22 ms·
Plane Tests Must Use Average Pilots, NTSB Says After 737 Max Crashes
- BuildTheRobots 7y agoIf you test for average pilots, then you've still got approx 50% of pilots who aren't capable. Whatever happened to testing for the lowest common denominator - especially in life and death situations?
- m4r35n357 7y agoGood idea - any shit pilots want to volunteer? ;)
- ryanlol 7y agoI don't think it'd be any kind of a challenge to find shitty volunteer pilots, you just restrict your search to PPLs.
- jrwr 7y agoWhat about just picking 10 random airline pilots from around the world to test it out a few times and get feedback?
- gentaro 7y agoYes, we need to round up our dumbest pilots for these tests.
- Swenrekcah 7y agoDon't they mean they must recruit pilots at something close to random, so they should indeed get all skill levels? I couldn't read the article so I can't verify but that's what I would think, because how do the otherwise find 'average' pilots? By a survey?
- PeterisP 7y agoHow about we take below-average pilots, have them run the test right after their normal full shift ends without any rest in between, and give them a glass of whisky for encouragement?
- ohduran 7y agoLove this.
- doctor_eval 7y agoWelcome to the Aperture Laboratories Aircraft Enrichment Centre!
- crazygringo 7y agoIn all seriousness (but with less fun), a similar effect can be produced simply by asking them to be reciting the alphabet constantly, solving addition problems constantly being fed to them, etc. -- anything that is constantly distracting half their brain. In fact, this is a similar technique some actors use to make sure they know their lines cold -- no matter how well they can recite them with full concentration, can they still recite them while playing an intense video game? Because things will be so different on stage/set, it will be equivalently distracting.
- davinic 7y agoTesting a large enough random sampling of people will include the lowest common denominator as well.
- adwww 7y agoI wonder if a bigger factor would be the test pilots knowing in advance what the test was. Eg. being told, "next we are testing what happens when MACS fails", whereas in a real life situation the pilot has to diagnose what has happened, recall the correct remedial action, then act on it.
- simion314 7y agoAlso this test pilots may know the inner working of the plane where the real pilots were not told that MCAS was added behind their backs and some buttons/switches changed behavior. Also were this test pilots had accessed to extra diagnose data where regular pilots were not provided even with a sensor disagree message
- pilsetnieks 7y agoThere wouldn't be a sensor disagree message because there was only one AOA sensor, prone to failure, with no redundancy.
- paulclinger 7y agoMCAS was only using data from one of the AOA sensors (picked during restart), but two were still present, so sensor disagree light/message (when available) would show disagreement between the sensors.
- simion314 7y agoAnd Boeing decided to make it an optional paid feature, though I am not sure if it was added later by request from airlines or they designed it like this.
- chrisseaton 7y agoHalf of pilots are going to be below average - why not test against their ability?
- maxaf 7y agoYou’re thinking of median, not average, but your question stands.
- DaiPlusPlus 7y agoThe arithmetic mean (I.e. the average) is the 50th-percentile (I.e. the median) in a normal distribution. The question absolutely stands - unless pilot ability is not a normal-distribution.
- Y_Y 7y agoSince there is a long training/weeding-out process I would expect the distribution would be truncated normal, with some cutoff to graduate plane school. If this bar is low then the distribution will still be roughly normal, but if it's near or about the mean (does anyone have the fail rates?) then the distribution can look a lot different, e.g. one-sided normal, or power-law.
- Lewton 7y agoIn anything with a lower bound (passing to become a pilot) the distribution can be heavily skewed (ie cutting off the bottom 20% of a normal distribution) Which means that more than half would be below average!
- Ensorceled 7y agoWhy would a competitive, high skilled role with aggressive disqualification requirements be anywhere close to a normal-distribution?
- chrisseaton 7y agoMedian and mean are both averages, and there are other types of averages. Average by itself doesn’t imply mean. And of course it’s median - how can you have a mean of something discrete like group of people?
- gummydog 7y agoI'm not sure the criteria for determining an 'average' pilot but if becoming a test pilot is a big incentive for trying to be the best you can wouldn't this drag the average pilot quality down?
- dredmorbius 7y agoThere's a role for test pilots in aircraft development, and certification pilots, used in rating an aircraft for commercial use. You'll want the good ones for that first task.
- VBprogrammer 7y agoI think trying to think of pilots as being good or bad on some abstract scale is almost certainly an oversimplification. The reality is probably more like for developers, some of the best developers in terms of achievements are not people you'd want to work with on a daily basis. In the same way that an F1 driver wouldn't necessarily be the world's best bus driver.
