There really is a computer-generated cockpit voice command "Decide?" Sounds unhelpful...

I read an excerpt in the Wall Street Journal from a book on airline lingo (cite to come) that the autovoice (make? female?) has the one word command/helpful hint “Decide.”

The author said it had to do at a certain point of a land/don’t land maneuver.

I, for one, IANApilot, but I can think of better ways to use an annunciator.

And hell, if you’re going that way, “Decide” is a pretty useful and appropriate command at any number (if not all) moments where the machine thinks pilot intervention (uh, decision) is necessary.

Which kind of means that the spoken word, in this case, is as useful, or useless, as the word “Alert” or “Danger Will Robinsn.”

Are these pilot-information alerts approved industry wide? How much latitude to aircraft manufacturers have–say, a sales point will be the wonderful human-factors techno-loop etc. etc. built into their plane but not the other guy’s.

There must be cases equivalent to the famous “a door is ajar” warning, one of the first uses of vocal announcements in automobiles. (Anyone remember which car/company that was?)–announcements that serve merely to annoy, or worse, distract.

But pilots have to live with them.

I think the universal derision of “no, a door is a door” put an end to vocal awnings in autos, but I don’t know.

“Decision height” is the altitude at which you have the last chance to go around during a landing (below it you must land). A “decide” announcement at that time should present no confusion whatsoever to a (necessarily thoroughly trained and licensed) pilot.

So of all the possible “decision” points, among pilots there is only one “decision point?”

“Decision height” I get. Presumably there are other “Decision 's,” right?

There’s also a go/no-go decision during the takeoff roll. At that point, you have to decide whether to continue accelerating or get on the brakes. Beyond that point, you either take to the air (eventually) or run off the end of the runway because you don’t have enough room to stop.

In the article I had read it was specific to altitude:

from the article at aeon.com:

The parlance of pilots

Glider pilots have several decision points during take-off, dealing with what action to take if the tow-rope breaks. Below a certain altitude, just land straight ahead. Above that but below a certain higher altitude, do a steep 180 and return to the runway. Above that, fly the standard pattern (possibly quite low) and do a normal landing. Student pilots practice these things.

My story: The first time my instructor pulled a (simulated) rope-break on take-off, I should have done a 180 but didn’t understand how steeply I needed to turn. Half way around, the instructor took over, but she didn’t make it back to the runway either. We landed in the cow pasture at the end of the runway, and they had to fly in a tow-plane to get us out.

ETA: OTOH, when landing a glider, there are no go-arounds.

Thanks for the cite.

I guess the question(s) still stands. The other “decide” moments are deprecated in the loop?

And are they industry wide?

I don’t fly something that says “DECIDE”, the aircraft I’ve flown say “MINIMUMS MINIMUMS” when they get to the height set on the radio altimeter. In the end it doesn’t really matter what it says as long as it is unambiguous in context. It is merely a trigger, often a secondary trigger, for the pilots to do something.

In the outfit I fly for, a white “bug” is set to the decision altitude (typically around 200’ above the airfield) on the barometric altimeter and the radio altimeter is set to 150 feet which is always less than the decision altitude because we only do category 1 approaches.

During the approach, when we get to 100’ above the white bug, the non-flying pilot (PNF) calls “100 above”. The flying pilot (PF) checks that this is true and says “checked”. He/she also starts to glance outside more frequently in the hope of getting visual reference to the runway. At the white bug the PNF calls “minimum” and the PF looks out and if they can see the runway they say “visual” and they continue for a landing. If they can’t see the runway they say “nil sighting, going around” and commence the go-around procedure. Assuming they’ve called visual, shortly after at 150’ above the ground, the aeroplane will say “MINIMUMS MINIMUMS” and this is a last ditch cue for both pilots to confirm they are visual and it’s ok to continue for a landing. If they are still visual the PNF will say “visual” if they are not visual the PNF will say “go around”

This is the minimum babble required by the company and doesn’t preclude the pilot from calling “visual” at any point and discontinuing the instrument approach in favour of a visual approach or conversely deciding to go-around at any point if the required visual reference is lost or for various other reasons.

My point in all of this is that there is a rigid framework of procedures that pilots operate within (SOPs) and a lot of the procedural stuff involves expecting some kind of cue such as the other pilot or aeroplane saying or doing something and when that cue happens you do the appropriate action or say the appropriate words in response.

The aeroplane could say “PYJAMAS” at the decision height and, as long as that was what you were expecting it to say and you knew what that cue meant in terms of required actions from you, it wouldn’t make a difference.

There are pretty much just two arbitrary “decision points” in a flight. The decision to continue visually at the minimum altitude of an instrument approach, and, as Machine Elf says, the decision to continue the take-off at V1. The words at V1 are typically “vee one”, not “decide”. There are many other fuzzy decision points in a flight, the point at which you can no longer return to your departure airfield or enroute alternate and must commit to the destination for example, but there is only ever one time in a flight that you will hear “DECIDE”, or in our case “MINIMUMS”, so there is no possibility for confusion. We know what it will say, when it will say it, and what we must do in response.

