Manuals

Airline Pilot Technical TheoryAircraft Accidents
Written By Adam Howey

Transcripts are approximate. Email us if you have any questions.

00:00

Verbal Reasoning

Adam Sam. Manuals. Yeah, when did you last have a reading lesson? I was going to ask you. Whether you remember doing those verbal reasoning exercises, Obviously, and selection for airline, I don't know about you. But I kind of always wondered like what are these for it because And now you need maths to be a pilot and maybe, need physics and a bit of science.

00:22

But Why you need to be able to read a passage, that's really confusing and say if statements are true or false or cannot say and I never really understood it Until I, Start flying and reading manuals. It's this passage is this statement. Patently true. Yeah. Patiently untrue or cannot say yeah.

00:41

Well everybody knows because I'm a pilot that I'm really good at maths. why you laughing. Yeah. Okay. Yeah, I'm not so good at maths or physics. Really? No But I'm any good at verbal comprehension. I feel that That you would definitely better at verbal comprehension and I was used to carry me through verbal comprehension sort of practise.

01:04

That was selection test. Yeah. When we were prepping for selection, might my, my verbal reasoning was my weakest and it was the same through school at English language was was one of my weakest. Subjects, I struggled with it. And yeah, I couldn't really understand why it formed part of selection, but now I do, Well as I've got old, I think I've become more and more interested in other careers.

01:26

And and what they really mean when you're Like 16 or earlier. And yeah you think to be a pilot they must be really good at maths and physics. And you're understanding of what is involved in a career is made up of laser cliches. I don't think the career services that was available to me at the time.

01:44

Really helped me understand what a job really involved. For example. My understanding of a solicitor or a lawyer. Is that the main skill is the The use the ability to wield the English language. Yeah, they're advantage. Definitely. And that's kind of playing into what What we're going to talk about here, I think Yeah I think a lot of like law is is yeah, it's essentially just you're interpretation of The law and that's what solicitors and lawyers.

02:16

Argue over is what the meaning of that law is like, how that's written? How can that be interpreted? Is basically law, isn't it? But to how's that relevant to our topic. So it's relevant to our topic because these aircraft manuals, which will maybe go on to details and there is a lot of interpretation required and Will probably use this phrase a few times, but there's black and this white and there's grey.

02:40

Okay, so the manuals are written black and white. And something's a really clear in the manuals. You must not and it is forbidden or it's not authorised. Really clear but some stuff Can be a bit more grey, a bit more ambiguous and open to interpretation. You can use that to your advantage.

02:58

I'm or you can you can use that to help you. But, the important thing is is aircraft manuals are Big long. Lots of words and open to interpretation. So, I now understand why the verbal reasoning exercises were. Were part of selection. I, Don't have any physical aircraft manuals. No, when we started flying.

03:27

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Paper and Digital Manuals

Yeah, we were issued with Paper manuals. Yeah. So i remember like going to get mine in my first airline, it was like a whole day to go and collect your manuals drive, to the airport, and only had a small car at the time, but it was a good job.

03:41

I didn't have any passengers with me because it pretty much filled the whole back seats. It was a really effective, but up and down twice, I think it's like two boxes, massive boxes, full of. So, if that manuals issue to a pilot stacked on the floor, how high reckon Us like probably, like up to your waist at least.

03:59

Yeah, maybe more makes. You look really clever when they yeah, sat in your bedroom. Yeah. Of these with all these massive flight manuals. I used to get the updates, send in the post to meet you. So each little page is whole punched, and yeah, there's, I don't know what there, be like, 10 ring, binders, or yeah, yeah.

04:20

Provides to 10, ring binders. And then maybe more than five And then you were supposed to take each page that had any revision on. It could just be Could even just be like a ref like a, like a very small or something. Yeah. Yeah, the find that page. Rip it out.

04:37

Rip out the whole one. Put the new on him. Yeah. Which gave you? A. I have like flawless understanding almost of what had changed. Yeah. Because he had to physically . You had to physically insert it and the changes. Yeah, I agree. So if you got any manuals anymore, so no, it's all done on on.

