CRM - Nationalities and feasibility

[Rwy in Sight]

Under that title I like to launch a discussion about CRM and its "local varieties"

I understand (I can't locate the reference right now) that some nationalities are more prone to speak up their mind against authority while others tend to accept authority without too much discussion. Hence teaching CRM to the former crews are easier.

Similarly crews used to obey the authority (like former military ones) would have a hard time to encourage others to speak and accept their view. Can you really teach CRM or you just encourage crews to give the right answers to the exams?

[Boac]

RiS - in the UK we are ourselves only a few years past the 'Captain is god' and must not be questioned scenario, if, indeed, we are! Now, of course, we have an inrush of very inexperienced RHS, and a valid question is are they actually capable of recognising the need for a challenge?

The whole key to 'CRM' (that is, of course 'CREW RM', not 'COCKPIT RM') is to encourage an atmosphere where discussion/questioning is free, and hopefully seen a part of a learning process (in those cases where the action being 'questioned' is correct!) or an important trap for errors where not, and should work in all directions, up and down the tree.

It cannot be 'taught', only raised as a topic and left to individuals to adopt. In those nationalities where authority is absolute and unquestionable, it will be an almost impossible task. It is also important to recognise that it is not a means to restrict necessary authoritarian decisions just because one does not like them. It is purely intended to help best utilise the resources at hand, not engender the 'let's all sit down nice and cosily and have a chat about this' after an engine failure.

[Alisoncc]

Repeating many of the Air Crash Investigation episodes on the box here at the present. Astounded at how often the FO has a different view of an event yet is fearful of putting it to the captain. Ranging from East Europeans to Asians. Appears CRM is far more ingrained in western crews.

Flying long distance freight charters in PNG, as the only PiC onboard, would always make it clear to the non-existent auto-pilot that it was in charge when I dozed off.

Alison

[Pontius Navigator]

Without repeating details, one Captain said "Shut up, I told you I was trying to think"

[ExSp33db1rd]

And another said to me - as I had just made a comment to the co-pilot - "we do NOT use christian names on the flight deck, MR XXXXXXXXX.

A Psychiatrist died and went to Heaven,to be met at the Pearly Gates by St. Peter, who said .. " Glad you're here, we're having a bit of trouble with God, he thinks he's an airline Captain " ( it was orginally directed at a specific airline, name suppressed to protect the innocent )

The Co-pilots used to think of themselves as the Captains sexual advisor, having been told often enough " When I want your fckuign advice I'll ask for it "

[Ex-Ascot]

RiS as Boac says. As Capt Slasher has highlighted on other threads many Captains are now basically operating solo with a kid in the RHS who has no experience. OK if he says you are carrying out a fire drill on no.1 but I can see flames coming out of no. 2 fair enough but that is about it. In the Royal Air Force we didn't 'study' CRM. I always listened to my crew. Especially the F/E. I have overruled Flt Deck members when they were quoting regulations. Regulations are only there for the guidance of fools. I know that I am going to be criticised for that statement but think about it. As an airline pilot you could lose your job but as a military pilot you could get a medal, if it worked out!

I once had to fly with a very stupid, incompetent and unpopular Captain in my very short time as a flight checker. I advised him that he was doing something incorrectly. Can't remember what it was now but after landing I had him pinned against the fuselage and told him never try to kill me again. That is CRM.

He used to para drop at weekends. His surname was 'Head'. We were doing a public display day. The commentator said, 'Here comes the islander, Richard Head is the pilot, his friends call him 'Dick'. His name was not Richard.

Edit, Sorry RiS only just seen your comment on the other thread about Capts doing 'walkabouts'. Well that is my input.

[Pontius Navigator]

Ex-Ascot, rd-para 3.

I was the most junior nav on an initial training flight on the Nimrod. There was a more role expect under training navigator. Then there was our instructor nav and finally a senior instructor nav checking the other instructor who was instructing us.

Up front was a role experienced pilot under instruction and an an initio student pilot. They were being instructed by a rank senior pilot. There were also two FE.

Further down the back more experience still.

I think we can be agreed this was a high risk environment.

The incident involved visual identification of a radar contact, a contact thought to be the size of a small trawler. At our minimum operating altitude of 300 feet we were in cloud.

