Poberezny on perpetual pursuit
Paul founded the Experimental Aircraft Association, and clearly he knew about the perpetual pursuit of piloting perfection!
safety
Airmanship in action
Your first choice isn’t always right. So keep turning! Plot from AA flight ORD to DCA. Looks like they ended up on the upwind side of the storm, almost always a better place to be, even if it is a longer track.
Automation and the FAA/NTSB
I’m going to let the dust settle before addressing this issue fully. But right now the Washington Post has a great article on the FAA/NTSB automation debate. And the full FAA IG report is online here. “We’ve recommended that pilots have more opportunity to practice manually flying the aircraft.” Robert L. Sumwalt, who spent 32 years as an airline pilot before joining the NTSB in 2006.
A340 engine shutdown video
YouTube has a great 15-minute video of an Airbus A340 crew running ECAMs and checklists that results in shutting down an engine in flight. For real. It’s been viewed a bunch of times, but I hadn’t seen it till today, so maybe you haven’t either. It’s an interesting, thought provoking experience. The Swiss airline crew were being filmed by PilotsEye.tv for a high-quality video production of their Zurich to Shanghai flight. But during climb out the number three engine oil temperature starts to gently rise. It’s not TOPGUN, but rather a rare invitation for an intimate look at how professional … Continue reading A340 engine shutdown video
Perfection, zero error, flawless performance
Zero errors is an impossible goal. What we should work on is catching our errors early. This is from a book on High Reliability Organizations (HROs): It’s an excellent book, a classic. The latest (2015) edition is on Amazon