04:55

Well, ipad or Android or you know whatever kind of tablet on a tablet basically. And yes, i don't have any manuals and you're absolutely right. It's hard to keep track of updates because you just tap a button now. And within 30 seconds or you manuals are updated and although it tells you, what the changes are you have to actually Actively interrogate.

05:17

You know, to make sure you understand the changes. So it's definitely harder, Perhaps, where we are now is like, It caught between. The the past where we had paper manuals and some point in the future, I can imagine Where, The information. Produce for pilots. Is. Is in its most usable dynamic.

05:43

Possible. And form. And why somewhere in the middle where we've got like digital versions of paper manuals. But they started to introduce like you've got your search functions you can annotate. You can Organise them as you like you can have multiple tabs open. Yeah. But In a sense that well, they are still digital versions of paper documents.

06:06

Yeah. Yeah. But a time may come, where the information that a pilot needs available to them, which is the manuals we're talking about, It might be organised completely differently. Yeah. Because it's Because, And the The options available digitally. Are like vast. Yeah, but having them organised in like, a sort of pseudo paper.

06:30

Like a fake paper document. Yeah or digital paper document doesn't necessarily suit the information. No yeah yeah. So I feel like we're sort of in the middle of Of that process. Obviously, the aircraft. We fly. You and I sorry and and say probably fifth more than 50% of the world's fleet was it.

06:50

They were all designed and built before. Anybody really foresaw. Tablets. Or Airbus have been committed to less paper cockpit since the 1990s. Yeah. So now we've kind of retro fitted tablets to most aircraft or airlines of retrofitted. EFB electronic flight bags by sticking. Laptops or iPads. Yeah literally like a sticking a game boy to the side of the flight there.

07:16

Yeah. To kind of try and integrate. And I'd actually like to talk about. The mix of this unregulated to to degree less regulated device. Yeah. It's stuck in such a regulated environment where all the other software we use and all the other buttons we press in the flight deck are so prescribed and well thought out and slow to iterate in.

07:40

Yet, you're sticking your iPad in which 10 minutes ago, you might have been Watching. Hey Duggeeon with your kids at breakfast then you open it up in the flight deck and it's still there. Yeah, it's like a it's like It's a crash in of like the future. Yeah and the wild west of technology right into the flight deck which should be the most stale sterile like objective focused environment like we used to bring a newspaper into the flight deck and that was the most foreign object in there.

08:08

Yeah. And now you potentially have Singing and dancing internet with Netflix. Yeah, right, right beside the side stick. Yeah, So that's something that's interesting to me. I'm on that topic. Why? One of the I always, you know, when we've issued with our tablets, I always thought like that'sn't you know, surely like it's just cheaper to keep paper manuals like like issue.

08:33

However, many hundreds or thousands, depends on the size of your airline that many iPads or tablets that must That must be a huge cost but then I because I like maths, I worked out Say I figured it out that based on about 20 kilogrammes of manuals. On an aeroplane, it would cost 800 grams of fuel per hour to carry those manuals.

08:54

So what account?. Yes, it basically, I went out that and an aircraft would have to fly for 200 days. To pay without manuals to pay for two iPads. For like the Captain And so basically. So it doesn't take long basically to cover the cost That's just the way of them.

09:11

That's just again, the processing and you had your, do you got their cost of print in the manuals in and keeping them updated at home? But the manuals has to be a copy of those manuals on board, the aircraft. Yeah. And When you park the aircraft up at night, if you're on the late flight.

09:27

Yeah. It's usually a guy with a van, you pulls up, and he used to be a guy, the van, he still comes up. Maybe with. We have a couple of manual sets still paper on the flight date but you used to come up and his job was to refill all the manual do that.

09:42

Same job that you do at home with the updates. Yeah and they're like a third party service usually. And now that third party service is some geek who who controls their dissemination of all these updates and stuff just via push of a button. Yeah. So it's obviously I mean it's yeah massive saving although Hard to like justify like buying hundreds of iPads, but easy cell to the pilot, so, isn't it?