- dredmorbius 7y agoA principle in software is to never write the most complicated code you possibly can, because maintenance is harder than writing, and if you could only just barely write it in the first place, you won't be able to maintain it. The principle for pilots is similar. As to skills assessments, you're right, it's difficult. But you can use some general proxies. Certification pilots should be drawn from a standard pool, not a test-pilot pool. Some sense of performance on some standardised battery of qualification flights or simulator check-flights might be used, with scoring based on success or performance in identifying and addressing conditions encountered. The fact that a precise quantity cannot be confidently stated doesn't mean that no quantity or range can be given. And for the sake of the certification pilots, I'm assuming check-out flights would either be in simulators or with a more qualified check pilot assisting.
- VBprogrammer 7y ago
- objektif 7y agoThat awkward moment when you are called in for a plane test and you realize you are mediocre.
- gniv 7y agoI had the same thought. But there are non-controversial (and, um, non-ego-hurting) ways of defining average: hours of flight, hours of training, number of certifications etc.
- objektif 7y agoI just think average is not the right word here. Less experienced is better. Yeah jokes aside some sort of a “rabdomized” selection methodology of multiple pilots should be sufficient.
- situational87 7y agoThe primary design objective of the 737 max was to avoid pilot retraining. Until that stops being a major economic driver in aviation no problem was solved here. Changing MCAS another dozen times and updating the manuals does nothing to prevent this from happening in new future system design.
- sokoloff 7y agoThere’s a tension between progress (some of which offers fuel [and ecological] savings) and cost. If you can make a plane that saves an airline $1MM/year/copy but costs them $4MM extra and $500K/yr in training costs, you won’t sell as many as if it costs them $3MM extra and requires no retraining (or even $5MM/$0). Sometimes that difference is enough to make the project not viable economically. Certification is incredibly expensive. The airplane I fly the most was built in 1997 on a type certificate (the basis of certification) originally approved in 1958. That’s incredibly common. Passengers complain about terrible seats, terrible service, jam packed flights and then search for tickets on price as the overwhelming factor. It’s little surprise that airlines are competing mostly on price. I’m not sure what you’re suggesting here as the solution to make it [pilot re-training?] “not a major economic driver”. It could be “reduce training costs for everyone” or “increase training costs for everyone” or something else.
- ed312 7y agoAirline flights, and international travel generally, is _incredibly cheap_ compared to basically all human history. Adding in just a little more cost for a measurable, significant safety benefit seems like an obvious choice.
- londons_explore 7y agoThis problem would be resolved if type certifications expired. Eg. A newly certified plane type can be produced for 15 years before requiring recertification to new standards. In effect, this forces Boeing to come up with new designs, since the chances of old designs meeting new standards are low. It'll give them a big incentive to find ways to get the cost of certifications down. Up to them if they choose to evolve the plane with the standards, or do a ground-up redesign every 15 years.
- esemor 7y agoIf Boeing needs a less than average pilot I can surely use the paycheck
- dangus 7y agoI don’t think pilots are paid what you think they are...
- ebg13 7y agoUh oh. What are they going to do when they discover that there aren't any average pilots? https://www.thestar.com/news/insight/2016/01/16/when-us-air-force-discovered-the-flaw-of-averages.html https://www.thestar.com/news/insight/2016/01/16/when-us-air-... (HN discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11230287 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11230287) https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2016/02/the-invention-of-the-normal-person/463365/ https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2016/02/the-inv... (HN discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11155889 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11155889)
- kalenx 7y agoAverage does not have the same meaning in the context of this link and yours. We are not talking about physical measurements here.
- chrisseaton 7y agoWhy doesn’t the same principle apply? One pilot is very good at one skill, another very good at some other skill. There exists no mean pilot that is fairly good at both, so designing or testing for that is a bad idea. Replace body dimensions with skill sets and it’s the same issue.
- SketchySeaBeast 7y agoReally, they shouldn't be trying to test for an "average" pilot, they should be testing for a "bad" pilot - one who can only meet the minimum requirements for a pilot's license.
- lostconfused 7y agoYou can train a skill and improve on it. You can't train your head shape or arm length nearly as much. The brain is more malleable than some of the other body parts.
- chrisseaton 7y ago
- ohduran 7y agoWouldn't you need the worse pilot you can get? Average doesn't account for the fact that 50% of the sample are WORSE.