To answer your question about whether they are industry wide standards, the answer is sort of but not really. There is some variation around what is said and who says it. There is also variation among manufacturers as to the words used by the aeroplane, but once in an airline a pilot will normally only fly one type for a number of years so they just learn the aeroplane’s quirks and adapt. They are all variations on a theme though, The aim of the game is the same and the methods are similar. Also if you stay with one aircraft manufacturer it is likely that the majority of the SOPs will be very similar if not identical.

Richard, I was waiting, and hoping, for you to arrive. Thanks.

[QUOTE=Leo Bloom]
There must be cases equivalent to the famous “a door is ajar” warning, one of the first uses of vocal announcements in automobiles. (Anyone remember which car/company that was?)–announcements that serve merely to annoy, or worse, distract.
[/QUOTE]

Airbusses say “RETARD” just prior to landing as a reminder to the pilot to close or “retard” the thrust levers (I don’t know the technicalities of exactly why this is important on the Airbus except I believe it is to do with the fact that the Airbus autothrottle system does not move the thrust levers while the Boieng system does.) It has been suggested that this is actually a non-PC comment on the abilities of the pilot conducting the landing ;).

Normally the aeroplane only says something if there is a valid safety case for it do so and the pilot needs the information. Situations such as a door that thinks it is a jar are covered by warning lights accompanied by a chime. The chime means “look at the warning panel”, and the panel tells you what is wrong.

A pleasure as always. Unfortunately as time marches on, the technology in modern jets is becoming far removed from the technology in my old 20th century jet. I fear in 10 years time I won’t have anything to add to these discussions.

I don’t fly, but i do something similar when I’m driving and approaching a stoplight. If the light is green but I think it may change soon, when I get close enough I’ll say to myself “commit” as a decision to go through the light even if it turns yellow. It helps me to verbalize that that decision had been made and I shouldn’t worry about it at the last second.

When I was doing the backseat photog thing with the Air Force, the actual voice was a woman’s voice. She was affectionately known as “Bitching Betty” and could say a number of things depending on the situation. I don’t remember her saying “Decide” but I haven’t flown in a fighter since 1992–maybe I just don’t remember, maybe it was added in the last quarter century or so.

I just had the image of someone recording the wrong “retard” in the system.

Someone: What do you mean all the pilots are up in arms about my error? I just did exactly what I was told!
Boss on phone: muffled-muffled-muffled
Someone: Oh! REH-tard!

There’s not a lot of difference.

Airbus retard callout.

Because Hell is other pilots.

Really, though, that’s the only word anything needs to say. Ever. In any context. It completely sums up the human experience and your situation, especially in relation to other objects, such as the ground. It really reminds you of your positional consciousness.

“…desire and decision (the two things that create a live world)…”

–Humbert Humbert

What I think is interesting, and under-appreciated in the industry, are the times you need to IGNORE what the plane is saying to you.

As Richard says above, you can have an instrument approach programmed into the aircraft’s automation, so it’s going to make the callouts it associates with that procedure. But then you go visual, which more or less negates the callout. I’ve seen some jumpy new guys nearly do the wrong thing in that situation, thinking they were still beholden to what the automation was telling them.

An example from my own experience: I was a new first officer, flying a slightly unusual procedure into a major US airport. The drill was to begin flying the ILS (in visual conditions) to an identifiable landmark (a bridge), then break off to the right and follow the city’s shoreline in a curved arc to land on another runway. It didn’t meet the criteria for a circling approach, it was purely a visual procedure. The guys at my company called it the “cowboy approach”.

I had seen it done a few times and then the day came for me to fly it myself (from the right seat, which was tricky because at the end of the right turn you had to bank smartly left to make the turn to final). A kindly, experienced captain agreed to talk me through it.

What I failed to appreciate the times I had observed this approach was that the automation went absolutely ape-shit because:

1: You make a turn away from the ILS approach course
2. Being so close to the shoreline of a major city, it thinks you’re going to hit a building

Add to this that on my day the tower controller wouldn’t shut up about some traffic to a parallel runway he wanted us to get in sight. So here I am, flying this dicey (to me) approach, trying to listen to the captain, trying to ignore the controller (captain’s job in this scenario) and desperately trying to ignore the airplane yelling, “TERRAIN, TERRAIN - PULL UP! PULL UP!”

It worked out OK, but I was at my maximum usable bandwidth. And I learned from that just how carefully you need to think about what’s going on in that kind of scenario. Fortunately, at my current company we don’t do those sorts of approaches.

Actually sounds like fun after you learn it.

What if I choose not to decide?