10:04

Yeah, yeah. Here's an iPad versus like here's something you don't want to carry around in your bag like, yeah, definitely. Everybody's like, yeah, sure. Give it me. Yeah. Say. Do you want to talk about manual structure or more? Just I think. Very brief. Well, in your stride lighter talked to you as a trainer right now and ask you How much training of a new pilot.

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How to Use

10:31

And is geared towards the The use of the manual, the way to read it, the understanding of how it's organised. Um, very little really i suppose, I mean, certainly not very much when actively Training like a type rating but I imagine in ground school is obviously going to be one of the topics covered in ground school.

10:51

But during your conversion course, or your training, I guess reference might be made to FCOMs. Pilot operating handbooks training, manuals, that sort of thing point people in the direction of what about best practise. In what sense? Well, If you look at from a CRM point of view, Yeah, and the SHEL model which is taught to understand the environment you're in, you've got your software hardware environment, liveware, And software actually is the manuals and the procedures.

11:26

And Not necessarily the physical manuals. But, any written documentation that you might interact with The hardware would be the Include the software in the FMS. When we talk about software in the SHELL model, that's a whole part of that model because the the manuals, the operating procedures, makeup such a big influence.

11:47

However, If they're a system in their own right? Yeah. How much training do we have on? Oh yeah. I use of them. Yeah. And how they're designed and their flaws and their good things that are very little really like very little in my opinion it's more you might Come up with a situation in training where you need to refer to?

12:08

Yeah, a manual. But so just you know by default you end up talking about manuals but I think there's no. I wonder how often a pilot is interrogated like in the in-training or examination as to how they actually understand the information that they're using and and where they got it from, yeah, often now.

12:26

A pilot will Google inverted commas. Use the search function in the digital manuals to find the keywords and find information. Yeah. Some maybe like quite rigorous about the hierarchy of that information. Like where it which manual it sits in? Yeah. In what context? Others might just read the sentence.

12:46

Yeah. And then go I can use that sentence to prove or disprove what the information I need. Yeah that's it's just interesting to me if If we do need or don't need training on the use of the manual. So your question was, do we talk about how they're organised in my opinion?

13:05

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What is Included

The organisation of the manuals is really important to understand. So we've been using the word manuals but you just said FCOM flight crew operating manual. Yeah some places in the world might refer to is the flight manual or the aircraft flight manual or just a pilots manual. Yeah. But we're talking about information.

13:25

That is specifically given to the pilots. Yes, in manual. Format. Yep. And these manuals have to serve you. When you're training. From being a new pilot when you're doing a type conversion, when you're on the line, they have to serve training captains. You know examination, pilots everybody uses the same document So that document Has to be written with the with the user in mind and the use cases in mind.

13:52

Yes. So it's really interesting to me how it's written what information is included to the pilot and what isn't because if you're in a learning, Process. So you'll learn to be a pilot that is somewhat of a linear process like as you learn bit by bit, but we use these manuals.

14:10

It in addition to like, when we're learning to fly the aircraft, we use them right in the middle of the line operation. Yep. So it might be that I need to look up how to fly a non-precision approach. So the way that it's written and the system of information that's presented to me there, It's like being carefully thought out.

14:26

It's like what does this pilot need to know right now. Yes and what don't they need to know and how do they need to know it? And and then you go through your whole career. So sort of Understanding the aircraft and the procedures that you fly through the lens of.

14:43

Somebody who's decided what what you need to know and what you don't need to know. That's very true. I mean, On a normal flight. I mean, how many times would you look at your manuals? Probably At least. 10. 20, maybe. Yeah. We use them all the time. Basically. Yeah, we do.

15:03

I mean, you've got pilots who He won to know, want you to know. That they know more than you about something and they'll have information. That's not in any of their manuals. Yeah, you might even have trainers who Make a point. I mean, when I was a technical instructor, The line you are treading was if you had the luxury of a day to train a pilot about the fuel system.

15:27

They they would they would a lot of them would really enjoy. Find out things that they hadn't known for 10 years or something about the fuel system, but how relevant Or dangerous. Is it for them to understand that piece of information? Yeah. And what purpose are we serving? You know, by Of having people or documents that like, give you that extra information.

