John Bent
Cathay Pacific Airways
At 08:23 PM 10/16/98 +0200, you wrote:
>
>Hi all
>
>I have found the discussion on behaviour reversion very interesting.
>Some time back I completed a post-grad thesis on the Airbus Cross-Crew
>Qualification process, in which I researched a whole lot of different
>concepts relating to the feasibility of flying related and unrelated
>types.
>
>Now a couple of years later I have had some first hand experience of
>flying unrelated types - hence my interest in the discussion on
>reversion.
>
>I am a Training Captain on the Airbus A300 (an analogue, 3-crew, "old
>generation" aircraft). Two years ago, with 2 years on the A300, I was
>sent on a contract to fly the Airbus A340 (new generation, glass
>cockpit, 2-crew aircraft). I found the conversion to type fairly
>complicated as there were many new philosophies and concepts to learn.
>I found the new aircraft very friendly ergonomically and the
>philosophies easy to learn and adapt to. I found few transfer problems,
>probably because the aircraft are so different.
>
>Two years later I am back on the A300, and have just completed the
>simulator phase of the re-conversion. I now have some practical
>experience of behaviour reversion over the 5 sessions! Funny enough,
>nothing major, mostly procedural differences. The biggest problem was
>the manual throttles (yes, they call them that on the A300!). They are
>incredibly sensitive on the A300, and I was continually overcontrolling
>the thrust.
>
>Also the "go-levers" were always forgotten on the go-around! The A300
>had little levers on the front part of the throttle quadrant that you
>"click" to activate the automatics for the go-around. The A340 requires
>that you advance the thrust levers forward to the stops for the go
>around. Twice I simply whacked the thrust levers to the stops to get
>TOGA, much to the disgust of the Flight Engineer who watched his pet
>engines rev into the red!! However, he said something subtle about the
>"old F%$#_at_" and I stopped that nasty behaviour forthwith!
>
>In a nutshell, I feel the following aspects occurred, in answer to Paul
>Baxter's description of the reversion process:
>
><<Step one is error diagnosis>> The errors that I made I could identify
>and diagnose fairly easily, being aware of the problems of transfer. I
>required little input from the trainers apart from them pointing out
>deviations from SOPS and techiques. Most of the errors were mistakes,
>not learned errors.
>
><<Step two involves teaching the person the difference between his or
>her "old" and "new" way, i.e, the way they normally or often do it, and
>the way they *should* be doing it.>> This was fairly easy, as I feel I
>was returning to past habits, rather than having to learn new habits.
>
><<But you have to start with what the person already knows, which is
>their error.>> Perhaps, but only in specific circumstances, where there
>is nothing to "return" to. Perhaps my situation was unique?
>
><<....It returns to haunt you when you least expect it.>> True, but only
>until your Flight Engineer calls you an old _at_#$% :-)
>
><<But when the going gets tough and stressful *then* and only then will
>you find out whether what you taught them has really *taken*. It is in
>those moments, as you rightly
>point out, that people revert to their early experience, their familiar,
>well-practiced routines, even though these may be sub-optimal,
>completely innapropriate or downright dangerous in the situation.>> I
>am very interested to find out what experiences I will revert to. My
>"older" A300 behaviours, my "old" A340 behaviours, or my recent A300
>re-training behaviours (identical to the old A300 training)?? Watch
>this space! I would be interested to hear how Paul views this in the
>"Old Way/New Way" philosophy.
>
>I still believe that transfer problems are more prevalent when the types
>are quite similar and the differences subtle. I believe the differences
>between the A300 and A340 are so vast that transfer would be less of a
>problem that between different versions of the same aircraft, unless, of
>course, they are designed to be operated concurrently (a la Airbus
>CCQ).
>
>Any comments?
>
>Mike Malherbe
>
>