- ElonMuskrat 7y agoBut that's median not average...
- chrisseaton 7y agoI don’t know what you think ‘average’ means. Median is an average.
- Avalaxy 7y agoMost commonly it is used for the mean though...
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]
- Retric 7y agoLess than you might think. Mean is easier to calculate and tends to be close enough, but when there are are significant outliers people tend to revert to the median. Life expectancy for example is calculated via median. Median income is generally used over average etc.
- chrisseaton 7y agoMean wouldn’t make any sense in this context. Does a mean pilot even exist? Median pilots exist by definition.
- Avalaxy 7y agoIf you can order pilots by some quantifiable measure, you can also take the mean of that and select pilots that are exactly the mean or closests to the mean.
- mothsonasloth 7y agoSurely there are only two types of pilots? * Pilots * Dead / disqualified pilots
- doctor_eval 7y agoWell, there are also pilots who haven’t died yet.
- dredmorbius 7y agoThe irony here is that when I wrote "The Tyranny of the Minimum Viable User" I'd specifically excluded cases such as commercial aviation, where a minimum qualifying standard can be used. By that logic, aircraft certification should be based on the minimum qualifying pilot. https://old.reddit.com/r/dredmorbius/comments/69wk8y/the_tyranny_of_the_minimum_viable_user/ https://old.reddit.com/r/dredmorbius/comments/69wk8y/the_tyr...
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]
- zaroth 7y agoI have 15 hours in a Cessna 172, I’d be happy to give it a go! But in all seriousness, in no way shape or form should the testing be informed by the skill assessment of the test operator. The analysis should be looking at the tasks that had to be performed during the test, whether they were properly identified by easily selected checklists, and quantitative measurements of the complexity and physical difficulty of the tasks. If it comes anywhere close to a question of the skill or strength of the specific test-taker then something has gone terribly horribly wrong. In old school UI testing you would do GOMS analysis which allowed calculating the difficulty of specific tasks based on the actual manipulations required to perform them. The skill of the particular operator is not generally a factor in these types of analysis. The subtitle of TFA states; > Safety board says FAA should embrace data-driven approach to assumptions about pilot responses This is a much more reasonable statement. For instance, the maximum physical force required to perform the task must be an industry standard that pilots are all certified to be able to perform.
- cjrp 7y agoIt would be interesting if all of the airlines' own recurrent simulator sessions (every 6 months, IIRC) resulted in data being fed back to the FAA. You've got a huge sample size right there, and they try out all of these unexpected scenarios.
- londons_explore 7y agoYou could take a probabilistic approach... In this 1 in a million situation, 90% of tested pilots managed to follow the procedures to recover. Therefore the chance of a fatal crash is 1 in 10 million. Let the manufacturer decide if they want to make the situation rarer or the training better to reduce the overall crash risk.
- ses1984 7y agoHow about if that info was available to the public? I don't want to put my health and safety on a scale against someone's profitability.
- huffmsa 7y agoOf course it should be. But the precedent was set in the early days of aviation when test pilots were flying experimental aircraft from alpha to v1. You don't want to kill rookies who freak out in a flat spin, so you put your coldest mfer in the seat. And then they do barrel rolls during the first public flight of your 707. But now that we've got such accurate virtual cockpits, we don't have to worry about killing pilots as much.
- jacquesm 7y agoThose can be found in the spherical cow aisle. I'm sure the intentions are good but shouldn't the goal here be to use the least qualified, but still qualified pilots for testing? After all if the average pilots are passing the test but the least qualified, but still qualified pilots do not then it is a matter of time before the next crash. Boeing sells their planes all over the globe and I suspect that the average and the mean could be quite a ways apart and that the least good but still qualified pilot still sits comfortably below either.
- Simulacra 7y agoPlease don’t. I am a multi engine rated, average pilot. Please don’t use someone like me as the basis for your safety.
- Stevvo 7y agoSounds like FAA & Boeing are trying to place blame on pilot error for the MAX crashes, to deflect attention from the MCAS issue and the FAA's failure to notice it. I agree with the conclusions as the majority of aircraft accidents are pilot error, but in the case of MAX there is nothing the pilots could have done to save those aircraft.