15:49

Yeah. Part of the digital manual. Now is that you've got your level one two and three I don't know if how common that is with. Digital documentation. In other airlines. But the service that we're familiar with you've got like level 1 which is like need to know. Yeah, you can press a button and then Instantly are underneath the information.

16:08

If there is any level two information it will appear. Yeah when it wasn't there before and that's like a nice to know. Yeah. And then you've even got level three. Yeah which is like training. Captain Trivia. Yeah. Well yeah we theorists like yeah. Help understand. Yeah. Yeah. Agree. Talking about manuals just to get to the core of it.

16:29

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Why have a Manual

It's important. It sounds boring. But in your career, this is like the main way that I mean, what is an airline, you know, when you take away all the pilots and the CEOs, what would be left? It would be the manuals. Like, what is different about one from one.

16:44

Airline to the other, that's actually tangible. Which it should be written in the manuals. Yeah. And the aircraft manufacturer, they write all the manuals that you need. Yeah. And then an airline comes along, guys. Well, we know better. So we're gonna rewrite the the SOPs, which much frustrate the manufacturers.

17:01

Yeah. And they have to, I think sort of approve the variations of the way you operate the aircraft and as the world's become a bit more litigious. The airlines have realised, they need to go back to and sticking more closely to the way the manufacturer say you fly the aircraft.

17:17

Yes, there's a crash. Yeah, the court say, hold on the people that design, the aircraft said, flight like this and you've come along said flight totally differently. Yeah. Yeah, it's interesting, isn't it because obviously, The airlines have to adapt it slightly to their own operations. Every airlines operation is different and But you could argue but why I mean yeah, craft can operate I guess any other way as well?

17:38

That Changes are made is due to experience. I think that happens possibly, you know, incidents accidents. If there's been something happened within an airline or they've noticed a trend that we're getting into other things now, like, like monitoring of flight data and stuff, but if they notice any trends or things that happening then they might need to change the SOP.

17:58

Yeah, well, safety reasons, this comes down to what I'm saying, is what we actually talking about here. We talking about boring manuals, or we talk about, why they exist in the first place. Because I wondered, I wonder when the first aircraft manual ever came about. And I thought, well, in like World War II.

18:12

Yeah, they might not really have had much time to like, write a manual that and They might have decided, well, we are trained in a lot of pilots because we're losing a lot. So, We need to write something down because all the experiences being shot out of the sky and killed.

18:26

Yeah, it's like tangent. Yeah, I remember reading a book by Jeffrey Wellam who was Spitfire pilot and yeah I was like fascinated by the fact that he got pulled out of like he's equivalent of flight training early and after like a few hours of training in another aircraft just got thrown into Spitfire There.

18:45

Wasn't that there was no two seater is spitfire, there's no manual just like off. You gauge just getting figure out. Basically, there was no yeah, there was no manual, Ernest K Gann said the rulebooks are paper and they will not cushion a certain meeting of stone and metal. Yeah, but there's another clever phrase which is SOPs are written in blood.

19:07

So why have a manual at all? Well, every pilot that's gone before you who's made a mistake or nearly made a mistake as essentially written down or don't do this or do it like this. Yeah, and over years of aviation and what some people would even call Airmanship, on top of the manufacturers, understanding of what they've built.

19:28

You get these. Manuals, and at the core you get there standard operating procedures and you go outside them or you disregard them. At your peril. Yep. There's plenty of times. Where Ernest K Gann says the end of the day. The rule books not going to save is not going to be the last line of defence.

19:46

Yeah, that's the pilot's job. And the cabin crew are the goalkeepers, of the whole industry. Yeah. If anybody else can make a mistake, the manufacturer traffic control, the engineer in the morning, including the people that have written. The manuals can make a mistake. Yep. But if you stay with inside your standard operating procedures, Which are communicated on paper in manuals, then you're within a really well.

