A320 Captain laments the many changes to manuals; procedures; call-outs; and terminology that have come to his company since the introduction of the Airbus aircraft.

Narrative

On this flight and those of the past few weeks; I find that well after the implementation date of the major changes to our operating manuals; procedures; call-outs; and other terminology; I am failing make required calls at the correct time; or not at all. And when I do attempt to communicate with the Captain; I am frequently using incorrect terminology; or distracted with the effort. If it were only I having these problems; then it might be a deficiency of my own to blame; but everyone with whom I have flown has had the same problems. When we learn to perform a task one way; and then must learn that the first way was wrong and a new way is correct; the old ways are never completely forgotten and the new ways are never learned as well. When this error inducing process is repeated again and again; as we have done by repeatedly changing our procedures; as when I was introduced to the Airbus; the process gets more and more difficult and performance degrades. I believe that we have passed the point where our pilots can be expected; through self study and rote memory; to adopt more changes to the way we operate our aircraft. Further; I find that whereas I used to have a clear and thorough knowledge and understanding of our manuals and our procedures in their entirety; I now have a high degree of uncertainty in all phases of our operations. This causes further distraction when I must search through manuals for procedures that I should know. Though there may be many various reasons for making large changes to our operating procedures (economics; union negotiations; etc.) none should justify the reduction of safety introduced when the human factors of learning and performance are disregarded.