- dahart 7y agoThis seems like a good thing, they should be testing with people who don’t know the answers. Though I can’t help but wonder if this is a very subtle re-framing of the Max accidents to shift blame back towards pilots. This approach of a regulatory agency recommending “average pilot” testing makes both the agency and Boeing look good, and tends to downplay the fact that Boeing intentionally avoided training the pilots, and that the system was only recoverable if you had some extremely specific knowledge. This wasn’t an issue of the quality of the pilots, this was an issue of the quality of the training, which we know was kept from all pilots to attempt to save time and money.
- treis 7y ago>Though I can’t help but wonder if this is a very subtle re-framing of the Max accidents to shift blame back towards pilots. Blame is a loaded word. Boeing assumed that pilots could be relied upon to recover from a MCAS induced runaway trim. Practice has shown that they can't. Whether Boeing or the pilots is at fault is, from a safety perspective, irrelevant. The bottom line is that an assumption was made, it was wrong, and a couple planes crashed. Using average pilots instead of highly experienced test pilots is a sensible step to prevent a repeat.
- kayfox 7y agoTo be more precise, Boeing assumed that all pilots flying their aircraft would be up to the standards of the United States as opposed to the different standards around the world.
- jfim 7y agoHas there been a documented occurrence of a US pilot encountering an MCAS failure in the US and correctly dealing with it?
- pdonis 7y agoYes, there are many reported incidents from US pilots of stability trim incidents in the FAA's database which, in hindsight, were due to MCAS. The pilots couldn't identify them as such at the time because, of course, they didn't know MCAS existed. But they were able to figure out the corrective action in time to maintain safe flight. (The reports also criticize the flight manual for being inadequate.) https://www.google.com/search?client=ubuntu&channel=fs&q=us+pilots+mcas+incidents&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8 https://www.google.com/search?client=ubuntu&channel=fs&q=us+...
- Merrill 7y agoThey need to establish minimum upper body strength qualifications, since MAX pilots have to be able to manually trim the horizontal stabilizer using the wheel and cable mechanical controls.
- bronco21016 7y agoPerhaps a portion of testing could be performed in the simulator using a random sample of line pilots? The current advanced qualification program in use at the airlines kinda is set up to test operational policies. All pilots of a fleet (essentially a random sample of abilities) go into the sim once a year and perform a check on what’s considered a ‘normal’ flight in the sim where anomalies are presented without being pre-briefed and the crew must over come them just as if they were out flying the line. The data is aggregated and problematic trends are identified and corrected. Translate the same to new aircraft certification. Get the airplane basically ready and train some pilots in the sim. Just regular line pilots who will be flying the aircraft for their airline. Then spend an appropriate amount of time giving them realistic scenarios (without pre-briefing the anomalies) that test the boundaries of the aircraft performance and see how the human/machine interaction occurs and if there are problems that need to be addressed. In the case of the MAX, MCAS was a new system so scenarios to test pilot interaction with it would’ve been a requirement and I’m sure these issues could’ve been identified. This already happens to some degree when airlines take delivery of a new aircraft. They make proving runs to hammer out any small bugs and get good real world data on fuel usage, performance, etc. My proposal is simply to expand the scope of proving runs in the sim with a good dose of abnormal operations using normal every day line pilots.
- not_a_cop75 7y agoWhat about below average pilots? If half of them are still going to crash, shouldn't the true idiots in the industry be the test dummies? No pun intended.
- oliveshell 7y agoFortunately, true idiots don’t get licensed as airline transport pilots.
- not_a_cop75 7y agoTrue, but that doesn't mean there aren't "true idiots in the industry". Thankfully, most commuter planes drive like buses and don't have the excitement to draw idiocy like extreme sports does.
- alexhutcheson 7y agoGood luck finding a pilot who will admit to being average!
- ape4 7y agoAs a developer I never find any bugs when I test my programs
- WhompingWindows 7y agoWhenever I find a bug, it ceases to be a bug within an hour. Therefore, most of the time, my code "has no bugs".
- rossdavidh 7y agoYeah, my immediate reaction to this article was that it sounded similar to the well known fact in web programming, that you need to have user tests by people who have never used the website before, otherwise you won't be able to find out which parts of the UI are confusing.
- rowanG077 7y agoActually they must use the worst pilots. If they use average pilots that means 50% of the pilots might be out of their depth flying that plane. What kind of insanity is this?
- sly010 7y agoImagine the job postings for such positions ...
- rossdavidh 7y agoWhile I don't disagree, at least moving from test pilots to average pilots would be a big improvement. And, in practice, might mean that you have to simplify and streamline the UI just as much as for the minimum viable pilots. But, even if not, at least average would be way better than test pilots only.