Our senior pilot told me to stop announcing heights as we descended below 1,000 feet. He wanted to keep the breach off the recorders. As we dipped below 300 feet my more experienced companion started call heights every 10 feet. Power came on, up we went, and the pilot repeated that they were doing the height checks up front.

Round we went down we went and again my colleague started calling every 10 feet.

Next thing the IP shoots back and starts laying in to me for calling the heights. At this point things got interesting.

The senior nav instructor hauled the sqn ldr down to the galley, closed the doors, and gave the sqn ldr a one to one no coffee interview. The sqn ldr later apologised.

The trawler? The weather cleared and out little trawler turned out to be a VLCC with masts well up to 200 feet.

[Brian W May]

Post #7 . . . I SO know how this works and I also used to be 'leaned upon' when I wouldn't buck the rules. The rules were generally formed as a result of small holes in large hillsides and a bodycount.

I'm just old, not bold and when I visit my grand daughter, I'm eternally grateful.

[Brian W May]

Post #5

Yep know/knew him well when we were on 30 Sqn . . .

[Brian W May]

Since we're talking of CRM, have a read of this. I submitted this to the Bangladesh CAA and UK CAA when I returned from contract.

https://www.dropbox.com/s/3xbvk9xepnphm ... s.pdf?dl=0

Don't worry about the link, it's only the content of the report that's nasty . . .

[ExSp33db1rd]

Awaiting Customs clearance at JFK. Approached by a PanAm crew and their Captain said " Are you guys playing with that Monitored Approach thing ? "No " we said, "that's the other lot ". (BEA were trialling the then new procedure.) "PanAm has practised Monitored Approaches since day 1 " "OH ?" "Yes, I fly, he monitors " CRM ?

[Rwy in Sight]

Our senior pilot told me to stop announcing heights as we descended below 1,000 feet. He wanted to keep the breach off the recorders. As we dipped below 300 feet my more experienced companion started call heights every 10 feet. Power came on, up we went, and the pilot repeated that they were doing the height checks up front.

Wouldn't that request appear on the Cockpit voice recorder?

[Ex-Ascot]

Since we're talking of CRM, have a read of this. I submitted this to the Bangladesh CAA and UK CAA when I returned from contract.

https://www.dropbox.com/s/3xbvk9xepnphm ... s.pdf?dl=0

Don't worry about the link, it's only the content of the report that's nasty . . .

OK Brian, and?

[Fox3WheresMyBanana]

It starts as kids.
There are a thousand little ways, and quite a lot of bloody obvious ways, that authority figures like parents and teachers avoid being questioned. It is really to me clear not long after entering a classroom to do an assessment whether a teacher is doing the interaction right. It isn't just whether questions are encouraged, it's how incorrect responses are dealt with, and it leads to a deep, subconscious approach to the whole business of interacting with other people. CRM training is wasting its time with a lot of people.

[Brian W May]

Ex-Ascot

Er . . . the title of the thread?

[Pontius Navigator]

RiS, we didn't have a CVR as such but a big reel recording tape. We had two intercom systems, Routine and Tactical with it routinely selected to Route. The instruction not to call heights from the back and the statement that it would be done on the flight deck was probably legitimate given there were 5 people on the flight deck.

What he didn't want was heights below our authorised minimum operating and altitude going on tape.

On a similar vein to the thread, on a much later sortie, we were doing a low probe in the Mediterranean over a very smooth sea. We were down at 200 feet which would put a wing down to 170-180 feet as we manoeuvered. Try as we could we could not do what we needed.

On the flight deck was an experienced 1P but the Captain was a more senior non-pilot down the back. Also down the back was the more senior still sqn cdr. Now we could do down to 100 feet if authorised. The SC pushed us to accept that he had given us verbal authorisation.

We did the job, we left wing tip wake in turns, and we survived. Had we smeared (autocorrect got that right) in it would have been pilot error and CFIT. The rules had omitted to state who could authorise that flight at 100 feet and it certainly wasn't the sqn cdr.

That was a classic CRM issue.

[Ex-Ascot]

Still can't get my mind around Kipper Fleet operations with the aircraft commander down the back. So if you are addressing the guy in the LHS what do you call him? Pilot? Guess so. At one point I had a boss (Wg Cdr) Nav. I self authorized and was the boss in the air. Actually also down route. It was never a problem. I think he liked to just sit back and be a member of the crew with no decisions to make. Great guy. Now owns a vineyard in France.

