Lets talk about SOP's

[justwork]

The key is knowing when adherence to SOP's is required and when it is not. Lots of people fail at that in both directions. No one side is always right...or wrong.

Interesting. Give me an example of when adherence to SOP would not be required.

I believe Swissair in Halifax, or St. Margarets Bay to be more accurate, is a pretty solid example of following SOP's to the demise of everyone.

Edited... I see that Swissair has been brought up.

I have had on more than a few occasions been told to keep the speed up on approach, which brings me out of the profile in the SOP, but am stable by 1000' which is another part of the SOP. Don't go fast, get taken off the approach and moved to the back of the line, so now you're looking at how much fuel you have left instead of shutting down on the gate.

Another example is reduced take off performance. The SOP was that this should be done always as long as performance criteria was met. Then you're departing after a heavy on min seperation, why not go full jam and make sure you rotate before they did and will stay above their climb profile? Sure, you have the minimum required time seperation, but I'd rather be above their wake instead of chancing a bast through it.

How about wx radar usage. I had worked at a previous company where, if the weather radar was required for departure it was to be on the PF side and the PM had to have terrain up - always. Now I'm departing from an airport where there is no terrain, just the earth that is field elevation. There is significant weather during your departure and the FO is flying, are you going to put terrain up, which offers you zero useful information or do you think it would be wiser to put the radar on your side?

Taxi speed 10kts in a turn 25kts going straight and when wet 5kts in a turn and 15kts straight. You've got 6000' of runway to back track and the runway just meets wet criteria, and someone else is on the approach. For me, 15kts is a little slow.

You are on the ground up north, it's -30, you notice on your walk around that a couple of the rampies are in the cargo compartment keeping out of the wind waiting for the bags. You get to the cockpit and get a smoke warning. The guys are in the cargo bay, so they're either burning OR you know it's an ionization smoke detector and their breath has likely set off the cargo smoke warning. However the SOP calls for a memory item that's going to flood their little winter oasis with a gas that could kill them. Maybe ask the FO to peak out and see what's going on? Or mindlessly blow the bottle? I don't know.

I believe that SOP's are a great tool, but it isn't the only one! As a pilot, you still need to use that grey shit between your ears on occasion.

[xsbank]

Follow the SOPs. Know your QRH cold. Know the Limitations too. You are not entitled to second-guess them, just do it. The example of a Navajo running at idle? Remember what happened to that King Air in Vancouver that killed that young father and his copilot? Do you understand the drag of a propeller at idle vs. feather?

I would have fired you for not following SOPs. You got home safe DESPITE your actions. Your airplane, go crazy. My airplane, my way. Rockie, you’re fired too.

Sorry, not permitted any more.

[valleyboy]

So I'm reading here that there are a few out there that feel SOP's totally remove the requirement for people to think or use common sense because the SOP's are black and white and grey has no place in today's flight decks -- Damn -- that's wonderful. I have yet to see an SOP that deals with the dreaded multiple unrelated scenario. I'm not sure if it still goes on but there was a time when AC had that Cincinnati exercise in the sim just because it was meant to get people thinking. Maybe the in the NG iron there is no need to deviate from SOP but in the classics one had to always ready to adapt. I'm also thinking the the incident on the 380 had people thinking outside the box as well. SOP's are a requirement but as I have said before they are also not written in stone to a point where adhering to them ends up hurting people. The trick is to know when and how to adapt to the unexpected - that's why they pay you the big bucks!

[Meatservo]

I can’t think offhand of any time, in recent memory especially, I’ve found it necessary to deviate from SOP, and I worked for many years at an ad-hoc charter air service where you would think deviations would be common because of the incredibly varied situations and conditions we found ourselves in. But the fact is, a well-written set of procedures takes airmanship and judgement into account, and is vague where it needs to be vague, and specific where it needs to be specific. In this way you can give people the leeway to use their imaginations, I mean “judgement”, in situations where that behaviour is warranted.

I know most of you guys are looking at this from a big-plane, big airline point of view, but for an example, let’s think of an imaginary SOP a person might come up with for, say, flying a turbo-DC-3 on skis. Well, the SOP might make it mandatory that at least one low pass must be made over the intended landing area, even if you were there just yesterday. The SOP might make it mandatory that only the captain performs off-strip landings. It might even go so far as to dictate that all off-strip landings must be “wheel” landings rather than three-point. (I’m making this up; I’ve never flown a DC-3). Anyway, whatever it is, these are not rules that “take all the thinking out” of the situation. Just as the situation in question becomes a bit hard to dictate one hundred percent how it should be done, and jeez I would hope for that job you’ve hired guys that don’t need to be dictated to, the rules just serve to reduce the amount of arbitrary variability you might find between crews, that might catch a pair of members off-guard if they hadn’t flown together very much.

