Any Solo Needed?

No solo training for future airline (multi crew) pilots: cheaper training. You know it makes sense!

‘Who’s the best pilot you’ve come across?’ Not an unusual question, and I prefer not be specific as I have several candidates in mind, but here’s one easy possible. It was Admiral Jack Ready, USN.

On our first meeting I saw him fly the (real) Concorde. He’d never seen one before, and apart from get in the seat he didn’t do anything; that’s what it looked like, but the result was as good as our autopilot (and maybe some of us). “It goes out to M2 like the Phantom’” he said.

The next day I gave him the choice of Concorde simulator or Extra 300, the two seat version of a full-on unlimited aerobatic contest machine. “Extra,” he said. So we went for a blast. We each flew a bit, and one can understand that this specialised sport bears no relationship to normal getting around. But before heading back I said “Have you ever done an outside loop?” “No,” he said. “Would you like to see one,” I asked. “Sure,” he replied.

Here I should point out that we were both about the same age - early 50s; both heading for retirement, our combined cockpit age a bit over 100. “Right,” I said. “I’ll show you the basic version.” This, of course, is the same as an ordinary round loop, but the other way up. Normal straight and level cruise, upside down, then straight into the required negative g to start with, adding full power, allowing the g to ease as the first vertical is passed, coasting over the top at around zero g, then pushing progressively to contain the speed and increase the g to maintain the round shape, reduce the power somewhat in the downward direction but build the negative g all the way until the level (inverted) picture returns; roll out, normal flight. No sounds from the back - was this a good idea?

“Was that about minus 4?” I asked, not having a g meter in the front. “3 point 9”, came the reply. “Do you want to have a go?” I asked, “Sure,” came from the back: and he proceeded to replicate what I had done, with the smoothness and coordination of a pro. “4.1” he announced. This was not important, nowhere near the real limit, but it was the sheer seat of the pants (though reversed) facility and feel of how aeroplanes behave and respond to their controls that impressed me. I was amazed, to put it bluntly. In Olympic terms this is an easy figure, but this beginner had repeated my perfect 10. The perfect student! What else could I teach this man (very quickly)? ‘Aerobatic friends, watch out’ I thought. I may have a secret weapon here (given suitable, somewhat geriatric circumstances).

During our several evening discussions over a scotch in the admiral’s historic house in Norfolk VA he told me about a project to decide the best configuration for a carrier-based attack aircraft, and the likelihood of it avoiding detection — the best chance of getting through the defences. There was a 2x2 permutation to this study: large or small, one or two crew. The winning combination was interesting — small, 2 crew. Small is agile and harder to see — 2 crew means two heads instead of one. Solo is fun, but given that someone has to fly, a spare brain and pair of eyes proved best in this test. But it all depends on the job.

What is solo training for?

Tradition is important to licensing authorities — it’s easier than making changes. But today, allowing for terrorist and virus interruptions, there are at any moment countless airliners flying worldwide at popular prices, most with the requirement that the two pilots’ seats are occupied for take off and landing. Modern technology has replaced much of traditional piloting requirements so why is solo experience demanded for a multi-crew civil pilot’s licence?

Historically, solo was an important part of any pilot’s pre-licence experience because it can be deemed to demonstrate independence of thought and an adequate ability to make undebated, therefore unilateral safety decisions. It is obvious that the solo concept is essential for small aircraft with only room for one pilot, and it is interesting to ponder the position of expensively trained military front line crew members. One at a time, should there be disasters: this may be more sustainable than two. But this essay is about civil transport today, and what solo experience means. Is solo really necessary?

It is my guess that many professional pilots live out a full career without ever having made a flight that has not been arranged, planned, briefed, authorised and so on by a part of the reputable organisation to which they belong. This includes the school training they have received, dual and solo. Experience and observation tells me that many of my acquaintance who conform to this paragraph can look back on a long and exemplary major airline career extending from basic equipment to modern fly-by-wire technology. But, to give perspective, a 7% exception to these were killed in flying accidents; one as a hapless airline beginner with a different sort of operator and the other two while fooling around in a light aircraft. Admittedly this sample only covers a group of 40, but had these learned anything specially useful from their limited solo training? For three of them the answer seems to be ‘not enough’.

