Actually they must use the worst pilots. If they use average pilots that means 50% of the pilots might be out of their depth flying that plane. What kind of insanity is this?
Plane Tests Must Use Average Pilots, NTSB Says After 737 Max Crashes
81–90 of 317 posts
Re: Plane Tests Must Use Average Pilots, NTSB Says After 737 Max Crashes
#82Earlier quoted context omitted.
You can train a skill and improve on it. You can't train your head shape or arm length nearly as much. The brain is more malleable than some of the other body parts.
I'm not sure what you're suggesting then - we should train all pilots to be uniformly brilliant at everything so there's no variation and we can use any pilot to test, before we test any more aircraft?
No, it would be about making things safe/usable for the merely competent and not relying on "brilliance".
Re: Plane Tests Must Use Average Pilots, NTSB Says After 737 Max Crashes
#83As a developer I never find any bugs when I test my programs
Whenever I find a bug, it ceases to be a bug within an hour. Therefore, most of the time, my code "has no bugs".
Re: Plane Tests Must Use Average Pilots, NTSB Says After 737 Max Crashes
#84This seems like a good thing, they should be testing with people who don’t know the answers. Though I can’t help but wonder if this is a very subtle re-framing of the Max accidents to shift blame back towards pilots. This approach of a regulatory agency recommending “average pilot” testing makes both the agency and Boeing look good, and tends to downplay the fact that Boeing intentionally avoided training the pilots,…
>Though I can’t help but wonder if this is a very subtle re-framing of the Max accidents to shift blame back towards pilots.
Blame is a loaded word. Boeing assumed that pilots could be relied upon to recover from a MCAS induced runaway trim. Practice has shown that they can't. Whether Boeing or the pilots is at fault is, from a safety perspective, irrelevant. The bottom line is that an assumption was made, it was wrong, and a couple planes crashed. Using average pilots instead of highly experienced test pilots is a sensible step to prevent a repeat.
Re: Plane Tests Must Use Average Pilots, NTSB Says After 737 Max Crashes
#85As a developer I never find any bugs when I test my programs
Yeah, my immediate reaction to this article was that it sounded similar to the well known fact in web programming, that you need to have user tests by people who have never used the website before, otherwise you won't be able to find out which parts of the UI are confusing.
Re: Plane Tests Must Use Average Pilots, NTSB Says After 737 Max Crashes
#86Uh oh. What are they going to do when they discover that there aren't any average pilots? https://www.thestar.com/news/insight/2016/01/16/when-us-air-... (HN discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11230287 ) https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2016/02/the-inv... (HN discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11155889 )
I imagine they could use total flight hours and total 737 flight hours...or some other metric that roughly correlates to experience and skills.
Sport pilot here: total flight hours on an airliner is an almost useless metric, the difference between 2000 hours and 5000 hours is negligible. I know pilots with over 10,000 hours that died in stupid accidents, I know instructors that never performed maneuvers that are almost routine to other pilots that don't even have 500 hours. I know dozens of pilots and there is no average one, some are very good and some are barely flying, with no middle ground. It is an area where you are either good or pretty bad.
Re: Plane Tests Must Use Average Pilots, NTSB Says After 737 Max Crashes
#87Earlier quoted context omitted.
I'm not sure what you're suggesting then - we should train all pilots to be uniformly brilliant at everything so there's no variation and we can use any pilot to test, before we test any more aircraft?
No, it would be about making things safe/usable for the merely competent and not relying on "brilliance".
Right, but my point is there may not actually be any pilots who are merely competent at all skills. The distribution of skills may be more complex than that. You may be making things safe for someone who does not exist, which is pointless, and you'd be better off making things safe for something other than a simple mean average.
Re: Plane Tests Must Use Average Pilots, NTSB Says After 737 Max Crashes
#88Actually they must use the worst pilots. If they use average pilots that means 50% of the pilots might be out of their depth flying that plane. What kind of insanity is this?
Imagine the job postings for such positions ...
Re: Plane Tests Must Use Average Pilots, NTSB Says After 737 Max Crashes
#89Actually they must use the worst pilots. If they use average pilots that means 50% of the pilots might be out of their depth flying that plane. What kind of insanity is this?
While I don't disagree, at least moving from test pilots to average pilots would be a big improvement. And, in practice, might mean that you have to simplify and streamline the UI just as much as for the minimum viable pilots. But, even if not, at least average would be way better than test pilots only.
Re: Plane Tests Must Use Average Pilots, NTSB Says After 737 Max Crashes
#90This seems like a good thing, they should be testing with people who don’t know the answers. Though I can’t help but wonder if this is a very subtle re-framing of the Max accidents to shift blame back towards pilots. This approach of a regulatory agency recommending “average pilot” testing makes both the agency and Boeing look good, and tends to downplay the fact that Boeing intentionally avoided training the pilots,…
What is average? Is the average of one countries pilots the same as another's - maybe, maybe not.
Whilst I tend to agree, this does seem a bit of a blame-shift/deflection, it does raise the area of pilot plane certification. Maybe, that is the area that needs to be addressed so pilots are more knowledgeable about the plane they are flying at a level beyond what is allowed now.
However this plays out, I'd say those who certify planes for use by pilots also need to do so on the basis of the "average" pilot and perhaps need to raise their standards more than pilots do.
I would of assumed that had plane had difficulty - that they had a hotline to somebody who was very knowledgeable beyond forcing pilots in a panic situation to RTFM. Which is kinda what the situation is now.