I guess what I’m trying to say is that a well-designed SOP doesn’t give you any reason to WANT to deviate from it. Most of them have some kind of footnote about not being possible to cover every scenario, and explicitly state that if there is a safer option in a specific circumstance, then you’re expected to discuss it, brief it, and then do it- and be expected to talk to the chief pilot about it after.

You don’t have to tell people the “pull back-to-go-up” stuff. You do need to make it so that people know what to expect from one another, and reduce the amount of “making stuff up” that inevitably happens with a lack of a code of behaviour.

I used to think CRM was some kind of recent invention, too. But then I realized that the “good” captains and copilots were already acting that way. It just needed to be spelled out for the rest of us.

[xsbank]

The reason for SOPs is so that if confronted with “an event,” it doesn’t matter if you are 5 months into your recurrent, you fall back on procedures. You don’t have to reinvent the wheel, don’t have to remember what happened to Bob in 1972 when it happened to him and it shouldn’t matter if you’re not at your best today, you follow them. If they are NOT going to save your butt, you use you ingenuity. But all of the examples you lot have provided are not good enough. We know that the majority of accidents are not mechanical any more, they are human-caused, so use all the tools you’ve got. When something goes South, use what has been provided and use what you have memorized and go there first. If you are confronted with a death experience, deal with it. But that incident with the Navajo engine has me rolling my eyes; then again, I had a friend who nearly bought it in a Navajo when the mechanics had dicked with the wastegates and when he shut one down, he hadn’t enough power to maintain. That was his fault, partly, because he knew it was down on power. He should have refused the flight. There is always a bunch of issues in an accident.

“Land at the nearest suitable airport” is nebulous enough to drive a DC3 through, but think how silly you’d feel if you diverted to an airport and didn’t get to it for some reason and the only reason you chose it was because if you spent the night at the closest one, you’d be uncomfortable?

Reread Meat’s post.

[Skyhunter]

I would have fired you for not following SOPs. You got home safe DESPITE your actions. Your airplane, go crazy. My airplane, my way. Rockie, you’re fired too.

Sorry, not permitted any more.

xbank, I wouldn't work for you.

Fighter SOPs were what you did when you didn't have time to brief what you really wanted to do. SOP 4 plane take off used to be 3 in vic formation in the front, a single 30 seconds later. I could brief 2+2, 1+1+!+1, 2 +1+!. Allowed me flexibility to do what I wanted for the conditions, but if no time I could say SOP and everyone would know what is happening.

Airline SOPs do need to be more stringent cause we don't brief for an hour or more, but they are losing the flrxibility to make decisions for specific conditions of the day, that could improve the operations.

I follow them now, but I hate the loss of flexibility. The pendulum has swung to far, and the thinking is being removed. Ah well 14.5 years to retirement and then I won't care.

Sorry for any typo's and grammar, not wearing my glasses right now.

[complexintentions]

It's interesting to view the different perspectives based on actual experience. I'm in full agreement with Rockie on this one - there are SOP's that simply don't match real-life operations, and then that becomes a problem. In one previous employer, a large fleet operator with about 3,400 pilots and several hundred widebody aircraft, there were SOP's taken from Airbus and grafted onto Boeing operations and vice versa, in the name of "standardization". Didn't always work so well. In my present company, smaller, about 1,200 pilots, the manuals and procedures are riddled with contradictions, ambiguities, and vaguely-written sections that leave themselves open to interpretation. Some of that is by design for legal reasons, no doubt. But the EFB manual sections contains:

- FOM
- MEL
- RAM
- QRH
- AFM
- Airport Page Manual
- Aviation Security Manual
- Dangerous Goods Manual
- EOM
- ETOPS Manual
- FAA Ops Spec
- National Ops Spec
- FCOM V1
- FCOM V2
- FCTM
- FPPM
- GOM
- RIM

These are just the operational manuals. I haven't even bothered to include administrative documents.

All of these are in constant revision. If one thinks there are no errors or contradictions inherent in this enormous amount of constantly changing data, they simply haven't flown at a major airline. Rockie has. He is absolutely correct about the difficulty in changing procedures, even changes that seem "obvious".

I'm a huge believer in SOP's. You can't run an airline without them, it's a non-starter. But the whole squabbling about whether SOP's can be written to properly cover every situation is a bit stupid when comparing a private company with a Navajo to airline ops.