Real solo flying

The self-improver, the free spirit or the battle-hardened experienced retiree who flies a single pilot twin for public transport develops a very clear view of what solo means. One does all the thinking oneself — all the planning, cross-checking, deciding (everything), arguing, persuading those with ill-informed expectations. Totally self-sufficient piloting is what the word originally implied, and, encouraged by the romantic notions of the Edwardian stick and string enthusiasts or the single-minded Charles Lindbergh, the tradition and assumption of its usefulness continues, attenuated it is true, to this day. But is it relevant to the major part of a modern civil transport industry which demands full dual controls and two type-qualified pilots somewhere in the aircraft at all times, not to mention a wealth of artificial intelligence labour- and thought-saving devices? Real solo, or single pilot responsibility, is of great value in building the independence and priority of thought required if a pilot is to cope with the unexpected, but only if that pilot has experienced enough of it. Compared with the token quasi-supervised solo of the commercial school in general aviation aircraft, ‘enough’ here means a whole lot more solo if this is to be of real, retained value.

This statement only applies if one accepts that the unexpected can still happen in the modern public transport environment. Of course we must accept that statistics (driven by inexorable business interests) show that air transport is safer than ever, but it’s the new nature of the accidents that is of concern to some flying professionals of experience.

Two Airbus cases

I went to a lecture by David Learmount about this modern day problem of the surprise. He told us that Air France were very concerned, shocked indeed, by the Air France total loss of the AF 447 Rio to Paris flight of June 1st, 2009. The airspeed indication went wrong due to the wrong kind of ice. What else failed? Nothing failed as such: and Air France found the question of how such a thing can happen in a modern aircraft difficult to answer. This company had been satisfied that the two copilots at the controls had an appropriate sense of flying priorities when they become qualified for their job — and Air France have a sense of pride in their piloting and training tradition — but what had happened to these individuals’ ability to successfully respond to the unexpected since then? In order to make conversion course pilots feel more at home with new technology one novel approach to the simulator was suggested in Air France. First session: no syllabus, just let them play with the knobs, lights, captions, switches, modes, and all the rest of the computerised paraphernalia, exactly as a child responds to a new toy with buttons and lights, as do many PC owners who find random experiment more convenient than the reading of incomprehensible, if correct, instructions. But real life is not always like the simulator. Despite its reputation as an instrument of torture as well as a toy, the simulator does not have an aircraft’s physically destructive potential.

If something happens in the cruise what are the basics? Maintain cruise attitude and power setting, to the exclusion of all else if need be. With these familiar straight and level basic parameters the chances are that some sort of acceptable cruise flight will continue: altitude and speed indication are best disregarded if confusing. Power and attitude are simple fundamentals. This is dinosaur tradition for turbulent encounters; easy to say, of course, but not so easy to do when one is deluged by a mass of unhelpful, indeed irrelevant indications and warnings, and the pilot is already conditioned by the influence of the modern compliance culture which accompanies fly-by-wire automated safety theory.

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The second Airbus example is Sully Sullenberger’s successful United 1549 ditching in the Hudson River on January 15th 2009, from which everyone survived unscathed, apart from getting a bit cold and wet. His book, now accessibly titled Sully, Miracle on the Hudson, is a masterwork of what makes the ideal airline captain in today’s electronic and computerised environment, and its conflict with the real world of nature. Is this really the real Sully? Could be: I whole-heartedly agree with all he says about the personal qualities, variety of experience, thinking style and sense of flying priorities required to get away with the predicament he faced during a non-standard three minute flight, but the industry has little interest in such refinements. Of course such experience is too expensive for simple airline flying, with all the helpful devices provided - usually.

HIs passengers were lucky, and this situation was very unusual. The chances of an A320 having both engines fail soon after takeoff is a zillion to one against, so they say, but the Balbo of ducks crossing its track did not know that. He tells us that afterwards there was speculation that his gliding experience must have been of help. Absolutely not, he says. ‘The time I spent flying the Phantom in the Air Force was more relevant: the preoccupation with ideal handling, best speeds, rates and radii of turns, manoeuvring parameters, energy management . . .’ One could go on, but this background meant that the immediate change from routine United Airlines procedure to the basics of managing a gliding jet with few options was ingrained, even after 30 years. Decide on the best option, ignore the distractions and do it. There was no reasonable alternative, and it worked.

What sort of pilot is this?

Is this man unique? Not really, and there are many similar professionals who have not had the misfortune to have their range of acquired skills and judgment tested in such an unexpected and public way. His wife defined her husband’s commitment to flying as a way of life. “It’s not just flying that is a part of who he is, it’s the Art of Flying.” Actually this says it all, and we should consider his background. Where do these special qualities come from?

