First the guys with the Chinese airline said, "We are not going to have the
F/O act as an assertive individual...that won't happen in our culture." The
teacher thought to himself, "Well, you boys ain't gonna get CRM.." He and
his developers then thought and asked, "Who is assertive in the cockpit" and
the answer came back, "the captain". so they made him the assertive on but
"proceduralizing" CRM. The Capt would abide by the checklist which asked for
input. The F/O and the rest of the crew would respond because it was
commanded by the capt and by the checklist. A bit formalized but it worked.
The second, JAL, refuted the assertion of CRM being culture based because
"the cockpit is still a cockpit" and tasks are very highly defined. Their
comment was "if it is culture based and it is expected of the Orientals, why
do western pilots and copilots sit there and watch a situation develope?
What is their excuse?" They modeled their CRM after the United C/L/R with
modfications and have run all their pilots through. They have labor laws
that say they can not fire a pilot but they can reassign those who do not
fulfil the requirements. I also know JAL uses routine scanning of the Flight
Data Recorder for deviations from proscribed profiles and if the computer
tags you, you are asked to explain. So, with the combined CRM and scanning
of the FDR, they watch their pilots quite closely. I also understand the
pilot group does not tolerate a wide margin so "boomerangs" are not a major
problem.
Wiley