Was told/ordered to fly RHS VC10 on one occasion for the Stn Cdr who wanted to take some brass up to demonstrate AAR. He wasn't qualified on the C MK1 only the K. I wasn't qualified (refused to do) tanking. Can't recall who the brass was an AM or summat. We climbed to altitude and then the Stn Cdr started to fly towards another VC10. I kept declaring air miss. Then he tries to stick this huge pitot tube looking thing on the nose into a basket on the end of a hosepipe dangling behind the other aircraft. I couldn't watch. Neither could the AM, he was fast asleep in the jump seat. He woke up just before landing when the Stn Cdr decided that he was going to impress the AM by making a Royal/VIP type doors open arrival time. I advised him that it was not possible as we were running late. He said that he could make it by turning off half way down the runway. I told him it was not possible. But no he was the Stn Cdr. So he plonked it on the ground. Stood on the brakes so hard that the AM almost ended up across the central console. Turned off and got on stand just about on time. He had a big grin on his face, until the tyres started blowing. We lurched to one side. The AM didn't have so many steps as normal to go down to get off but nearly got covered in foam by the fire section. Guess who got to write the incident report and take it with his butty box to his office. Tried hard to keep the grin off my face.

[Pontius Navigator]

Did a nav refresher course back in 1966,my first time in the Dominie. We gathered and course commander said it's first name term:

I'm Tom, then Duck and Harry followed. We got to the wg cdr, Call me Sir.

Eventually we got to fly. Wg Cdr Sir Nav declared that as a kipper fleet captain he would be Captain. That he had self evidently come from a ground tour, had never flown on a Dominie or jet aircraft before made no difference.

[CharlieOneSix]

Still can't get my mind around Kipper Fleet operations with the aircraft commander down the back......

T'was sometimes the same in my time on Wessex anti-submarine helicopters. The one classic cock-up was on the day Ark Royal entered Devonport in '66 from the Far East. I had stayed on board as my fiancee was in town but the Squadron had disembarked a couple of days earlier to Culdrose.

As we approached Devonport a Squadron Wessex beat up the ship on its way from Culdrose to Fleetlands for major overhaul - the Aircraft Commander was the Observer who sat down the back. The beat up wasn't the issue though. The fuel system was pretty simple - when the front tanks read 800lbs transfer fuel until the rear tanks read 400lbs, then when the front read 500lbs transfer the rest from the rear.....only the single pilot up front forgot to do the transfer and when the engine stopped the helicopter ditched in the Solent. The Aircraft Commander - who couldn't see the fuel gauges - was court martialled - and the pilot received a severe bollocking. Not really a fair allocation of punishment but rules is rules.

[Rossian]

Why we ended up with rear crew captains was the RAF (and it would appear,the RN) decided that "captaincy" was indivisible. The USN in its wisdom had LHS pilot was the captain and was the patrol plane commander (PPC), the senior navigator down the back was/is the Tacco/mission commander (MC). PPC was responsible for the airframe safety and operation, the MC was responsible for the execution of the briefed mission. Personalities inevitably come in to play and sometimes the worst situation was when the PPC decided that he would run the mission without a proper sight of all the data and situation - the "I'm in charge syndrome".
Usually at a Nimrod brief we had a "cag" with inputs from all the significant crew elements and a plan would be aggreed which was then formally briefed to all the crew and any visiting firemen. The F/E left after the cag to go and prep the aircraft. Some execs complained that the "cag" was a bit of what the SAS call a "chinese parliament" I believe, but usually it came together as a coherent plan.
Which of course could all change out in the ocean when you get a change of task.
Fast jet chaps who came along sometimes were surprised at seeing a major task change "but who authorises this new task?" - "I do as I'm a self authoriser" "Yeah but you're not a pilot" "AND??"
The first sea lord who flew with us DID understand how it worked, ie if everything was plodding on OK he/I sat and watched knowing that if it all turned to rats, every eye in his OPs room and my aircraft would turn towards with the "What do we do now captain?" look in all the eyes. I learned that from sitting in the admiral's whitewood chair in the ops room of HMS Eagle on the receiving end of the biggest bollocking I ever had in 35 years as aircrew from said admiral. "Cheery aye aye sir"

The Ancient Mariner