K, agree with you entirely, but I cant help thinking our system in OZ may set things up somewhat.
I remember an incident in Europe some years ago with an Airline I was involved with, where a crew got distracted with workload and ended up on an ILS approach with standard set. All over Europe, transition altitude varies, from 3000Ft in Uk to the ground in Russia.Sop's varied around the place from using QNH to god forbid QFE. Think of SOP, normally approach checks would be completed around 30 miles out, a key gate of around ten thousand feet, or around ten minutes to the FAP. trouble is some transitions at 3000 ft gets a bit cramped for an altimeter set and crosscheck.
It was decided that when cleared to an altitude the Pilot flying would set local QNH, the support pilot would remain on standard until transition, where the call would be made "transition", "set QNH....." from the told card and "crosscheck." The theory being that an error in Altimeter setting would be more likely to be "caught" if there was a split in altimeter readings, and if not at least the pilot flying would have the correct setting on his altimeter for the approach.
Its an easy enough error to make, tired, hassled by ATC, crap weather, the thing I find hard to accept is they ignored several GPWS alerts without having a good look at why? perhaps with split altimeters they may have picked it up. At the end of the day, I can remember years ago when all non precision approaches in OZ were circling, CAsA wouldn't align them because they felt it would encourage pilots to bust minima. A stable approach does not necessarily have to be in a straight line, it can commence from mid down wind or in a turn, Think Hong Kong, 90 degree offset ILS, from the minima a curved turn to final, all nicely stable. Have pilot skills been so eroded by the auto magic that pilots are now incapable of flying a visual stabilised approach?
I remember an incident in Europe some years ago with an Airline I was involved with, where a crew got distracted with workload and ended up on an ILS approach with standard set. All over Europe, transition altitude varies, from 3000Ft in Uk to the ground in Russia.Sop's varied around the place from using QNH to god forbid QFE. Think of SOP, normally approach checks would be completed around 30 miles out, a key gate of around ten thousand feet, or around ten minutes to the FAP. trouble is some transitions at 3000 ft gets a bit cramped for an altimeter set and crosscheck.
It was decided that when cleared to an altitude the Pilot flying would set local QNH, the support pilot would remain on standard until transition, where the call would be made "transition", "set QNH....." from the told card and "crosscheck." The theory being that an error in Altimeter setting would be more likely to be "caught" if there was a split in altimeter readings, and if not at least the pilot flying would have the correct setting on his altimeter for the approach.
Its an easy enough error to make, tired, hassled by ATC, crap weather, the thing I find hard to accept is they ignored several GPWS alerts without having a good look at why? perhaps with split altimeters they may have picked it up. At the end of the day, I can remember years ago when all non precision approaches in OZ were circling, CAsA wouldn't align them because they felt it would encourage pilots to bust minima. A stable approach does not necessarily have to be in a straight line, it can commence from mid down wind or in a turn, Think Hong Kong, 90 degree offset ILS, from the minima a curved turn to final, all nicely stable. Have pilot skills been so eroded by the auto magic that pilots are now incapable of flying a visual stabilised approach?