\u00a0 So, technically speaking, my \u201cstudent\u201d was completely qualified, type rated in the airplane and just needed some actual line experience.\u00a0 Recall that these were already very experienced pilots, many of whom had been flying large wide-body airplanes around the world for years.\u00a0 One would think it a simple matter to just integrate the new skills that they had just learned in the simulator with their previous experience.<\/p>\n However, most of these experienced captains would be visibly nervous as they approached the real airplane portion of the training.\u00a0 Perhaps it is the realization that this is where the \u201crubber meets the pavement\u201d, in other words, it is the real thing now.\u00a0 In a simulator a person can mess up and the consequences are not that large.\u00a0 The real airplane is something else entirely, and there is no \u201cfreezing the simulator\u201d or \u201crepeats\u201d possible.\u00a0 Here a small screw up would entail loss of face, but a larger one means a real violation or worse.\u00a0 Being nervous is no way to learn.\u00a0 In addition, I was often given students that were having trouble \u2013 they had already had to repeat some portion of their training or even had \u201cbusted out\u201d of previous line training.\u00a0 These students were doubly nervous.<\/p>\n Recall that these are pilots that had no problem just flying the machine.\u00a0 They had lots of experience and had passed many checkrides.\u00a0 It was the automation that made them nervous.\u00a0 So many modes and different ways to accomplish tasks \u2013 so many ways to mess it up!\u00a0 While computers added a lot of functionality, they had also greatly complicated things.\u00a0 With each additional feature comes more required knowledge to understand that feature and how to use it, but like most everything, the context in which it is being used changes aspects of how we implement it. When we mix in different human responses, different ways and timing of activating features, the environment and design of the procedures, as Yoda might say \u201cconfusing it gets\u201d!\u00a0 This is a textbook example of complexity.<\/p>\n So I developed a routine.\u00a0 After a bit of small talk to establish where the student was, mentally, based on experience, background, what occurred in previous training, etc., I would tell them \u201clook, all that matters is that you <\/em>know for sure what the airplane is doing.\u00a0 I don\u2019t care if that requires turning off all the automation and just hand-flying, or downgrade it, if you are not 100% sure what the system will do next, put it in a mode that you do\u201d.\u00a0 The stress would visibly vanish off their face. \u00a0I would add \u201cfiguring out the way to maximize the use of automation is not what we will do while flying the airplane.\u00a0 I only care that you comply with the clearances, the aircraft limitations and are safe \u2014 we can discuss how to best use the automation on the ground\u201d.\u00a0 I should add that in my experience, these discussions are best over an adult beverage!<\/p>\n In every case my students passed their training and went on to do a fine job in the airplane.\u00a0 By the end of our time together they were no longer uncomfortable with the automation. They had added it incrementally, while maintaining the base of \u201cactually flying the airplane\u201d.\u00a0 They knew how to get it to do what they needed, but more importantly, they knew when to disconnect it.\u00a0 During my time as an instructor I had a 100% success rate for pilots continuing to the line.<\/p>\n In the Spring of 2017, as I discussed in a previous article<\/a>, I presented a paper with MIT research professor, Dr. John Thomas, on a re-analysis of the Asiana 214 accident in San Francisco utilizing the MIT STAMP method developed by Dr. Nancy Leveson.\u00a0 In addition to discovering many more causal factors during the course of the work, during the research I found that there were several automation modes that were not even in the flight manuals for the airplane \u2014 at least those that are typically provided to the crews.\u00a0 In addition, none of the interviewed B-777 pilots (including training pilots) understood every automation mode.\u00a0 There are just too many different combinations.\u00a0 This is not just true of Boeing, in fact, I believe it is probable that the same is true for all the advanced flight deck airplanes that are currently operating.<\/p>\n The thing that jumps out at me from all this is that there is only one way for a pilot to be sure what the airplane will do, and that is to turn off all the automation, autopilot, autothrottles, and just fly the airplane.\u00a0 Even then if they are in a fly-by-wire airplane there are aspects that they will not be aware of, but turning off the automation will solve most of the disconnect between their perceptions and what the airplane will do.<\/p>\n What we see, as recently described in an article by Ross Detwiler<\/a> in Aviation Week\u2019s Business and Commercial Aviation publication, is that instead of turning it off or even downgrading to a lower mode, pilots attempting to \u201cfix\u201d the automation when it is not doing what they want.\u00a0 I believe he is correct that pilots then tend to focus on that to the exclusion of the \u201cbig picture\u201d, and if both pilots get into that mode, particularly near the ground, the outcome is usually bad.<\/p>\n A big part of the reason for this, I believe, is that we believe that it is not behaving the way we expect due to something we did, i.e., programming error or wrong selection.\u00a0 To be sure, that is often true, but trying to fix it \u201con the fly\u201d (literally) puts us into a feedback loop.\u00a0 Breaking out of the mode is not unlike the problem of PIO, which I discussed in a previous article<\/a>.\u00a0 It is hard to \u201clet go\u201d, but changing what we are doing is the only way to get out of the feedback cycle.\u00a0 Unlike a PIO, in this case the cycle is with our cognitive process trying to \u201csolve the problem\u201d rather than just abandon it.\u00a0 \u00a0Each solution we try provides a positive or negative reinforcement giving us a dopamine shot like a video game or social media app.\u00a0 \u00a0Like I have told many students, the time to solve the problem is not in the air.\u00a0 Turn off the automation. Do something different.\u00a0 Like training pilots to exit PIO, this too can be trained. We just need to do it.<\/p>\n ===================================================<\/p>\n \t\t\t<\/p><\/div>\n <\/p>\n![\"aoa-book-image1\"](\"https:\/\/airlinesafety.blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/02\/aoa-book-image1.jpg?w=640\")
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