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LIALPA
SlipStream Newsletter, March, 1999 Editor: Capt. R. J. Fitt, IFALPA Director for LIALPA |
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LIALPA
SlipStream Newsletter, March, 1999 Editor: Capt. R. J. Fitt, IFALPA Director for LIALPA |
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| LIALPA News | Joke
| Radar Tilt Management
Cheerios | Culture & Safety | A bear joke | Jim's Freebie
(Special Announcement - LIFAA (formerly LISA) is now on line...)
How Barley Grow
Some were surprised when the Chairman of the Board of LIAT notified us that due to unchanged circumstances, the company would be unable to resume the contracted payment schedule. Though some people were dismayed, I was not one of those.
A dispassionate analysis of the situation should lead one to the conclusion that without some sort of accommodation with its creditors, no improvement of the airline’s cash deficiency can reasonably be expected in the near future. There is some hope, however, that such an accommodation is indeed in the works, with a determination to be made by month-end. It is unfortunate, therefore, that some wish to set ultimatums for the stone to produce the necessary blood. Such an approach at this point can only lead to great peril.
I am sure that the majority of LIAT’s employees are anxious to continue their employment, in spite of the current financial disruptions. In view of the sacrifices that we have all had to make to ensure the continued existence of the company, recognition is due from the owners whose investment we are also protecting. The thrust of our discussions should therefore be to realizing some benefits from that fact. Clearly a financial reward is unlikely, so other avenues or concessions should be explored either by the separate Unions, or as the entire body of employees.
Much, if not all of the above was discussed at the recent LIALPA general meeting which was very well attended. It would be a great shame if the current trend of attendance were to be reversed. Somehow I have the feeling that in the current atmosphere of crisis with the wolves coming in the door, many agnostics and atheists are finally finding religion. The fact is that the Association needs support all the time.
The difference between a Union and an Association is purely semantic. Most of the airline pilots’ industrial groups call themselves Associations rather than Unions (the Bahamas Professional Pilots’ Union is a notable exception). The conceit is that as "professionals" we are to be distinguished from the "tradesmen". Whatever. The broad intent of either organization is the same, however.
We have styled ourselves as an Association, for better or worse, and as such, we claim to be professionals who hold ourselves to be guardians and achievers of high standards in our area of expertise. It is important that we recognize this and live up to it, not because of any notions of conceit, but because the very nature of our profession demands it from us every day.
As our environment becomes more adverse, as our conditions are threatened, there arises a dangerous tendency to succumb to a general sense of disillusionment and demoralization. This condition encourages the victim to let his guard down, to settle for lower standards of performance and conduct. While such a tendency might be understandable, such an outcome cannot be tolerated by any body that prizes high standards, whatever name it calls itself by.
Air Line Pilots are members of such a professional group. We are recognized as such by the general population because they can see the demanding nature and requirements of our line of work, sometimes more clearly than we. They know that as professional pilots we must pay close attention to all the details that we would prefer to overlook because only by such diligence can we assure them, and ourselves, of the high degree of safety that is required in this industry.
Nomination forms for Secretary and a Council Member are out. These are necessary following resignations of the members formerly holding those positions. All members are asked to return their choices promptly.
An 80-year-old couple was having problems remembering things so they decided to go to their doctor to get checked out to make sure that nothing was wrong with them.
When they arrived at the doctor's they explained to the doctor about the problems they were having with their memory. After checking the couple out, the doctor tells them that they were physically okay but might want to
start writing things down and make notes to help them remember things. The couple thanked the doctor and left.Later that night while watching TV, the old man got up from his chair and his wife ask, "Where are you going?"
He replies, "To the kitchen."
She asks, "Will you get me a bowl of ice cream?"
He replies, "Sure."
She then asks him, "Don't you think you should write it down so you can remember it?"
He says, "No, I can remember that."
She then says, "Well I also would like some strawberries on top. You had better write that down because I know you'll forget that."
He says, "I can remember that, you want a bowl of ice cream with strawberries."