One of the main goals of SOP's is to standardize and simplify. Somewhere along the way some people seem to have decided that means you are now permitted to abandon critical thought. As evidenced by a few incidents where a bit more suspicion of the situation would have perhaps been a Good Idea, that doesn't always end well.

[goingnowherefast]

Well said complex.

Everybody needs to think critically about what the SOP is doing in a given situation. If the result isn't desired, then don't do it. Perhaps it's SOP to always build a deck with a hammer. Well what happens when they supplier drops off several boxes of screws?

[xsbank]

You don’t have to worry about working for me, I am retired.

Peggy’s Cove was a bad one, but then how could you write an SOP to cover flames and melting plastic dripping on the pilots? I think there were lessons learned and SOPs were changed. That’s the whole point.

That argument about fighters is disingenuous, I worked for a guy who was cashiered for deadsticking a Harvard into a farmer’s field. He walked away, the plane was fixed. The sop was to bail out so he was fired. He didn’t follow SOPs.

At the risk of being rude, ex-fighter pilots were the most difficult to integrate into a multi-crew environment because they had been entirely used to flying alone.

[True North]

What I'm seeing here is a bunch of people looking for excuses not to follow SOPs and I don't get it. I guess I was lucky. I never flew oversees or in a third world country, I only ever worked for Canadian or US operators and they all had good SOPs. I never once encountered a contradictory SOP in my entire career. I found some to be overly conservative and a couple that I thought were downright dumb but it never occurred to me that I had the option or authority to not follow them. The company that is paying my wages has every right to tell me how they want me to operate their airplane and if I don't like it I can always leave. On several occasions I approached my chief pilot and asked why a certain procedure was written the way it was and every single time I was given a reason. It was never arbitrary. Obviously there cannot be an SOP to cover every eventuality, like multiple unrelated failures, so sometime you might have to make it up as you go along but the chances of that happening are exceedingly rare. Very few pilots will encounter that in their career and best of luck to you if you do. I had a few emergencies in my career and the SOPs got me through each one just fine.

There is no excuse for not following SOPs unless there is a genuine safety concern. If your SOP says taxi at 15 knots on a wet surface that's what you do. If you don't like it talk to your chief pilot. To not comply is unprofessional and disrespectful, both to the person that wrote the SOP and more importantly to your partner. If you feel it is okay to ignore that SOP then what about the rest of them, where does it end? FOs should not have to keep a book on how each captain operates the aircraft, that is bush league.

To suggest that following SOPs means you don't have to think anymore is beyond ridiculous. They make the job easier and unquestionably make it safer.

[Rockie]

Xsbank

I’ve said it before but I’ll repeat it again. Fighter pilots don’t normally fly around alone. They are usually at least in a pair and often with another 2 or 3. Sometimes more than that. Flying in all weather in formation requires very close coordination and reliance on standard procedures, and a constant awareness and consideration of the other guy. In a tactical scenario you ramp that up to a level you cannot imagine.

Maybe the problem was your baseless and incorrect preconception of fighter pilots.

[xsbank]

Rocky, that's a very strange response for someone who was arguing about the flexibility of SOPs...

I spent a lot of time training fighter pilots for the corporate world and I know of what I speak. Your superior attitude is one of the reasons the "civilizing" process was difficult. It was a lot easier to train the cadre of Herc and C17 pilots that came through, expect to have to bully them into using names, not "right seat" and "back seat."

If you re-read my comments on the original post, nowhere did I disparage fighter pilots, all I said was that they are difficult to turn into crew members, especially if they are required to be right seat for a while. My father was a fighter pilot and so was my brother-in-law, I have plenty of experience with them and their ilk.

This is a discussion on SOPs and my position, if not already perfectly clear, is if you break or violate one, or more, you need a damn good excuse or I would fail you or fire you.

[confusedalot]

From a former civil commercial operator pilot, small and big, I think I have now heard it all.......

A corporate pilot saying a former fighter pilot is hard to train.

By memory, is it possible that I heard right, that, former airline pilots are equally hard to train?

[Rockie]

Rocky, that's a very strange response for someone who was arguing about the flexibility of SOPs...

I spent a lot of time training fighter pilots for the corporate world and I know of what I speak. Your superior attitude is one of the reasons the "civilizing" process was difficult. It was a lot easier to train the cadre of Herc and C17 pilots that came through, expect to have to bully them into using names, not "right seat" and "back seat."

