Quote:
Originally Posted by vheissu  On a Visual Approach?? |
Especially on a visual. Usually. At my airline we are required to brief at least the basics of the instrument approach when it is a visual. What nav-aids we will be using, etc. It has been my experience that guys doing a purely visual without using the backup instruments will almost always screw it up. They'll get too low or high, slow or fast without at least trying to hit the already established points on a published approach.
Another anecdote and why I never do a pure visual unless it is the last resort; when I was an F/O we were going into LAX late one night. We were doing the visual to 24R and 24L was closed for construction so all the lights were out on that runway. The captain had the ILS tuned up, the flight director on and everything else that we always do. But he lined up on the public street that runs parallel to 24R because he was so used to seeing two sets of lights and that road looks just like a runway from a few miles out. I told him he was right of course, the ILS was showing right of course and the flight director was commanding a left turn. All of that still didn't give him a clue. He insisted he was lined up perfectly for 24R. So we kept going for that road and I again told him he was lined up on a road to the north of the airport. He insisted I was wrong. I asked him to look at his ILS and FD and trust them and not his eyes. By that time we were on about a 1 mile final and he finally decided that maybe he was confused. On about a 1/2 mile final he finally saw the runway and the road became obvious. He was looking out the window the whole time. I was looking inside the whole time. That's why I don't look out the window.
Same with traffic most of the time. The TCAS sees the traffic long before I ever can and it gives me altitude and distance on the scope on the panel. My eyes aren't that good. Every time I have been the non flying pilot and we get a traffic resolution I have had to assertively command the flying pilot to follow the directions the TCAS is exhorting. They always say they see it but I say that what they are looking at might not be the problem traffic.
Of course, there are always exceptions and I do use my eyes and look outside and double check everything but the information presented inside the cockpit is almost always more accurate than your eyes. I trust that stuff when I'm IMC and on CAT III approaches so why wouldn't I trust it when it is visual? If you use what you have in the cockpit and have it set up right it will always take you to where you want to go. I use my outside visual cues as a backup and not a primary source of information.