Anti-collision mechanism

"Ramapriya" wrote in message
You know I'm not an aviator, but 40 secs don't appear that much. A few
secs to initially notice a warning and a few more till it properly
registers would take away much of the 40 secs.

For a crew that is trained to respond to a TCAS alert by instinct, 40
seconds is plenty.

Moreover, the pilots
could easily be doing other things at the time - a loo break, chatting
up passengers while on autopilot, munching a snack, even flirting with
a hostess (hope I don't get flamed for suggesting that )...

With a professional crew, only one pilot is chatting up the hosties. The
other is flying. A professional crew always has one of the pilots placing
his/her attention on the plane, even with the auto-pilot on.

and why is it that you don't have faith in automation, Bob? Not having
to use brains, and doing something by rote instead, isn't necessarily a
disadvantage always. The chances of a well-programmed software
consistently doing a collision avoidance routine correctly are better
than two pilots doing so, I'd imagine.

Bob understands the limitation of the equipment. It is great stuff. TCAS is
a huge inprovement in safety. However, it isn't infallible. I was on the
jumpseat last week when a fellow crew received a TCAS warning even though a
real threat did not exist. Well-trained pilots who are supplied with good
information will always be the best safety equipment.

For example- the A-320 you have experienced was designed so that idiots can
fly it. The idiots still manage to crash the A-320.

D.