- inimino 7y ago"Simplify and streamline" is exactly not the solution here, in fact the issue was that the relevant information was invisible and hidden from pilots, not that there was too much. Not everything in good design needs to end up looking like a Fischer-Price toy. The main problems from my limited understanding were: pilots didn't know the subsystem existed; they didn't know it had activated; they didn't know what it was doing; they didn't know how to turn it off. Additional instrumentation could have addressed all these issues but would have been more expensive than what they actually did.
- exabrial 7y agoOut of all the unfortunate hyperbole from the 737 MAX (which I think fundamentally is a safe aircraft), this change will improve air safety across all airliners. Pilots should be held to the highest of standards, but assessment should be done with average joes.
- NetBeck 7y ago>Typically, overseas regulators follow the FAA’s lead. But after the MAX crashes revealed shortcomings in the FAA’s certification process, that’s no longer certain. >Before the MAX is cleared to fly passengers again, both EASA and the FAA will require flight tests of the new updated software. In addition, Ky said, EASA will require Boeing to demonstrate the stability of the jet in flight tests that include high-speed turn and stall maneuvers with MCAS switched off. Source: https://www.seattletimes.com/business/boeing-aerospace/european-aviation-safety-agency-sets-strict-demands-for-737-max-return-to-flight/ https://www.seattletimes.com/business/boeing-aerospace/europ...
- TickleSteve 7y agoWho is going to apply for the job of being an "average" pilot??
- wespiser_2018 7y agoBy flight hours?
- jupp0r 7y agoIf they use average pilots, it still means that reactions of the other half of pilots will be worse than the ones they tested.
- ryanmarsh 7y agoSurely they mean “later in development”. Test pilots are chosen for their extreme skill precisely because a new aircraft isn’t proven safe.
- hwc 7y agoHow about below-average pilots? Just-barely-good-enough-to-get-hired pilots?
- elliekelly 7y agoThis makes a lot of sense. They need similar requirements for evacuation testing. Regulations say all passengers in a plane need to be able to evacuate within 90 seconds. As Americans get bigger and airplane seats get smaller the airlines "comply" with the 90 second requirement by conducting an evacuation test in completely unrealistic circumstances.[1] The test participants are all handpicked, fit, airline employees who prepare and practice for the drill. The test "starts" with everyone in their seat (seat backs & try tables up) and with their life jacket already on. And in recent years the FAA hasn't required these tests as frequently. Why? Because even with all the preparation that goes into it, the mad-rush to the exits in a staged emergency, tends to be quite dangerous for the participants. [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XIaovi1JWyY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XIaovi1JWyY
- OrgNet 7y agoNTSB apparently need better employees for making such a recommendation... (ie: it is not ok for 1/2 of the pilots to not be 100% in control of their plane)
- inimino 7y ago100% control of any complex system does not and can not exist.
- OrgNet 7y agowell, at least they could try. but yeah I know that most software sucks and can't be predicted 100%
- inimino 7y agoThey do try. Avionics is miles ahead of everyday commercial stuff like your desktop computer in reliability and correctness. This is not just about software, a plane is a complex physical system and the idea of absolute control is a fantasy. This is why you need alternatives, failsafes, contingency plans, and training in dealing with unexpected failure modes.
- OrgNet 7y ago> Avionics is miles ahead of everyday commercial stuff like your desktop computer in reliability and correctness. What OS that they use that is so much better?
- inimino 7y agoEmbedded systems aren't using your everyday desktop operating systems, if that's what your asking. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Avionics_software https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Avionics_software > Avionics software is embedded software with legally mandated safety and reliability concerns used in avionics. The main difference between avionic software and conventional embedded software is that the development process is required by law and is optimized for safety.
- tlb 7y agoI would like even the bottom 0.1% of pilots to be able to recover the plane from a common hardware failure.
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]
- ineedasername 7y agoSeriously, what not below average pilots? Assuming an even distribution (yes, which it might not be) then roughly half the pilots are below average. If the bottom 25% can't do it, that's a problem, no?
- mywacaday 7y agoSo test pilot at Boeing would not be something a pilot would want on their C.V in the future?
- AWildC182 7y agoNo... A test pilot at Boeing could get hired at any of the major airlines in heartbeat but why do that when you can just keep being a test pilot and throw in for astronaut selection every few years?
- dclowd9901 7y agoLet's add to this: A plane should also be recoverable without usage of a manual by a trained pilot.