Following the usual fireman, Texas Ranger, engine driver notions he saw an aeroplane at a young age. That did it. He learned to fly a little Aeronca in a field at 16, joined the Air Force, did some gliding while studying and getting militarised at the Air Force Academy then made his way to an operational Phantom pilot’s front seat, where he remained for the rest of the ten years. This is not exactly solo in that you have a helper in the back, but is very much single pilot thinking and responsibility, of considerable variety. Is this type of flying safe? It’s up to you, but we can be assured that the significance of individual responsibility for safety while doing difficult things is of an on-going and immediate nature that cannot be compared with modern civil transport. Having spent years as a leader and mentor, and had arranged and supervised international tactical fighter exercises Sully left the air force and became a second officer flight engineer for two years, studiously learning the 727 systems as an introduction.

Since the West Side splashdown razzamatazz subsided he has become a respected representative of the traditional cool-headed, safety-conscious and adequately experienced aircraft commander of yesteryear, and his carefully considered opinion is sought in various aviation areas. And it might have occurred to some that he has no axes to grind. He is who he is. This is a valuable flight safety qualification. Only today, 17/10/20, our London Times reports that he is not happy about the Boeing 737max reintroduction because the new alternative source of incidence information is not independent enough. And his Boeing simulator experience of the two disaster events produced a different opinion from those who said ‘no problem, any competent pilot should be able to deal with it’. He found the assortment of failure warnings generated to be contradictory and confusing, and far from agreeing, said he was not surprised the crews could not assess what was happening to them in the height and time available. He is no opposer of modern technology, and happily accepts the advantages of airbus fly-by-wire intervention, but, like many contemporaries, feels that reliance on artificial intelligence as fundamental policy is eroding command pilot authority, respect (and pay), replacing these with a culture of passivity and compliance, in fact encouraging powerlessness to replace independent judgment and decision. He appears to be far from alone in this view. Is he wrong?

In the 1980s a Lufthansa training captain and aerobatic friend told me about his problems with the new A300. If you want to change to a visual approach the amount of deselecting and button pressing you have to do makes life unreasonably difficult. 30 years later an ex-navy contact, then an EasyJet training captain, told me of the consternation demonstrated by his copilot when he suggested a visual approach might be a much easier and more efficient way to land in beautiful weather. Sully recounts attending a lecture where the subject was The Role of the Pilot in the Automated Cockpit. Afterwards a psychology professor in the audience, with similar military piloting experience, told him ‘It should have been The Role of Automation in the Piloted Cockpit.’ Nuanced, perhaps, but significant in these changing times.

What is happening to the relationship between the airline pilot and his aeroplane?

Humans are part of a long evolutionary process that includes all creatures of a symmetrical design - a similar right and left side. There are a great many of them, and all have a brain in charge. What have all we symmetrical creatures been doing all these mega million years in order to survive? Dealing with natural phenomena and their daily relevance to our survival, whether by instinct or intellect. The latter is a vaunted human specialisation, but there can be no doubt that we respond to sensory cues as a first instinct if they signal that something critical needs to be done. Mathematics and astronomy are ancient and impressive examples of man’s intellectual curiosity and search for understanding, but the Greek philosopher or Arabian mapper of the heavens will not philosophise or calculate as a first priority when he touches a hot object by mistake or spots a scorpion on the bench or carpet he is about to sit on. Intellectual analysis may follow later, but this takes time and special mental effort.

Despite the present rapid and unprecedented influence of computerised technology on human life, the aircraft is still a device with a close relationship with the physical world. A pilot should remain aware of this. There remain similarities with the much older business of going down to the sea in ships. John Masefield’s ‘star to steer her by, the wheel’s kick, a windy day with the white clouds flying, (the vagrant gypsy life and a merry yarn from a laughing fellow-rover)’ may mean little to a recently-trained airline (only) pilot, but a common feature of recent accidents to serviceable, or almost serviceable fly-by-wire aircraft seems to be emerging. It appears to be confusion in the minds of the crew as to what was actually wrong, what was happening to them, and what action might have been appropriate. Of course captain Sully cut through this confusion, given that the symptoms and cause were reasonably obvious. But he rejected without hesitation the air traffic invitation to make an approach on a choice of runways, or go through the now-popular process of programming the automatics for such an electronically-guided approach and allow the autopilot to fly the stricken glider. He does mention that on the way down he considered the effect of the fly-by-wire angle of attack limiter which would assist him in reaching the water safely at a suitably low speed and high nose up attitude - provided he got that far - and he made use of it accordingly. And it all worked out. Luck? Some, perhaps, but there’s much more to this event than luck. I think we can conclude that he has come to terms with the fly-by-wire intervention between side stick and flying control surfaces, but is he typical, worldwide, in 2020?