20:10

A risk assessed framework safety bubble? Yeah, of hundred years of aviation. Yeah. And however, many hundreds of that, millions of hours on their type that you're on. Yeah, So the SOPs and the manuals are updated to take account of current accidents best practises and Stuff reflecting in the whole industry.

20:32

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MEL

And a lot of that stuff. And, A big chunk of that operational stuff is in OMB. In the operational part. What's your favourite manual? I do like the FCTM Flight crew, the training manual. But that's because I've become, you know, I've used it a lot. I like the MEL MInimum Equipment List , what’s the MEL

20:55

The minimum equipment list? Yeah. MEL is basically so it forms part of OMB. And it's basically aircraft got like hundreds of thousands of parts moving parts. So this there's the minimum equipment list and the CDL, the configuration deviation list and I'll talk about briefly the differences. But yeah. So essentially The MEL out.

21:14

Tells you what bits of the aircraft can be missing, and it still be legal to go. And fly that aeroplane? So, How often would we open that book then probably figuratively, Probably. Like, Every other flight. I imagine so some flights you'll arrive for work and they'll be an MEL item.

21:37

So something, missing or broken or needs replacing And it'll give you a reference to the MEL. So you're going to look at up and make sure it's okay, it's in compliance. Or occasionally you might have a fully serviceable aircraft. But at some point during your day, Something goes wrong, or there's a failure of some sort of equipment, and you might refer the MEL To think about future implications.

21:59

Like if we go if we continue to destination, are we going to be able to depart back without this piece of? So we don't actually fly along with the manual on our lap. Like what do we do next? What do you? Yeah. And if something goes wrong. It's something breaks.

22:14

We deal with it in real time. Yeah. A modern aircraft using an electronic systems. It's a Push this button, turn it off. Turn this other system on And what you're saying is that A the consultation of some manuals like the MEL is basically done on the ground so we carry them with us and then we think a for the next sector And watch the implication.

22:36

You know, something going wrong. Can we plan a fly with something? This, there's not working. So an example might be something as serious as you might have two systems on an aircraft that pressurise, the aircraft and one of them might not be working, but we can still go fly in but it might say well the speed breaks have to be operative.

22:57

Because if the pressurization system fails, you would need to descend a certain rate to ensure the cabin attitude stayed breathable, and you need the speed breaks to do that. So if the speed breaks happened, not to be working as well. Yeah. Just by coincidence. Then you can't carry this defect But then we started off by talking about verbal comprehension.

23:19

Yeah. So, You might be opening this manual. You've not got long before you supposed to depart. You have to read this text declare that people say about the Airbus. For example, it was written by Manufactured by the French written by a German translated into another language and then into English or something.

23:37

Yeah, yeah. So you've got a read this manual. Got to comprehend what it's saying. Yes. And sometimes you want the manual to say something, then. And you're able to interpret it in a certain way. Certain way. Yeah. But if there's any doubt there is no doubt, no, you can kind of bend the manual.

23:54

In certain directions and navigate the grey which is what you're saying earlier. Definitely. Yeah. You don't have to be. Yeah. Because the manual isn't the last line of fence. The pilot is yes to your interpretation of that manual. Can come in useful. It can mean it can. Well, In OMA is probably a line that says of, Captain's not happy then we're not going flying.

24:15

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Says, well, the MEL is a good example. Yeah, it will say the interoperability of defective systems is not taking account. So if the captain thinks well, the air leads US. Yeah, the APUs US. Yeah, and I'm doing a flight with the gear down and something the MEL hasn't taken account of all four of those to.

24:37

Yeah and he's just not a good day. Yeah, I don't know. Anyone explain it anymore, I'm not getting flying. Yeah, the MEL says exactly that, you know, in in isolation each of those, each of those items is means. You could go flying but all four together. Could put it into the unsafe or unacceptable, yes.

24:54

So yeah. Interpretation and sort is required The wording as well. you touched on the language? But yeah. The the amount of times you read in a manual, the difference between should and must It should is not recommended. It's required. It's Recommend it all this different. I think a good 15 years ago, the CAA went through all the And what was called, jar Ops, manuals and deleted “should”, and “could” which it was riddled with, yeah, because What does should mean?