She replies, "Well I also would like whipped cream on top. I know you will forget that so you better write it down."
With irritation in his voice, he says, "I don't need to write that down! I can remember that."
He then fumes into the kitchen and after about 20 minutes he returns and hands her a plate of bacon and eggs.
She stares at the plate for a moment and then says; "You forgot my toast."
By Archie TrammellAccording to world-renowned radar expert Archie Trammell, the aspect of weather radar operation that pilots ask about most often is how to adjust the antenna tilt control to eliminate ground clutter while ensuring that all significant weather is detected. In this article, Archie offers an easy-to-use method of ensuring the tilt is set correctly.
The most frequent question regarding airborne weather radar operations is about antenna tilt selection, and it is asked by those who have not attended one of our seminars or viewed our video tape. Pilots want to know where tilt should be set so that all echoes represent weather and not ground, and so they are certain the radar detects everything that must be avoided.
These are simple questions that most explanations make complicated.
To make sure that all echoes you see are weather, not ground, simply set the tilt so that the bottom of the radar beam is parallel to the ground - as shown at right.
With the tilt in this position, every echo will represent an object (weather, mountain peak, etc.) extending above your current altitude, because radar obviously does not detect and display objects below the bottom of the beam.
By The Book?
That seems simple enough. But in their pilot operating manuals, radar manufacturers give what appear to be simple answers for tilting the beam parallel to the ground. Their answers are given in degrees of tilt relative to zero tilt. This solution assumes that all radar antennas have been properly aligned and that antenna stabilization systems are perfect. That's where the complication and confusion arises, because neither is necessarily true. Rarely is an antenna installed in proper alignment, and no stabilization system works perfectly 100 percent of the time.
Since the manufacturers' simple answers in degrees from zero tilt won't work in the real world, it's best that we forget all that engineering razzmatazz and apply the following common sense.
Do-It-Yourself Tilt Calibration
The position of the bottom of the beam can be determined by tilting the beam down, then all we have to do is figure out how to raise it to our altitude. (When tilted down, the display will be blank out to a distance, then the screen will be filled with ground echoes from that point on out, as shown at right).
It's a fact (or close enough to a fact for tilt management purposes) that 100 times the distance in nautical miles equals the number of feet represented by each degree of tilt at that distance. For example, at 3 miles each degree represents approximately 300 feet; at 7 miles, each degree is approximately 700 feet; at 23 miles each degree is approximately 2300 feet.
That being the case, suppose you're at 9,000 feet agl and you've adjusted the tilt so you can see that the bottom of the beam is on the ground at 7 miles. To find the tilt required to raise the bottom of the beam to your altitude, divide 9,000 by 700 (7 x 100). You find that you need to tilt up approximately 13 degrees. (9,000/700 = 12.8.)
But that's still confusing. Let's simplify the procedure.
Can't-Miss Tilt Adjustment Method
Try adjusting the tilt so ground is being painted at a distance that equals your altitude in thousands of feet agl divided by 1,000. For example, if you're at 9,000, adjust the tilt so ground is being painted from 9 miles out. Now, raise the tilt 10 degrees. Will that do it?
Yes. At 9 miles out, one degree represents 900 feet, so raising the bottom of the beam 10 degrees from nine miles out will put it at 9,000 feet (10 x 900), your current altitude. How about when you're flying at FL350? At 35 miles one degree represents 3,500 feet, so 10 degrees raises the bottom of the beam to 35,000 feet (10 x 3500).
It works every time.
Minus Four
Part of the original question had to do with where the tilt should be set to make certain your radar detects everything that must be avoided. That's easy. Once you've adjusted tilt so the bottom of the beam is at your altitude, as just described, lower the tilt 4 degrees. Now, when you're between 2,000 and 30,000 feet, avoid all echoes that work back to the 5 mile range. That echo is from something only 2,000 feet - or less - below you. It may be a storm or it may be a mountain peak so pay extra close attention to that "or less."
When you're above FL290, be suspicious of every echo at 30 miles or closer. It's a thunderstorm which you'll top by only 10,000 to 12,000 feet - if you top it at all.
