An Army aviator's final words - they may apply to airline technology and practices

Air Safety Week, April 10, 2000

A senior U.S. Army warrant officer made his final flight last February, proudly completing 4,500 mishap-free hours

before retirement. He offered a few parting thoughts on the state of Army aviation, pointedly suggesting that putting more technology into Army helicopters has contributed to the "deskilling" of pilots. Highlights of his remarks follow:

On computer simulations: "We have developed a dangerous infatuation with simulations. Flight simulations are great for many things: practicing emergency tasks, instrument flight training, and mission rehearsal. They should not be used as a substitute for flying the aircraft but as an augmentation to the training program. Flight simulators are great training tools, but their usefulness should be kept in perspective."

On advanced aircraft: "When all we had were simple single-engine aircraft, we were all better aviators. Sure, this statement may be the result of a 'Wooden ships and iron men' attitude on my part, but I honestly feel that we took our craft more seriously back then. Today we count on the fire control computer and the navigation systems to do the tasks we used to perform on our knowledge of ballistics and navigation. I would be willing to put almost any mid-80's Cobra pilot up against almost any of today's Apache pilots. There are whole areas of aviation knowledge that are gone forever..."

We dare say these comments will strike many as highly pertinent to the airline industry. Indeed, we can offer a specific example. At the National Transportation Safety Board's (NTSB) hearings last January into the crash of American Airlines [AMR] Flight 1420, the company's vice chairman, Robert Baker, said of the top ten safety items identified in some 20,000 pilot reports filed over the last five years, "automation dependency" ranked number three. That was behind "rushing to comply" (No. 1), and ahead of "situational awareness" (No. 4). Mr. Baker did not identify the No. 2 problem, but his mention of "automation dependency" may very well underscore this Army warrant officer's remarks and concerns about what may be called "airmanship atrophy." For more on Mr. Baker's remarks about American Airlines Safety Action Program (AASAP), see p. 32 of the NTSB transcript of his testimony at this website: http://www.ntsb.gov/events/2000/trans_0127.txt.>

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