25:30

Yeah, What does could mean? And I use that in my day-to-day life all the time after I'd learnt that Now, I don't think you should operate with. I feel that some people operate all the time in the back of their mind thinking that they're going to be stood in a courtroom, which It's never really occurred to me.

25:47

I don't know where some pilots. Where? I don't know where that, as strong feeling is that is, as come from, I don't. Fear the litigation. It doesn't hang in my head. I'm all the time. But I feel like some pilots do fly like they're gonna get in trouble all the time.

26:04

Yeah. And so should incurred. A meaningless. Yeah. So there are there are things that are Shouldn't could nest on necessarily meaningless no but then not very useful to a pilot but I'm trying to think of stuff. My yeah, yeah there's a lot of phrases in the manuals which are open to interpretation that are a bit useless.

26:26

So I one one, I read the day. Every attempt should be made too. But does that mean? I mean like, let me guess that's not in OMB. I can't remember where it was being like OMA. Yeah. Every attempt should be made too. So that's like well. This should be done, but if you've tried and you how many attempts then, how many?

26:47

Yeah, then maybe you don't have to do it, you know, it's like, and that's goes all the way back to this verbal reasoning. Kind of like, your interpretation of, yeah, those verbal reasons are made more sense. If they gave you an actual passage, From OMB that said, yeah, if no ILS is available then.

27:05

He should seek the approach with the lowest minimal or, you know, I give you no example in the performance manual, when it talks about runway, surface condition, for takeoff and icing conditions. There's a where it is really bad. It says do not take off. Yeah, but if it's quite bad, it says take off is not recommended.

27:23

Yeah. Okay. I probably wouldn't. But I could, you know, because it's not telling me a kind, it's just telling me it's not recommended. Well, Hi. You know, I might recommend that it is, you know, I mean, yes, that there is, yeah, I think that's, that's trying to, that's like, saying what I was trying to get out which is That could enable the flight crew to choose an option.

27:44

That they desperately seeking to be available to them. Yeah. But it would also give them the option to Risk assess. Like that. This is not. Yeah, this is not. Yeah, not recommended. Yeah, you don't have to do something just because the manual says you can do it. Yeah, exactly.

27:59

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SOPs

It's not. It's sometimes, I'm gonna. Yeah, yeah, I agree. So We talked about FCOM A,B,C,D, the MEL, what so what about SOPs was in, like, what are they and what, you know, gotta be the most well read. Part of all those manuals by a pilot. Yeah, it's incredible. Really SOPs.

28:17

I think, especially when I talk to people outside of Aviation And I say, they say to me, are you going flying today? Yeah. He, you know, you flying with. No, no never met them before. What's you're going to go? Meet somebody and then just go fly, an aeroplane with them.

28:31

Like yeah. How do you do that? Well, what we have SOPs standard operating procedures. And yeah, i mean it is amazing, really, if you take yourself out side of aviation and think That you could literally turn up at work. Meet someone, for the very first time, you don't know anything about them.

28:49

But an hour later your your flying an aeroplane with them. It's like, An actor from a musical. On one side of the world. Standing in for somebody. On what's the one in New York called? What Broadway? Brought an actor from music on Broadway? Who's never met the guy in the West End, He standing in.

29:10

With no rehearsal whatsoever. Yeah, and they have to dance And together for two hours. Yeah. And sing together for two hours. And yet there's flawless. Yeah, yeah, every light no line is missed. No beat no, no step in the dance is missed at all because the SOPs are so well rehearsed.

29:30

Yeah, yeah. And I do think it's a part of our manual. That is very well written and probably less Less ambiguous in the SOPs. I don't think there's many SOPs, that are open to interpretation and like, Maybe statements in OMA, or you get these things on the line, where one pilots, And you and that their few and far between where, where half the fleet of pilots interpret.

29:53

Its one way and the other half the other way. Yeah. And it becomes like a little comedy or wonder which way they're going to say that line or something. Yeah. It but usually if that's something rears it head like that, then training managers are generally quite quickly quickly to quash it in some sort of publication of Either a safety, you know, a safety report or a notice or because if it doesn't if it doesn't become dealt with yeah or worse.