If you re-read my comments on the original post, nowhere did I disparage fighter pilots, all I said was that they are difficult to turn into crew members, especially if they are required to be right seat for a while. My father was a fighter pilot and so was my brother-in-law, I have plenty of experience with them and their ilk.

This is a discussion on SOPs and my position, if not already perfectly clear, is if you break or violate one, or more, you need a damn good excuse or I would fail you or fire you.

Calling fighter pilots difficult to train and referring to them and me as “ilk” sounds suspiciously like disparagement to me...I could be wrong.

This will be hard to believe but I’ve trained many fighter pilots myself both in the fighter and the multi-crew role, and found them no harder or easier than anyone else. Not generally being an unintelligent bunch they recognize what the requirements are, and as I said despite your incorrect characterization they are not lone wolves. Far from it.

[xsbank]

You might be a bit wrong:

“ilk
noun
a type of people or things similar to those already referred to.
"the veiled suggestions that reporters of his ilk seem to be so good at"
synonyms: type, sort, class, category, group, set, breed, strain, bracket, genre, make, model, kind, brand, vintage, stamp, style, family, variety
"a film of this ilk comes packaged with a fair deal of violence"

You see? I’ve added to your education while you suspect that my intention merely was to disparage you. I didn’t say the those pilots were not trainable, I believe I said they were difficult to train. And why wouldn’t they suck at CRM? They fly entirely alone and are judged on different parameters than a corporate, airline, charter whatever company would expect.

[Rockie]

"Ilk" is commonly used by people like you to denegrate a group of people you don't like. Do not bother to deny it, you'll only make yourself look stupid.

I didn’t say the those pilots were not trainable, I believe I said they were difficult to train.

Read what I said.

Calling fighter pilots difficult to train...

And why wouldn’t they suck at CRM? They fly entirely alone...

How many times do I have to tell you fighter pilots rarely fly alone? Why do you narrowmindedly assume you have to be sitting 18 inches away from somebody to be able to coordinate effectively with them. Why would you not think doing so in a tactical environment over miles of distance wouldn't be more difficult than what you do?

When you go out and gain some experience as a tactical fighter pilot xsbank then we can have an intelligent back and forth discussion about this, but until then...

[valleyboy]

What I'm seeing here is a bunch of people looking for excuses not to follow SOPs and I don't get it

I disagree - I think everyone here supports SOP's the question is that do you totally turn off and blindly follow an SOP to the end no matter what the apparent outcome will be. I would like to think there is more capable people in the flight deck than that. We are talking 99.999999999999% of the time but when that curve ball is thrown will you be able to think your way through it based on aircraft knowledge, ability and experience. That is the one week point in today's computer generated world.

[xsbank]

"People like me," eh? If "ilk" annoys you, how about dickhead? I won't have to define that one, you've probably been called that one before.

[Big Pistons Forever]

Xsbank

How about instead of a dick measureing contest you relate a story where you personally decided following a SOP in an ambiguous situation resulted in the best outcome

[confusedalot]

Is this an indication of the flight department mentality?

[Rockie]

"People like me," eh? If "ilk" annoys you, how about dickhead? I won't have to define that one, you've probably been called that one before.

Yeah...“people like you”. How about you just admit you know nothing about how fighter pilots operate?

[xsbank]

My father survived the Battle of Britain in a Hurricane and my brother-in-law survived the Cold War in a 104 and an F18.

The only thing you have survived is a keyboard and I have serious doubts that you tie your own shoes.

I’m done. I like to say I survived aviation but I cannot abide the asinine comments on here. If any of you need more resume stuff, you will have my private email but except for that, I’m done.

Oh, for Rocky,
“as·i·nine
ˈasəˌnīn/Submit
adjective
extremely stupid or foolish.
"Lydia ignored his asinine remark"
synonyms: stupid, foolish, brainless, mindless, senseless, idiotic, imbecilic, ridiculous, ludicrous, absurd, nonsensical, fatuous, silly, inane, witless, empty-headed”

[Rockie]

And because your father and brother-in-law were fighter pilots you know more about being one than an actual fighter pilot?

Asinine indeed.

[rookiepilot]

And because your father and brother-in-law were fighter pilots you know more about being one than an actual fighter pilot?

Asinine indeed.

Have you been a fighter pilot Rockie? Just curious what your personal basis of experience is.

[Rockie]

And because your father and brother-in-law were fighter pilots you know more about being one than an actual fighter pilot?

Asinine indeed.

Have you been a fighter pilot Rockie? Just curious what your personal basis of experience is.

Yes.