Do we need pilots like Sully today (and tomorrow)?

In theory the answer is no. He’s too expensive. To pay for such experience and an ability to cope with the unexpected by reverting to old-fashioned piloting principles as a first priority is out of the question in today’s business climate. A communal change of mind designed to provide more and varied pilot pre-employment experience, independent of the requirements of a fly-by-wire airliner, would be considered unreasonably expensive. It would mean a return to higher fares, fewer flights, more space, less crowded terminals. A nice idea, but if we accept that this is not going to happen, and a post-covid status quo continues the populist struggle for cheaper air travel, eagerly accepted by a trusting public, we must also expect increasing reliance on a culture of comprehensive automatic flight, and direct pilot intervention discouraged as less safe.

Do we need a copilot?

One is reminded of the pilot and dog fly-by-wire crew. The dog bites the man if he touches the flying controls, so do we need two human pilots? Actually yes: one is a standby for the other, and each must be capable of managing the aircraft to a suitable standard. But now we come to the subject of this essay. How much general, non-type-specific training does the copilot need if he’s to manage a modern two-pilot aircraft to the required standard?

Can he/she learn all the necessary functions on a simulator?

Of course the answer is yes. Modern simulators are remarkably realistic of course, virtually the same as the real thing? Many believe so, and the intermediary box of electronic magic between side stick and flying controls conceals those quirky differences between aircraft types. It is true that a basic expectation of copilot progress in due course is that he/she will acquire the skills, knowledge, professional maturity and experience to become captain, but a year or two taking part in the detail of routine flight ought to be enough. Does limited civil training school solo flying make a significant contribution to the integrated, shared and cross-monitored CRM and checklist environment? Not really; and we should not confuse this judgment with other, quite different and genuinely solo demands in different forms of flight. Airlines are a large but special cost-driven industry.

Is this no-solo training a serious proposition?

Of course. As an impecunious passenger do I want to pay more for my flight? Of course not. Do I accept that the current overall accident rate looks statistically low? Certainly; but do I also think that some modern accidents indicate a worrying trend when serviceable aircraft crash because the crew can’t tell what’s going on? Looks like it. As a passenger I’m prepared to feel lucky, but a fully serviceable demise would seem cruelly ironic.

Would more solo training in a small general aviation aircraft help? No. It’s irrelevant if the current, transfer of in-flight authority to a dependency-on-automatics policy washes its benefit away.

Do I have any piloting experience of a fly-by-wire airliner? No. What about the Concorde? Was that not the first airliner with this technology?

No, not as we know it, but the development work on the Concorde flying controls and a parallel (not series), full-time, three-axis auto-stabilisation system gave the future Airbus (A300 and thereafter) concept plenty of impetus. Incidentally, the Concorde auto-stabilising system also provided a range of helpful but not overweening high incidence protection and warnings.

The Concorde pilot or autopilot retained full initiative for all manoeuvring requirements, and this balance of conventional pilot control function — with excellent background modification of natural flying behaviour — worked very well. Whether flying manually or by autopilot the Concorde pilot retained the traditional awareness of basic flying parameters. This awareness of the real world and its potential challenges when in flight seems to be evaporating today, to the extent that the prospect of a simple visual approach and landing — something that the licenced civilian pilot will have performed solo in a light aircraft — has become an unwelcome prospect once a pilot has settled into the fly-by-wire environment and the passivity and dependency it appears to confer.

If this is the case, and there are strong signs that it is, the solo requirement appears to have been wasted in a training regime that is directed at modern airline employment. To abandon it and save time and money makes sense.

If a pilot with such a background wants to fly solo all that’s needed is an add-on solo qualification, similar to today’s tail-dragger rating (or the additional training it represents).

What are we coming to, you may ask. It could be the future.

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A final sideways look

It seems possible that the virus plagues that beset us are occurring at ever-shorter intervals, and their worldwide effects greater. The days of cheap mass travel by air may be over for a very long time, though one should never say forever, in which case this essay may be considered nonsense, and the reader invited to relish the good times of the golden era of flight, whenever that was.