I've got to bid for Sept, anyone know if it's going to be in Sept. or Oct. this year?

I looked at the NOR's posed over there on the left side of this opening page, but it's not listed yet.

Thanks in advance.

Tim

How long you been sailing in Florida regatta's?


Southeast Regatta Schedule

Yeah what Terry said! But in all fairness he only does one regatta a year so...

All the details are coming out shortly. We are looking at doing something extra and it's talking longer than expected to work its way through the committee, which is kinda SOP. Bottom line is we will have food, beer and onsite camping the same as before. Lou is our PRO and the club volunteers will be working mark boats. It's all but a done deal.

So Tim, mark your calendar and let the Indoneisan kid with the xbox controler fly the plane for a weekend. See, there is an upside to outsoursing. Speaking of flying commercial, how hard is it to remember to TURN ON the auto pilot a before landing... For f@#K sake where are they getting these guys?

I'm still not sure full-auto landings are the shiz-nit they say they are. Especially when conditions aren't quite right, but I'll defer to Timbo and his vast bus-driving experience for knowledgeable comment....

Remember, it's those x-box kids that program the autopilot... And since you can always hit the "restart" button in x-box when it goes sideways, I think they may be a little short when it comes to vetting all outcomes.

I guess a simple "October 4-6" is too much effort....?

And Ding, it was two Indoneisan kids who played X box instead of learning how to hand fly an airplane, then they couldn't hand fly a visual approach in the daylight to SFO that crashed, not me.

A clear sunny day seemed to trip up the pilots of Asiana 214 so I'm okay with auto land.

Come on Tim you should know why you're getting your balls broken. You're not a newbie and people (Terry and others) have made the effort to make the information your looking for easily available. So when you make no effort to access the information then get uppity when we tease you about it you send a message that your time is more valuable than ours and that's just not going to fly in a room full of a$$holes.

There is a log in requirement now. Nor do I see any of the SSS people on the list.

good point. glad I don't have to fly anymore... It's bad enough I have to share the road with idiots...

The instrument landing system necessary for auto landing is out of commission in SFO on runway 28L, due to construction, so the Asiana pilots had to make a manual landing, something they rarely do. That is why thy crashed. I'm on the road at the moment, typing this on my phone, I'll give more details when I get home. I'll be making a manual landing at LAX tomorrow, about 2pm local time. Be sure to watch CNN, I'll wave to you Ding!

Don't let Ding's ball busting distract you too much while you are on that approach. In fact, please don't think of him at all. ;-)

Oh don't worry, I'll be thinking of him, every time I fart (this one's for you Ding) or scratch my nutz (a little to the right Ding).

;^)

Ding, it would be one thing if you knew what the fark you were talking about when it comes to flying big airplanes, but since you don't, here's more info on that accident. BTW, 99% of landings made by pilots trained in the USA are hand flown, not auto land. The report below is from a retired United Captain who then went to Korea to instruct their pilots. Sorry for the length, but as he points out, they don't really do "no-autopilot" stuff much at all. Oh, and BTW, I made it into both LAX and ATL, hand flown, no autopilot, and managed to bring the plane all the way to the gate, unscratched, and no CNN crew met me.

From the UAL pilot: "After I retired from UAL as a Standards Captain on the –400, I got a job as a simulator instructor working for Alteon (a Boeing subsidiary) at Asiana. When I first got there, I was shocked and surprised by the lack of basic piloting skills shown by most of the pilots. It is not a normal situation with normal progression from new hire, right seat, left seat taking a decade or two. One big difference is that ex-Military pilots are given super-seniority and progress to the left seat much faster. Compared to the US, they also upgrade fairly rapidly because of the phenomenal growth by all Asian air carriers. By the way, after about six months at Asiana, I was moved over to KAL and found them to be identical. The only difference was the color of the uniforms and airplanes. I worked in Korea for 5 long years and although I found most of the people to be very pleasant, it’s a minefield of a work environment ... for them and for us expats.

One of the first things I learned was that the pilots kept a web-site and reported on every training session. I don’t think this was officially sanctioned by the company, but after one or two simulator periods, a database was building on me (and everyone else) that told them exactly how I ran the sessions, what to expect on checks, and what to look out for. For example; I used to open an aft cargo door at 100 knots to get them to initiate an RTO and I would brief them on it during the briefing. This was on the B-737 NG and many of the captains were coming off the 777 or B744 and they were used to the Master Caution System being inhibited at 80 kts. Well, for the first few days after I started that, EVERYONE rejected the takeoff. Then, all of a sudden they all “got it” and continued the takeoff (in accordance with their manuals). The word had gotten out. I figured it was an overall PLUS for the training program.

