Looking at the above image – what is your first thought?
Great Scenary? Image for bragging rights? What is he
pointing at? Etc..
Having posted the image, I may have invited the wrath of
licensing authorities. When I took the image, it was pure adrenalin gushing
through my head as excitement and requested to be clicked as a memorabilia for
myself.
Reflecting back on this, I recalled many things which made me blog
about it.
It was a bright sunny day, I was accompanied by a very
senior Flyer in the hanger who later became an instructor and is now a First
Officer on A320 fleet of Air Asia, India. As I was accompanied by a senior
flyer, I decided to get adventurous. In my flight plan, I planned on flying
altitude of 7500 ft – however on this particular flight, I decided to go higher
to 11500 ft to experience what it would be like and took the necessary
permissions with Radar Controller and reached the level and this image was
taken. Great! Now let’s discuss about this image.
There are a huge load of negative things about this image –
However, the positives that can be gleamed are also worth the discussion.
Radio Telephony(RT) Aspect:
I would be verbose here with my RT calls I made that day as
I got some RT lessons directly from the controller that day.
Aircraft: HydCTRL VGE REQ CMB to
eleven thousand five hundred feet for one zero minutes.
Controller: VGE HydCTRL CLR CMB
to seven thousand five hundred feet (with a smirk).
Aircraft: NEG REQ
CMB to eleven thousand five hundred feet VGE.
Controller: VGE HydCTRL say
again REQ as one one thousand five hundred.
Aircraft: (Now I realized my
mistake) HydCTRL VGE REQ CMB to One One thousand five hundred feet for one zero
minutes.
Controller: VGE HydCTRL CLD CMB
to FL115
Aircraft: CLD CMB to FL115 – Will REP RCHG – VGE
Navigation Aspect:
The route I was flying was Eastbound heading hence as per
Semi-Circular Rule for VFR, the cruising altitudes can be Odd+500 ft only –
Hence the 11500ft.
The other mistake I did while climbing to FL115 was just
climbing on my QNH. While I was passing FL90, my senior flyer colleague
interjected saying you have been cleared to FL115 – Its flight levels, change
your Altimeter to QNE. I was lucky to have had been pointed that day but it’s a
good point to remember to change between QNH and QNE while passing above or
below Transition Level (TL for my AD Control area was FL80). My excitement made
me forget it 😒.
Engine/Technical Aspect:
The heavily re-bored engine of my aircraft was dragging to
climb the required height at this level. For the first time, I realized that
even an aircraft can move slower than a bullock cart(slowest mode of transport
– I have ever been). Technically speaking, the slow climb is due to two
factors:
1. The air density at that
level is low hence the engines though performing well cannot produce the
required thrust.
2. The aircraft engine is designed to operate optimally at
certain altitude and higher it does not give the best performance. The flight
level approaching was almost close to the ceiling levels of the aircraft(FL135
for C172) (the rate of climb reduces – again due to less air density)
Human Factors Aspect:
There is a significant difference bodily in terms of flying
at that altitude. Every human being will have their own effects – reinforces
that all of us are unique and special in our own way. Nothing can be termed as
undesirable/overly special characteristic. When I was at FL150 and while trying
to exactly keep my altimeter at that level – I was inadvertently climbing few
feet/descending few feet. This caused a slight irritation in my ear. This
prompted me to immediately request a descend to FL90 after few minutes. The
reason for the irritation in ear is due to the pressure difference at sea level
and at this FL(Read more on Barotrauma). Here I am re-iterating again, it could happen or not to an individual
– its entirely case by case. Normally, above FL90 a pilot can experience effects
of Hypoxia and hence should not be attempted Solo.
The air regulations aspect:
Firstly, as per Indian DGCA requirements, photography is
prohibited and requires permission to be taken from authorities for taking any.
However, I am posting this article and picture in an attempt to encourage
thought process around this very old rule with relevance to current scenario.
No attempt is being made to change any rules, but views presented so that all
stakeholders can together re-discuss this and come to a conclusion.
The first thing about photography and current day trainee
pilots is to take ‘selfie’ or a pictures with fellow pilots/their
bird(aircraft). The reaction is almost instantaneous. This can be attributed to
the availability of mobile phones with high end camera in everyone’s hand. So
for administrators, the first point of action employed was to ban taking mobile
phones with the pilot before going for a sortie. However, this proved
detrimental because for long cross country flights involving landing at other
aerodromes, taking permissions from Control towers etc was quite a challenge.
Also I read that mobile phone becomes a secondary ELT in case of a forced
landing/ditched landing and could help save precious time for SAR.
So the issue is about camera and Pilot. Camera is now an
integral part of every smartphone and current day Pilot requires a smartphone
to access weather, reports etc. In my previous job working for a mobile
manufacturer, I was aware of internal discussions around putting a front facing
camera too in addition to the rear camera. I must admit there were very
compelling arguments for both inclusion and exclusion (cases very similar to
the one we are talking) but end of the day it’s the customer/consumer who wins
and hence cameras were included. So here too specific changes cannot be
achieved.
So finally it comes down to the Pilot. Putting a blanket ban
on taking photos will it work? Is it practical? To understand this a bit more,
we need to delve into the mindset of the current day Pilot. Before we do that,
I would explain my frame of mind going into this clicking picture. All during
my training days, I was quite conscious about clicking pictures in the cockpit.
But I did have a picture taken and kept it to myself – this was purely for self
motivation. I felt it was very important for one to feel good and perform.
Besides that I never took any pictures at all when I was flying – only on
ground with fellow pilots and with bird. However, on the eventful day of the
flight, I performed a maneuver (ie. Climbing to a FL not performed by many of
my batchmates) which brought in a sense of elation and had the enormous urge
for a memorabilia – hence my request for clicking the picture. Comparing to all
my flying batchmates, being an older guy, I too had a fallacy. So given the
young pilot mindset it was obvious in the current trends of the world, it would
be extremely tough - not to make him click a picture. Besides, there could be a
need to show abnormal behaviours of certain instruments(like needle flickering
etc) and hence the need to click the picture.
Now let me put forward the argument for other spectrum of
this debate. If you had noticed, I deflected off the path grossly – Ofcourse
cloud was the initial reason was deflecting from the path but had it been a
normal clear day, the amount of deviation was excessive and slackness on my
part could also have enabled me not to course correct/find a better path closer
to desired track. A closer look at the tasks at hand at that point were – the
aircraft was not maintaining height due to less air density + clouds + offtrack
+ urge for clicking picture. In the melee, a poor decision resulted at that
point(This poor judgement could also be a side effect of Hypoxia).
As both arguments have been made – it could be seen as a
conundrum like many things in life. Finding the right balanced solution would
be an icing on the cake for everyone to enjoy!
Disclaimer: As the
topic is about understanding human and procedure, it should not be viewed in
commercial or legal ways. To be focused only on procedures, processes and
performance learning/improving aspects.
