पाप
से धरती फटी
अधर्म से आसमान
अत्याचार से कांपी
इंसानियत राज कर
रहे हैवान
The above lines made famous by
the “oye-oye” movie (which I’m sure still gives Gloria Estefan the heebie
jeebies) Tridev resonate like little earthquake shivers through the earth when
you see what the national carrier is going through off late. All in the name of
a Dream - A Dreamliner.
DISCLAIMER – Most of the
technical information in this is from my own knowledge and a couple of friends
who fly or are under training to fly the Dreamliner with airlines other than
Air India.
So let’s see why Dreamliner is
destined to give enough hiccups to the entire national carrier for a while.
Firstly, the premise of the
entire IPG strike was the fact that their cousins from the ICPA were being
allowed to run the dream without the necessary experience. The battle swords
were drawn and blood spilled all over the floor which will not be forgotten
easily. There is a lot of truth which is coming to the fore now, the proof of
the pudding is in eating it. Traditionally ICPA pilots have operated the Airbus
family (the 319, 320, 321 and the 330) which clearly runs by laws (normal,
direct, etc.) and has a high level of automation and it uses one very nice feature
where the aircraft flares on its own (through a set of reactions from the pilot
or almost, it is called Flare-Mode I think), hence over a period of time(15yrs+),
the Airbus pilots have indeed “forgotten” how to flare on your own decision
rather than wait for an input from the aircraft that tells you to flare. A
friend of mine from another middle-eastern carrier who will be in the 3rd
or the 4th batch is running scared on this account. I believe lots
of Airbus pilots are giving the Boeing instructors in Singapore nightmares in
the day when they don’t flare. Luckily it is still in the simulator. So the
ICPA pilots on the Dreamliner have had a few “hard” landings which have been
ignored as yet. But these are tell tale signs of what is to come. There are a
lot more issues that the Airbus guys have getting adjusted to the Boeing way of
doing things which is exactly why the manufacturer stipulated a much longer
(and more expensive) training for the Airbus pilots. The Middle-Eastern
carriers can afford this and have a well set pool of identified pilots to do
this who undergo an “orientation” before they are sent for the training.
Secondly, the Airbus 330
pilots from ICPA have really not operated any long sectors yet. They have done
a lot of switch-and-run sectors but really nothing long term on a pattern. I
believe the longest operated sector would remain Paris on the 330. Now here is
where I start to speculate. Crossing the North-Atlantic requires a basic MNPS
training and certification, this is specific to North Atlantic only and is a
part of performance based navigation. Most Air India pilots do this sector
every other week perhaps (AI101, AI102, AI191, etc.) and have this exposure and
training, however, the Indian Airlines pilots have never been through this,
which brings me to a very glaring loophole. Two Indian Airlines pilots operated
a delivery flight under the call sign (AIC170) on 18-Sep bringing VT-AND to
India. Now this involved a North Atlantic crossing, I am now beginning to
wonder how they managed that or were there Boeing pilots running that sector
with them. If they did indeed cross the North Atlantic it would be glaring
violation of the set protocol. By the way someone did post a picture of the ICPA operated AIC170 on 18-Sep did turn back after entering the MNPS portion and resumed its schedule only when it was back over the mainland. A quiet changeover from the ICPA pilots to the Boeing pilots? I don't know. Now I do see why the Air India pilots have an upper hand on this.
.jpg)
Figure 1 - An extract from the North Atlantic MNPS Airspace Ops Manual (2005 Edition)
.jpg)
Figure 2 - The actual flight path of AI-170 delivery flight (Snapshot courtesy - Flightradar24.com)
Thirdly, the gang at the top
which comprises of the “Tridev” are really not a liked bunch on either side of
the wall. There are rumours abuzz that the ICPA pilots have already refused to
fly with the “tridevs” on all occasions, and are flying with Boeing instructors
only. Their smug pictures on the newspapers have people even more miffed than
you’d imagine. The tridevs have been in management jobs for a while and let’s
be honest, have lost touch with flying. I’d wager a couple of bucks to see if
the total time the tridevs put together logged in the last year was 1000hrs. The
other day listening to “Year Indeeyaah Ate Jeero Three” on the frequency had me
in splits for a bit. It was quite evident that they were behind the aircraft
with the radio calls interspersed with a lot of “uhh”, “hmm”, “aan” sounds
while responding to the calls. I don’t blame them, they were doing management
jobs for a couple of years and this is the equivalent of a CEO deciding to
become a salesman again, you know how it’s done, but time has moved on the
rules of the game have changed. So it beats me why they chose to come back like
ghosts to haunt the fleet which has enough problems of its own already. Now the
tridevs have already done two of the three deliveries till now, which kind of
reminds me of the kid who likes to hog seats in a school bus. If they were
really management material, my better judgement says they would've given opportunities to
the other type rated captains and first officers to bring the aircraft on the
delivery run rather than hog it all for themselves. So there you go, they are
not really making any friends. To make things worse putting your own wife on
the type ahead of anyone else in my opinion reeks of nepotism more than
anything else. So technically all the
delivery runs (as of 10-Oct-2012) have been done ONLY by the “first” family of Air
India.
Finally, the entire integration process is still underway and seniority lists and other work is not complete yet. Why not go by the book instead of bringing in some people selectively and send them on these flights? A question worth asking is, barring the "Tridevs" who else has had the opportunity to operate sectors at will on this type? I have always said that I lost my friends to the fourth stripe, which in anecdotal terms meant the attitude that they gained when they went from being a first officer to a captain was mind boggling. Similarly, I find it weird that the "Tridevs" have chosen to turn on their own colleagues and friends who have stood by them from time immemorial.
The above are just an extract of the issues I believe will face the fleet in the near time to come and I can't see anyone with answers yet.
In conclusion I will quote the lines that complete what I started the blog with जिनकी
होगी ताकत अपूर्व
जिनका होगा निशाना
अभेद जो करेंगे
इनका सर्वनाश वो
कहलायेंगे त्रिदेव