When you're at 15,000 or lower, set the displayed range to 50 miles, or as close to it possible. Now keep an eye on the outer edge of the radar display. If a black area forms at the outer edge and begins to work back toward you (as shown at right), turn away fast.
It's a radar shadow, the number one killer in aviation.
A 7 year old boy and his 4 year old brother are upstairs in their bedroom.
The 7 year old is explaining that it is high time that the two of them begin swearing. When his little brother responds enthusiastically, the 7 year old says, "When we go down stairs for breakfast this morning, I'll say "hell" and you say "ass."
The 4 year old happily agrees. As the two boys are seating themselves at the breakfast table, their Mother walks in and asks her older son what he would like to eat for breakfast.
The 7 year old replies, "Ah hell, mom, I'll just have some Cheerios."
"WHACK!" The surprised mother reacts quickly. The boy runs upstairs, bawling and rubbing his behind.
With a sterner voice, the mother then asks the younger son, "And what would YOU like for breakfast?"
"I don't know," the 4 year old blubbers, "but you can bet your ass it's not gonna be Cheerios."
From the NASA/U.Texas CRM Research Project. (Part 1)
In aviation, the three cultures, professional, organizational, and national, can have both positive and negative impact on the probability of safe flight. Safe flight is the positive outcome of timely risk recognition and effective error management, which are universally desired outcomes. The responsibility of organizations is to minimize the negative components of each type of culture while emphasizing the positive. Obviously, both CRM and technical training form part of an error management philosophy and program.
Professional Culture and its Sequelae
Although we recognized the existence and some of the manifestations of the professional culture of pilots early in our investigations of flight crew behavior and attitudes, we did not immediately understand its potency as an influence on safety. In retrospect, the roots of a strong professional culture are clear -- early aviation was an extremely dangerous undertaking, for those in combat, carrying the mail, or stunt flying for awed audiences. To commit to such a hare-brained endeavor required a strong sense of personal invulnerability and efficacy.
The respect and envy engendered among generations of adolescents also fostered pride in being one of "the few", to borrow Churchill’s description of Spitfire pilots during the Battle of Britain. This image of personal disregard for danger and invulnerability reached its zenith with the early astronauts (all chosen from the ranks of test pilots) and was immortalized by Tom Wolfe in The Right Stuff (1979).
When we began systematically assessing pilots’ attitudes about their jobs and personal capabilities, we found that ‘the pilot culture’ showed great consistency among more than fifteen thousand pilots in more than twenty countries (Helmreich & Merritt, 1998).
What distinguished pilots on the positive side was overwhelming liking for their job. Pilots are proud of what they do and retain their love of the work. Figure 2 shows the responses of pilots from 19 countries to the stem "I like my job." On a 5-point scale where 1 is disagree strongly and 5 is agree strongly, no group had a mean below 4.5 and several had means over 4.9.
On the negative side, there was widespread endorsement of items that reflect an unrealistic self-perception of invulnerability to stressors such as fatigue. Pilots also report that their decision making remains unimpaired by in-flight emergencies and that a true professional can leave behind personal problems on entering the cockpit. These are indeed negative manifestations of the ‘Right Stuff.’
Unfortunately, those imbued with a sense of invulnerability are less likely to feel the need for countermeasures against error and to value the support of other crewmembers. We have found equally unrealistic attitudes about personal efficacy among physicians and mariners (Helmreich & Merritt, 1998). The behavioral implications of such attitudes were illustrated in a CRM seminar observed by a member of our research team. In this session, a pilot remarked that ‘Checklists are for the lame and weak.’ Figure 3 shows graphically the positive and negative influences of pilots’ professional culture on safety.
As the figure illustrates, positive components can lead to the motivation to master all aspects of the job, to being an approachable team member, and to pride in the profession. On the negative side, perceived invulnerability may lead to a disregard for safety measures, operational procedures, and teamwork.