We expat instructors were forced upon them after the amount of fatal accidents (most of the them totally avoidable) over a decade began to be noticed by the outside world. They were basically given an ultimatum by the FAA, Transport Canada, and the EU to totally rebuild and rethink their training program or face being banned from the skies all over the world. They hired Boeing and Airbus to staff the training centers. KAL has one center and Asiana has another. When I was there (2003-2008) we had about 60 expats conducting training KAL and about 40 at Asiana. Most instructors were from the USA, Canada, Australia, or New Zealand with a few stuffed in from Europe and Asia. Boeing also operated training centers in Singapore and China so they did hire some instructors from there.

This solution has only been partially successful but still faces ingrained resistance from the Koreans. I lost track of the number of highly qualified instructors I worked with who were fired because they tried to enforce “normal” standards of performance. By normal standards, I would include being able to master basic tasks like successfully shoot a visual approach with 10 kt crosswind and the weather CAVOK. I am not kidding when I tell you that requiring them to shoot a visual approach struck fear in their hearts ... with good reason. Like this Asiana crew, it didnt’ compute that you needed to be a 1000’ AGL at 3 miles and your sink rate should be 600-800 Ft/Min. But, after 5 years, they finally nailed me. I still had to sign my name to their training and sometimes if I just couldn’t pass someone on a check, I had no choice but to fail them. I usually busted about 3-5 crews a year and the resistance against me built. I finally failed an extremely incompetent crew and it turned out he was the a high-ranking captain who was the Chief Line Check pilot on the fleet I was teaching on. I found out on my next monthly trip home that KAL was not going to renew my Visa. The crew I failed was given another check and continued a fly while talking about how unfair Captain Brown was.

Any of you Boeing glass-**** guys will know what I mean when I describe these events. I gave them a VOR approach with an 15 mile arc from the IAF. By the way, KAL dictated the profiles for all sessions and we just administered them. He requested two turns in holding at the IAF to get set up for the approach. When he finally got his nerve up, he requested “Radar Vectors” to final. He could have just said he was ready for the approach and I would have cleared him to the IAF and then “Cleared for the approach” and he could have selected “Exit Hold” and been on his way. He was already in LNAV/VNAV PATH. So, I gave him vectors to final with a 30 degree intercept. Of course, he failed to “Extend the FAF” and he couldn’t understand why it would not intercept the LNAV magenta line when he punched LNAV and VNAV. He made three approaches and missed approaches before he figured out that his active waypoint was “Hold at XYZ.” Every time he punched LNAV, it would try to go back to the IAF ... just like it was supposed to do. Since it was a check, I was not allowed (by their own rules) to offer him any help. That was just one of about half dozen major errors I documented in his UNSAT paperwork. He also failed to put in ANY aileron on takeoff with a 30-knot direct crosswind (again, the weather was dictated by KAL).

This Asiana SFO accident makes me sick and while I am surprised there are not more, I expect that there will be many more of the same type accidents in the future unless some drastic steps are taken. They are already required to hire a certain percentage of expats to try to ingrain more flying expertise in them, but more likely, they will eventually be fired too. One of the best trainees I ever had was a Korean/American (he grew up and went to school in the USA) who flew C-141’s in the USAF. When he got out, he moved back to Korea and got hired by KAL. I met him when I gave him some training and a check on the B-737 and of course, he breezed through the training. I give him annual PCs for a few years and he was always a good pilot. Then, he got involved with trying to start a pilots union and when they tired to enforce some sort of duty rigs on international flights, he was fired after being arrested and JAILED!

The Koreans are very very bright and smart so I was puzzled by their inability to fly an airplane well. They would show up on Day 1 of training (an hour before the scheduled briefing time, in a 3-piece suit, and shined shoes) with the entire contents of the FCOM and Flight Manual totally memorized. But, putting that information to actual use was many times impossible. Crosswind landings are also an unsolvable puzzle for most of them. I never did figure it out completely, but I think I did uncover a few clues. Here is my best guess. First off, their educational system emphasizes ROTE memorization from the first day of school as little kids. As you know, that is the lowest form of learning and they act like robots. They are also taught to NEVER challenge authority and in spite of the flight training heavily emphasizing CRM/CLR, it still exists either on the surface or very subtly. You just can’t change 3000 years of culture.