30:19

If there's something that isn't that, it's that the entire fleet interprets. Let's call it the wrong way. Yeah, to how it was intended. They're not following the SOP basically. And it becomes what? Some cool like, a normalisation of deviance . Yeah, which is So, a lot of accidents you're looking at, And although the manual said to do it this way, everybody just did it this other way.

30:46

Yeah. And that was one of the layers of the Swiss cheese that cause the accident. Yeah. And it's so normal to do it the wrong way. Yeah, that You don't even know that you're doing it the wrong way. No. I'm trying to think on the an old fleet on the 757, the recirculation fans that call the You know, avion exercising was, so noisey.

31:08

The on turnaround, Everyone would just reach up and turn them off in them off. There's no way that's allowed under any of the manuals was however, and who knows what kind of, you know, accidents that could allow a path towards. Yeah. And that's just a minor example. But it was so normal.

31:23

You know how I feel about speeding and on roads? Yeah, the rule is you don't exceed the speed limit. Yeah, I don't know. 999 out of a thousand people. Wouldn't lose an ounce of sleep over the fact that they sped 40 in a 30 or something, the day before, even police officers and so on.

31:41

Yeah, because to me that's like a normalisation of something, that's different, that's different. Maybe a whole Podcast episode could be on SOPs. And yeah. It's probably use and theory of them. Yeah. You talking about their well-written. Not open to interpretation. It. Today I'll include things like The calls. To the letter that you say yeah.

32:03

In the flight deck to the point where Boeing say that the word check. Is American. So, Have we got the fuel on board “check” means, yes, yeah, but in European manual, check means you need to check that and checked means it was checked, you know, so they can be that specific and they include the things.

32:26

You say the buttons, you press the order, you do it in basically chronologically as you progress through the flight, but we don't see there with the manual open. No. We just know them inclusively. Yeah. That's one of the things that you there's drawn into your Training that you have to learn the SOPs.

32:41

Absolutely 100%. Here, you can't be. Referring to them in the middle of not be referring to the SOP on how to fly a non-precision approach. While she flying an non precision approach in. Yeah, you need to know it really And then if you have a big SOP change, It's really annoying and stressful.

32:58

Yeah. Yeah. Because it's sick because the brain. Wants to follow the path of least resistance and so it knows. Every little muscle in the mouth. How to say the checklist? Yeah. Be must never do the checklist from memory. Your brain is begging you to. Please do it for a memory so I don't have to pick up the checklist.

33:17

It's like save every little Calorie. Yep. And every SOP is Is like efficient to to a pilot because they know them inside out, they don't have to think. About the SOP and then when they're suddenly changed everyone needs to think. Yeah. And that's annoying. Yeah. Uses precious energy that was become like a muscle memory, like the SOP?

33:38

Yeah. Other things to talk about which was it was only really I took about this is it was an example of what comes at the day and We've talked about discrepancies and things open to interpretation. But there are Engineers. He look after our plane, they've got a different set of manuals and generally, they all marry up, but there's sometimes there are like huge.

33:59

Discrepancies and the engineer is manuals says, completely different to what our manual. So the example of the day there was It doesn't MEL item for one of the those bit fluctuating in one of the outer tanks to fuel. So the MEL says that after every refuelled either the tanks need to be dipped by an engineer to check the fuel on board.

34:22

Oh, you have to go and read the gauges from the refuelling panel on the belly of the aircraft. That's what the MEL said, either raw. That an engineer arrived is like, hey guys, I've come to dip the fuel tanks. All right, it's okay. We don't we don't need you.

34:34

We don't it this way and he was like, no, you can't do it that way. The engineering manual says, it has to be tanks dipped. All right, so there is errors in manuals and discrepancies and Engineers have manuals cabin cooperating manuals. There's always going to be It's like differences.