Organizational Culture and Safety
Investigations of causal factors in accidents and incidents in technology rich domains are increasingly focused on the critical role of organizational culture. In aviation, John K. Lauber, the first Ph.D. psychologist and human factors expert to serve on the National Transportation Safety Board, spearheaded an effort to examine and identify the role of organizational culture in accidents where blame would previously have centered on errors by crew members or maintenance personnel (NTSB,
1991). In England, the work of James Reason (1990; 1997) has centered on the role of organizations in industrial disasters in many activities, including nuclear power generation and petroleum refining.
A safety culture is the outcome that organizations reach through a strong commitment to acquiring necessary data and taking proactive steps to reduce the probability of error and the severity of those that occur (Merritt & Helmreich, 1997).
A safety culture includes a strong commitment to training as well as to reinforcing safe practices and establishing open lines of communication between operational personnel and management regarding threats to safety.
In our data collection in U.S. airlines we asked a number of questions about perceptions of management’s commitment to safety. Table 1 shows the percentage agreeing with two items in two organizations.
While the majority of pilots in each organization indicate that they know the proper channels for communicating safety concerns, the percentage is substantially lower in Airline B. More telling are the differences in the percent that believe their safety suggestions would be acted on. This ranges from 68% in Airline A to 19% in Airline B, but even in Airline A, there is obviously skepticism about the organization’s commitment to safety.
Organizational practices clearly determine the pride that individuals have in working for an organization. These attitudes undoubtedly exert an influence, although indirectly, on safety and compliance. In one airline, 97% of the pilots agreed with the statement ‘I am proud to work for this organization’ while at another, fewer than 20% agreed.
Similar variability was found in attitudes regarding trust in senior management. It is important to consider the organizational culture because when it is strong and positive, pilots and other groups will more readily accept new concepts such as CRM and its associated training.
National Culture in Aviation
The view has been widespread in aviation that the cockpit is a culture free zone, one in which pilots of all nationalities accomplish their common task of flying safely from one point to another. Data, however, have begun to accumulate suggesting that there are substantial differences in the way pilots conduct their work as a function of national culture and that the areas of difference have clear implications for safety (Helmreich & Merritt, 1998; Johnston, 1993; Merritt, 1996; Merritt & Helmreich, 1996a; Sherman, Helmreich, & Merritt, 1997).
Geert Hofstede’s (1980; 1991) four dimensional model of culture has proved to be a useful starting place to examine the effects of national culture on flight deck behavior. We took his survey of work attitudes as a benchmark and augmented his questions with a new set of items that were designed to reflect the aviation environment more directly (Helmreich & Merritt, 1998). Three of Hofstede’s four dimensions replicated and proved to be conceptually relevant to team interactions in the cockpit.
The first, Power Distance (PD), reflects the acceptance by subordinates of unequal power relationships and is defined by statements indicating that juniors should not question the decisions or actions of their superiors and the nature of leadership (i.e., consultative versus autocratic). Figure 4 shows mean scores on our measure of Power Distance, the Command Scale, of pilots from 19 nations.
High scores on the scale indicate high Power Distance and acceptance of a more autocratic type of leadership. In high PD cultures, leaders may suffer from the fact that followers are unwilling to make inputs regarding their actions or decisions. Countries such as Morocco, the Philippines, and Brazil have the highest scores, indicating the highest acceptance of unequally distributed power. At the other end of the Power continuum are found countries such as Ireland, Denmark, and Norway, with the USA also scoring at the low end of the distribution.
The second dimension, Individualism-Collectivism, defines differences between individualistic cultures and more collectivist ones where the focus is on harmony within one’s primary work or family group. In countries at the individualistic end of the distribution, people define situations in terms of costs and benefits for the self, while in collectivist nations, the focus is more on the group’s situation and health.
The concept of teamwork and communication may be more easily achieved by collectivists than by those with a more individualistic orientation. The USA and Australia score highest in individualism, while many Latin American and Asian cultures rank as the most collectivist.
