The Great Automaton Pilot

"Automation is the wave of the future."  Wait, did I just say that?  No, I didn't, but I've heard it said many times before.  In the commercial airline industry, that statement is likely said at least 10 times a week.  Automation has offered safety, efficiency, and savings.  It all but takes the human element of error out of the equation.  But, what about the pilots skills in the event of an automation failure?  Common sense would dictate that pilots have the ability to compensate through training.  By the time a pilot gets a job with a commercial air carrier, they typically have several hundred, or not thousands, hours of flight, as well as consistent recurring training, all of which is FAA mandated, and then there is the constant recurrent training required of the air carriers themselves.  With everything the FAA and air carriers require, shouldn't that be enough?  In a perfect world, yes, but in reality, things are a little bit different.

As an instrument rated private pilot with over 190 hours and currently working toward a commercial certification, I can absolutely appreciate the convenience of automation.  The use of the autopilot, the G1000 glass cockpit, and everything it offers, makes flying the aircraft from point A to point B a lot easier.  Complacency is my biggest enemy.  I've caught myself many times becoming too 'relaxed' and forcing myself back into scanning mode in the cockpit.  I spend hours outside of the cockpit reading up on systems and regulations, trying to keep my senses sharp.  I also tend to keep very hands on in the cockpit, continuously scanning, only using the autopilot when I need to.  Unfortunately, there are those pilots that become so complacent, that they practically become reliant upon automation, and that's when accidents happen.

This AVWeb article gives an interesting look at what happens when a pilot becomes complacent.  Reliance on automation has become too high.  Most training on an airline commercial level appears to be based upon using automation in the cockpit to perform the flight.  Emergency training appears to me primarily hands on, but the time training on those procedures compared to the time spent on hands off automation training appears to be waning.  Airlines want efficiency, because that means more money in their pocket.  Who can blame them, they are there to make money by providing the fastest and most efficient service, and make as much money that is feasible in the process.  It comes down to a Risk vs. Safety margin, and what balance between both offers an acceptable amount of risk, while offering the largest gain in profits and buffer for safety.  It may sound like there is basically a dollar figure on safety because there is.  The business is there to make money.  If they didn't, they would not exist.

So, what do we do about complacency with automation?  Simple really.  There needs to be more training on the use of the hands on technique at the airline level.  Recurrent training on the airline level, need to focus less on automation.  Once automation is learned, is easy to follow.  The human brain has a tendency to follow the path of least resistance, and easily retains the knowledge associated with that.  Automation is that path.  It's easy to follow.  Training, and recurrent training, needs to focus much more on the hands on approach.  the brain needs to be reminded constantly that 'you are the best option available', not the machine.  The AVWeb article puts it into a rather simple perspective: "...while we're ensuring those pilots maintain their flight-control skills, we should also be focusing on how to train airline pilots for the day when what they'll really need are better ways to manage complex systems and maximize cockpit resources."

The same can be said of GA pilots, only we have to motivate ourselves to do so.  We have to want to be the safest pilots we want to be.  Complacency is our biggest enemy.  The day we become complacent is likely to be a bad day.