Pilot Handling Skills
Pilot Handling Skills
Definitions
Manual Flying Skills are typically thought of as pure core flying skills, where manoeuvres are flown solely by reference to raw data obtained from the heading, airspeed, attitude, altitude and vertical speed instruments, and without the use of technology such as autothrottles, autopilot, flight director, or any other flight management system. This might extend as far as requiring manual trim inputs and navigation using basic systems.
Pilot Handling Skills will include all the above manual flying skills, but may also relate to combinations of manual flying, speed and directional control together with combinations of automatic speed and direction control and guidance. Such combinations may occur through pilot preference, operational or procedural requirements, or when some automated systems are no longer functioning.
Whereas commercial airline pilots may once have been assessed wholly on their manual flying (aircraft handling) skills, nowadays pilot assessment is predominantly based on Systems and Crew Management, where management of the automated systems and maintenance of situational awareness replace many of the traditional flying skills.
Application
Pilots require handling skills in a variety of situations including:
- Visual approaches
- Circling approaches
- Instrument approaches (some precision and all non-precision)
- Landing
- Go-around
- Missed Approach
- Holding
- Reaction to ACAS/TAWS
- Recovery from unusual aircraft attitudes
- Rejected take-offs
- All phases of flight where aircraft flight control, management and navigation systems malfunctions dictate
Concerns
There are many arguments suggesting that commercial airline pilot handling (flying) skills have become eroded since the growth in popularity of fly-by-wire, glass-cockpit, fully automated, system-designed aircraft[1]. One could add to this the routine nature of many flight operations, the growth in controlled airspace and widespread availability of Instrument Landing Systems (ILS). Pilots flying with commercial airlines will typically only fly manually for the first and last few minutes of each flight. If a pilot logs 900 hours in a single year, fewer than 5 hours may involve manual flying. Also, more and more pilots flying today have never experienced an Industry where flying manually was, or is, the norm, unlike older pilots where these skills became “hard-wired”. This can further dilute the overall levels of pilot handling skills within an airline.
The majority of fatal, and non-fatal accidents, continue to occur during landing and go-around phases of flight[2], and loss of control (in-flight) continues to be the predominant category of fatal accidents[3]. Other areas of safety concern, for the Industry, include unstabilised approaches, runway excursions, heavy landings, tail-scrapes[4][5], level-busts, and engine and airframe exceedance of parameters. Each of these phases of flight and accident categories (above) would appear to involve pilot handling skills. Whilst it would be wrong to identify lack of manual flying skills as the cause to all of these, especially where loss of situational awareness, system malfunction, environmental factors and poor Crew Resource Management (CRM) were involved, it nonetheless does indicate that effectively applied pilot handling skills may help prevent accidents and reduce the consequences of errors.
Therefore, any arguments suggesting that commercial airline pilot handling (flying) skills have become eroded should be examined seriously.
Automation
The increased sophistication and use of automation has improved safety by reducing the workload on pilots, allowing them greater capacity and time to make forward judgements and decisions as well as “manage” better the aircraft systems and crew. Pilots learn to fly (i.e. their core manual flying skills) by correcting aircraft flight parameters based on their predictions to a projected forward goal – i.e. straight and level flight, or touchdown. However, with multiple levels of automation and flight modes it is very difficult for pilots to predict what the consequences of various failures will be in every given situation. Part of the necessary response to automation failures is to apply manual flying (handling) skills[6]. Increased reliance on automation by flight crews has created a risk that crewmembers may no longer have the skills required to react appropriately to either failures in automation[1]. Therefore, operators should ensure that training programmes include means and standards to be met regarding the interaction of human performance and limitations with changes to the normal operation of the automation[7].
Training and Practice
Basic flying training is predominantly focused on manual handling and becoming proficient in core flying skills. By the time a pilot completes professional training the emphasis is on system and crew management. During a pilot’s professional career as a commercial airline pilot he/she will be required to demonstrate regularly proficiency in certain handling skills, and under certain conditions, i.e. conducting a safe take-off with the loss of one engine, or, flying an ILS approach to go-around at decision height, also with one engine inoperative.