The third dimension, called Uncertainty Avoidance (UA) by Hofstede, only replicated when it was redefined to focus on the beliefs that written procedures are needed for all situations and that an organization’s rules should never be broken, even when it might be in the organization’s best interest (Helmreich & Merritt, 1998).
This dimension, which we have called ‘Rules and Order’, can have both positive and negative implications. Those high on it may be least likely to deviate from procedures and regulations, but may be less creative in coping with novel situations. Those low may be more prone to violations of procedures, but may be better equipped to deal with conditions not covered by procedures. On the re-defined measure, Taiwan, Brazil, and the Philippines score as highest, while Anglo cultures such as the UK, Ireland, and the USA score very low.
Figure 5 shows the means on one scale item, ‘Written procedures are required for all in-flight situations.’ The range of variability and the ranking of each country are shown by the ordering of the means.
One of the unexpected findings from our cross-cultural research was the magnitude of differences in attitudes about automation – both preference for automation and opinions regarding its use (Sherman, Helmreich, & Merritt, 1997). In particular, pilots from high Power Distance cultures are both more positive about automation and more likely to use it under all circumstances. We have suggested (e.g., Helmreich & Merritt, 1998) that the computer may be anthropomorphized in some cultures as a high status, electronic crewmember not to be questioned, a strategy which is clearly inappropriate in many situations. Figure 6 shows ordered means on a composite measure of preference for and reliance on automation.
There are not ‘good’ and ‘bad’ national cultures with regard to the prevalence of human error and the universal goal of safety. Each culture has elements with both positive and negative implications for effective group function as it affects these universal goals. However, there are organizational cultures that actively discourage safety initiatives and eschew efforts to build a safety culture.
Ron Westrum (1992) has referred to such cultures as ‘pathological’ in their rejection of information that might avert catastrophe. In such organizations, the primary defenses are the positive aspects of the professional and national cultures and the diligence of regulatory agencies. Ultimately, though, it is the responsibility of organizations to promote a safety culture and to maximize the positive and minimize the negative aspects of professional and national cultures.
Frank was excited about his new rifle. So he went bear hunting.
He spotted a small brown bear and shot it. There was then a tap on his shoulder, and he turned round to see a big black bear. The black bear said "You've got two choices, I either maul you to death or we have sex."
Frank decided to bend over.
Even though he felt sore for two weeks, Frank soon recovered and vowed revenge. He headed out on another trip where he found the black bear and shot it. There was another tap on his shoulder. This time a huge grizzly bear stood right next to him.
The grizzly said "That was a huge mistake, Frank. You've got two choices. Either I maul you to death or we'll have rough sex."
Again, Frank thought it was better to comply.
Although he survived, it would take several months before Frank finally recovered. Outraged, he headed back to the woods, managed to track down the grizzly and shot it. He felt sweet revenge, but then there was a tap on his shoulder. He turned round to find a giant polar bear standing there.
The polar bear said "Admit it, Frank, you don't come here for the hunting, do you?"
(Compliments of Tony O'Dowd, DHC-8 Captain, Air Ontari-airy-oh...)Our intrepid ace pilot, Roger Ramjet suddenly finds himself in an extremely awkward and threatening position.
Struggling to maintain control, as his aircraft twists and turns through the heaving storm, he finds that his port engine is on fire and rapidly failing. Electric's continue to drop off the line and the cockpit warning lights are flashing impending disaster. He can't seem to get the rate of descent stopped. Roger looks over at First Officer Whiplash. sitting in his seat, whimpering, staring straight ahead, as hail ricochets off the shattered windscreen.
Roger moans and whispers to himself, "Oh God, we're screwed."
Suddenly there is a bright ray of light from within the cumulo-nimbus clouds and a voice booms, "No my son, you are NOT screwed. Shut down your other engine, pull all the Fire Handles and turn off the Battery Master switch."
Roger's masterful hands were a blur as he accomplished each task in quick succession. With perspiration dripping off his face and his dark, silent aircraft descending rapidly through 8000 feet he quickly looks skyward.
The voice booms out again: "Okay... NOW you're screwed."
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