Manual Flight or Manual Fight?

I can't help to notice so many poor flying techniques on these landing videos nowadays. I try to repost only the good ones, so to spread the good practices, but it is heartbreaking to see so many colleagues lacking basic training advice.

Of course, my pet peeve is PIO: it is very sad to see so many cases of Pilot Induced Oscillations in the airlines. Keep in mind that when I say many, we are talking about a very small percentage, but since we are several hundred thousands of airline pilots worldwide, even a small portion translate itself into significant figures.

I have talked extensively about PIO in other articles easy to find with Google and on my last book available in Amazon, so I will refrain to repeat myself here. But, long story short, it is once more something driven by poor training and low enforcement, by instructors and examiners, of the correct technique on the trainees. Most of the cases I get to see is among captains, but of course this impression may be biased: in many airlines, specially out of North America, captains tend to fly into worse weather more than first officers, often by airline policy or culture, and the wind and turbulence easily hide the PIO sin. The pilot is fighting himself and the airplane and think it is the weather, on a clear misunderstanding of inertia, flight control logics and aerodynamic. Obviously there must be many first officers doing PIO too, but I do hope they get enlighten by their captains - as I once was in the beginning of my career during a sporty approach to my home airport. PIO is not just embarrassing and uncomfortable: bulletins of all manufacturers address the issue of overloading the control surfaces with opposite commands. It is a matter that, in my opinion, has been taken lightly by pretty much every training department, and specially in fly by wire airplanes, is even more innerving to see so many cases still.

Another unreal case has been the nose high roll out/aerodynamic brake technique. Several publications are very clear about the ineffectiveness of such maneuver and the risks of actually damaging the nose gear for lack of elevator authority toward the end as the speed decreases. It might look plastic and challenging for an outsider, but not only it is very easy to the average pilot to accomplish such a maneuver, but it is also reckless. So, why? Well, we know why. As I have said before, someone who can't control his/her own ego shouldn't be in the control of an aircraft.

When it comes to take offs, it is incredible how many cases of steep take off we get to see, specially in the corporate world. The lack of accountability, with an irresistible sense of invulnerability is the key for a maneuver that resulted in loss of control so many times. If not done by a properly trained and capable crew - a.k.a. manufacture test pilots in an air show - it is a silly and childish risk. I will not even get into the barrel rolls we've seen in transport jets too. They can do it? Hell ya! I've done it in the sim with a Boeing 777-300ER, and it was beautiful to see. But in real life they must not be attempted. Period.

Back to the landings just before we finish: the low angle approaches. It is very well known and described in every aircraft manual how low angle approaches do not reduce the ground roll: actually, they tend to increase it. So, getting closer to the ground - to be safe or show off at SXM - is a bad choice per se, with no good coming out of it. A correct angle followed all the way to touchdown with a lesser flare is way more desirable.

Speaking of desirable, we all love smooth touchdowns. I am very proud of my record - according to the 787's sensors, a 34ft/min touchdown in MAN many years ago - but as Boeing manual says, they are not the criterion for a safe one. You can try, as long as it does not compromise the whole landing. You may see a smooth touchdown as the whole landing mindset, actually: you are aiming on a go around. In case you avoided it, you land. You aim for a fairly firm touchdown, unless you make it soft. But you do not bet on it. My personal technique, learned from an instructor on the first 737 type rating I had, consists in braking the flare and giving it back - in other words, placing the main gear on the runway myself instead of letting it touch. That way, I accomplish to make it smooth often, but precisely always. And smoothness may be desirable, but precision is essential.

Now, why did I bring these subjects today? Well, I just came across a video of an ERJ135 landing here in LinkedIn where the captain, after a PIO prone approach into what looked as good weather and calm winds conditions, simply releases the throttles and hold the yoke with the two hands during the flare! Yes, you heard it right. It is not the first time I see it, but it is the first time I write about it. What if you need to go around? What if you need to correct your energy state at the flare? What if there is any malfunction or misplacement of the throttle levers? I mean... this is so wrong in so many ways!

We've seen pilots keeping their hands off the throttle/thrust levers many times before, in rather inappropriate moments: after pressing TOGA is a common one, and the Boeing 777 that crashed back at the runway during a reject landing in Dubai is a classic and very didactic example. But during the flare? Really? Who teaches these things? Who allow these practices to keep being used by - fortunately few - pilots? Why do they think it is a good thing to do? Would you take your two feet off the gas and break in your car approaching a red light?

The controls must be guarded at low altitudes and dynamic moments of the flight. You must trust the automation, but never ever let complacency take over. Some European engineers and regulators might think automation is ready to fly for us; you, as a pilot, thousands of hours in the making as a professional and after spending years operating, interacting and monitoring this machines and its proclivities, should know better.