It is important for airlines to monitor the skill levels of pilot handling, perhaps through flight data monitoring programmes and line flying and simulator observations; then to use this feedback to adjust training syllabi. It is also important for airlines to integrate automation use and degradation into training to reflect operational conditions involving manual handling skills – automation not just a theoretical subject.
It may be necessary to provide pilots with additional flight simulator training specifically aimed at addressing pilot handling skills deficiencies.
Accidents & Incidents
Events in the SKYbrary database which include Manual Handling as a contributory factor:
On 12 January 2023, an Airbus A330-300 touched down at Amsterdam at night 11 metres short of the runway after the Captain manually flew below the visual ILS glidepath indication once below minimum decision height without comment by the other two junior pilots. The undershoot was apparently not recognised by any of the pilots and debris on the runway was only discovered two hours later. The crew were unfamiliar with the relatively short runway and it was concluded that having incorrectly perceived the overrun risk as greater than an undershoot, they had prioritised speed control over maintaining the glide path.
On 24 February 2020, a Sikorsky S92 crew departing at night from an oil rig platform in the Norwegian sector of the North Sea in adverse weather conditions temporarily lost pitch control of their helicopter after both pilots became spatially disorientated prior to reaching the minimum speed for autopilot engagement. Recovery was successful and the remainder of the flight was uneventful but the Investigation concluded that operator procedures were insufficiently robust and that helicopters engaged in offshore operations could usefully be equipped with low speed flight modes to mitigate the consequences of pilot spatial disorientation during low level manoeuvring.
On 11 February 2022 an Airbus A320 making a visual approach to Guadeloupe at night was advised by ATC of a descent below the minimum safe altitude after continuing the approach after visual reference was temporarily lost. A repeat of this warning by ATC prompted crew recognition that the aircraft was not on the required approach track or profile and a go around was initiated from 460 feet agl. The decision to attempt a visual approach in unsuitable circumstances and a delay in recognising the need for a go-around were found to have been symptomatic of poor tactical decision making.
On 28 May 2022, the crew of a Boeing 737-800 which had just taken off from Palma in good daylight visibility observed a light aircraft approaching from the right at high speed on a collision course and immediately initiated evasive action, achieving a minimum separation subsequently found to have been 116 feet vertically and 1,200 metres laterally and passing behind it. ATC radar showed that the other aircraft had not taken any action and it was found to have been operating on a VFR flight plan in controlled airspace without complying with the requirements for such access or listening out.
On 8 April 2022, an Airbus A320 made a multiple bounce touchdown at Copenhagen followed by thrust reverser deployment. The Captain rejected the landing and began a go-around but as the left main gear had bounced and was not on the ground when thrust was set, the left engine reverser did not stow. Full aircraft control was briefly lost and a runway excursion narrowly avoided before a recovery to a single engine MAYDAY circuit and landing followed. Engine software design prevented thrust reverser stowage without weight on wheels which was why rejected landings after reverser deployment were prohibited.
Related Articles
- Automatic Flight
- Flight Control Laws
- Flying a Manual Go-around
- Line Oriented Flight Training
- Recovery from Unusual Aircraft Attitudes
Further Reading
- Aircraft Loss of Control: Causal Factors and Mitigation Challenges, by S. R. Jacobson, NASA, 2010
References
- ^ a b Flight Safety Foundation Increased Reliance on Automation May Weaken Pilots’ Skills for Managing System Failures.
- ^ Boeing Statistical Summary of Commercial Jet Airplane Accidents 1959 – 2012
- ^ EASA Annual Safety Review 2012
- ^ Airbus Flight Operations Briefing Note: Preventing Tailstrike at Landing.
- ^ Airbus Flight Operations briefing Note: Preventing Tailstrike at Takeoff.
- ^ A332, en-route, Atlantic Ocean, 2009
- ^ EASA Automation Policy: Bridging Design and Training Principles. Version of 14 January 2013.
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