The other thing that I think plays an important role is the fact that there is virtually NO civil aircraft flying in Korea. It’s actually illegal to own a Cessna-152 and just go learn to fly. Ultra-lights and Powered Hang Gliders are Ok. I guess they don’t trust the people to not start WW III by flying 35 miles north of Inchon into North Korea. But, they don’t get the kids who grew up flying (and thinking for themselves) and hanging around airports. They do recruit some kids from college and send then to the US or Australia and get them their tickets. Generally, I had better experience with them than with the ex-Military pilots. This was a surprise to me as I spent years as a Naval Aviator flying fighters after getting my private in light airplanes. I would get experienced F-4, F-5, F-15, and F-16 pilots who were actually terrible pilots if they had to hand fly the airplane. What a shock!

Finally, I’ll get off my box and talk about the total flight hours they claim. I do accept that there are a few talented and free-thinking pilots that I met and trained in Korea. Some are still in contact and I consider them friends. They were a joy! But, they were few and far between and certainly not the norm.

Actually, this is a worldwide problem involving automation and the auto-flight concept. Take one of these new first officers that got his ratings in the US or Australia and came to KAL or Asiana with 225 flight hours. After takeoff, in accordance with their SOP, he calls for the autopilot to be engaged at 250’ after takeoff. How much actual flight time is that? Hardly one minute. Then he might fly for hours on the autopilot and finally disengage it (MAYBE?) below 800’ after the gear was down, flaps extended and on airspeed (autothrottle) . Then he might bring it in to land. Again, how much real “flight time” or real experience did he get. Minutes! Of course, on the 777 or 747, it’s the same only they get more inflated logbooks.

So, when I hear that a 10,000 hour Korean captain was vectored in for a 17-mile final and cleared for a visual approach in CAVOK weather, it raises the hair on the back of my neck."

Now, more from Timbo:

I had a very good pilot friend who retired from Delta in 2004, who went to fly 777 Captain for Korean Air Lines. He only lasted 18 months then quit, mostly because he was afraid he would die, flying with those guys. He confirmed everything this UAL Captain said re. Korean flying skills. He said if the autopilot ever came off in flight, it was considered an Emergency Procedure!! He said they use Auto-land on EVERY LANDING!! Which is fine until the ground based system required for auto-landing is inop, as it was in SFO that day, and then you actually have to FLY THE AIRPLANE by hand!!

Can' be ANY harder than finishing the first level of Mario Brothers ...

"I was shocked and surprised by the lack of basic piloting skills shown by most of the pilots"

Ask any old-timer and they wouldn't be "shocked" as your training guy said. They remember the skills of those "asian" pilots well...

But they only taught them how to take off and fly into a target, like the USS Iowa at Pearl Harbor, not how to return to base and land on a runway.

Except when you fkup in a 777, the results are on CNN...

Here is an excellent training video made by American Airlines for it's pilots, re. "Automation Dependency". This was made back in 1997, not long after an American 757 flew into a mountain top in South America, because the pilots were too dependent on the automation, just like the Koreans are today.

There is some technical jargon of course, but I think most of you guys are smart enough to understand what he's saying. It is titled, "Children of the Magenta" because the map line that we see on our display is magenta in color. When you get locked on to the magenta line, you are missing a lot of other clues out the window:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h3kREPMzMLk


The two technical terms he uses most are:

FMC = Flight Management Computer. There are two, one for each pilot, normally, one pilot will type the routing into the FMC while the other watches, double checks his work, and checks to see that the airplane is doing what it's supposed to do.

STAR = Standard Terminal Arrival Route, there are several STARS into every major airport, but Air Traffic Control (he uses ATC in the video) will often change you from one to the other, depending on the amount of inbound trafic.


The point he's making when he talks about both pilot going "Heads Down" (typing a new STAR into the FMC) in the arrival/approach phase of flight, when they should be looking outside (on a clear day) for the airport, traffic, runway, etc. is that they need to REDUCE the amount of automation at that point. The Asians don't know how to reduce the automation and revert back to manual flying, because they have never been trained on how to manually fly.

Exactly...

hmmm...kind of like sailing, no? Although the command given me to "get my head out of the boat" was not worded that politely.
Specifically the "of the boat" was changed to "my A**"