- ak86 7y agoI'd say that's a clickbait title. The actual report is at: https://www.ntsb.gov/investigations/AccidentReports/Reports/ASR1901.pdf https://www.ntsb.gov/investigations/AccidentReports/Reports/..., and framing it as a recommendation to change the test procedure to use 'average' pilots seems like a big liberty. To me, the thrust of the article is on making sure human factors are incorporated into flight certification process. As they highlight, although uncommanded MCAS input was part of the certification tests, it was only marked as a 'major' risk rather than more severe classifiers. This wasn't because of any phenomenal test pilots, but just because the FAA (rather than Boeing) guidelines behind the certification assume immediate assessment and diagnosis of the issue. The report goes into a lot of depth about other human factors, for example, how transport-category planes should have straightforward highlighting of the primary issue since often the primary cause bubbles through various interconnected systems, and the main pilot response tends to be to identify the root cause under stress and then having to fix it. To the extent I could re-summarize the report, I'd say "Plane Certification Processes Must Consider Real-World Scenarios And Factor Human Response to In-Flight Failures in Plane Design"
- nesky 7y agoWhy not use a system akin to that of jury duty? If you fly X type of jet you're in a pool of 'random' testers for X jet as opposed to using data driven methods to shake out average pilots. I'd have to assume the pilots in some fashion would be incentivised to not be chosen to test for fear of simply being an average pilot in the first place.
- shanecleveland 7y agoI live on the Kitsap Peninsula across the Puget Sound from Seattle. I enjoy tracking aircraft on a phone app that circle over us fairly low when approaching or taking off from SeaTac, Everett and Boeing Field. I recently spotted a 737Max and assumed it was part of some testing. Curious what phase they are in and how much in-flight testing is going on.
- gigatexal 7y agoEek. How are they measuring average? Those with a median amount of hours under their belts? Those with average IQ? The term seems likely to cause a ruckus as who wants to be called average.
- ch33zer 7y agoMake sure you read the actual report before commenting. The article is misrepresenting the recommendations: https://www.ntsb.gov/investigations/AccidentReports/Reports/.. https://www.ntsb.gov/investigations/AccidentReports/Reports/.... Also, kudos to the airline industry, their postmortem culture is second to none, even software engineering.
- soapboxrocket 7y agoRegardless of the report and the article, I worked with the Boeing pilots for years. On the plus side they always argued that emergency equipment in the cockpit should be able to be operated by almost any idiot off the street to ensure safety. On the negative side they had special expeditions from the FAA that allowed them to skip mandatory training on emergency equipment that airline pilots had to take.
- crooked-v 7y agoI'm immediately reminded of the whole thing with Captain Sully, where initial recreations in simulators could safely land the plane on the ground... but only because the pilots already knew exactly what to do, instead of having any realistic delays to evaluate the state of the plane and consider landing options.
- basementcat 7y agoShouldn’t tests use below average pilots?
- LinuxBender 7y agoThe test should use a minimum viable pilot with the minimum required amount of sleep. How many hours are pilots allowed to operate without deep sleep?
- Havoc 7y agoThat actually strikes me as a really good insight/improvement to come out of this mess. Using the top 1% talent or whatever is sure to gloss over flaws that will bite avg pilots in the ass in real life
- sdfafafa 7y agoIf we assume the distribution of pilot talent for a Max 737 is symmetrical, then mean=median so the tests only require the better half of pilots land the plane. Which is a pretty bad standard. A better standard is that the 20% percentile commerical pilot can land the plane.
- lutorm 7y agoShouldn't they use pilots with the absolute minimal skills required to pass the ATP test and get into a 737 cockpit? If you use average, that still leaves ~half the pilots to crash...
- wespiser_2018 7y agoThis is probably a good idea, using testers closer to your target audience should improve results a degree. However, I think this is kind of missing the point. Wasn't the problem with the MCAS system on the max that the system was added to the airframe without re-qualification required? Shouldn't the solution address how Boeing and the FAA qualify aircraft for qualifications, not how the aircraft itself was tested?
- confidantlake 7y agoLike many others have pointed out, "average" is not bad enough. They need to be trying it with the worst pilots.
- aussieguy1234 7y agoTest with an average pilot, but have an expert backup pilot on board who can take over, just in case.
- wintorez 7y agoNo! Plane tests must use bad pilots. They must use tired pilots. They must use pilots under stress.
- ngcc_hk 7y agoaverage can meant many things even in stat. like modal ... But if only 50% ... Should it be "normal", "common", ... or most, not just professional test pilot