34:53

I just throw that in there as an example of But then, if you've looked at any accidents, Um, but the, the all the ones I wanted to use is example, was where the engineers had made mistakes interpreting the manuals. You're not where pilots had. Yeah, I think was really fair.

35:09

No, and for the spirit of this, but Very recently. There was an A321, at Gatwick. Which almost had a double engine failure, right? A Titan airways. Okay. I don't know about this, but it was a mistaken engineer had made by using, like a thousand times too much. Of a bioside which cleans out the fuel tanks then they should have, Wow.

35:31

Due to Less than rigorous use of the maintenance manual, and some assumptions made and some interpretation errors . You know, like spacecraft that have crashed because one person was in metres and one was in feet or something like that. You know, something along those lines and I found plenty of those.

35:48

I mean, remember Gatwick again, and you remember the pilot that got sucked half sucked out of the window? Yeah, the engineered replace the window with the wrong bolts on bolts. Yeah, mind you identify. That was An interpretationary on the manual, but all the ones it came to me were maintenance.

36:04

Reading the maintenance manual. Yeah, in error. Yeah. And In my old airline, we used to have the maintenance manual. So, i don't want to get to boring, but you'd have a defect, and you'd be like, right? Okay. So can we get back to the UK? So you're looking at your MEL, Yes, you can but there's a maintenance procedure that it must be done by an engineer basically.

36:25

So What is it? So, we would be able to see what they have to do. I don't understand necessarily, but I can understand generically what what's involved Might you know involve something significant or you know you can now we don't have that access that manual anymore So I don't know.

36:44

I can't think ahead about what they're maintenance has required to take. So that part of the need to know, nice to know. Yeah. Or potentially dangerous to know you because, you know, it might say, just going clean the sensor and you know, I can do that. I could do that or you might see an engineer doing it and then in a couple years time, you get the same 14.

37:03

You I've seen this done before, I've seen. Yeah, in fact in my previous airline we were training pilots to do two or three, basic engineering things, One of them was bird strike inspection. Okay, one was CB Reset. Okay. And there was another one. Yeah, because there's not always an engineer where you go in.

37:22

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The Manuals Sat Next To You

Yeah. We've kind of covered, broadly, the layout and Fact that there's a lot of information, it has to be interpreted, you have to know your SOPs. I think you're right. A whole, an episode and SOPs would be Would be useful. Anything anything else? Any other topics? You think we should be covering a manuals.

37:44

I think, I just want to get across to If it was ATPL student, just what the manuals, come to mean to you in your career, which is sometimes you'll feel like The captain is wrong. Sometimes you might even feel like the training captain is wrong. And they may or may not be more into understand furthery moment.

38:03

A question people, sometimes you might feel like you whole airline or your whole Aviation Authorities. Got it wrong. Yeah. And the manually is What you can sleep at night with if you want as like a young pilot, you know, you can really get to know the manual and often you will understand the manual inside out and the line captain that you're with won't And have kept up to date with it like they might of and but they will have the context to add to it.

38:30

And so these manuals and your relationship with them over the years, is kind of interesting. And if you're young and enthusiastic like it's really, you're only source of like go to What will you read the manual? Again, is because you as a new pilot, you haven't got the experience.

38:44

So them, so you've got, but you've got the knowledge or access to the knowledge. So, whereas a someone who's been flying for 20 years, it's got loads of experience. And it's probably less reliant on the manuals because they've I think, yeah, that's all you got to go to as a new pilot is the manuals because you haven't seen it before, you haven't got the experience.

39:02

So The manual is a tool just like lots of other things that you're use as a pilot. Like humans the manuals can be flawed. Yeah. So I'd say to any Any new pilot that. Embrace like any enthusiasm. You've got by reading the manuals but the greatest manual that you've got is the one set next year on the flight deck.

39:22

Yeah. And if you can, Keep up your Enthusiasm. Use that experience that sat next year as like a manual that you can flick through. Yeah. And talk to you about your understanding, the operation in conjunction with year, interpretation of the written text. Yep. Then you'll be working as a professional.

39:40

Yeah. Sounds good. All right. Okay, Cheers. Bye.

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Adam Howey
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