Originally Posted by pontious
Whether you're flying manually or have the A/P engaged. So why leave it engaged with A/P but not when manually flying?
I wondered at this too, sometime back, and wondered if it was somehow tied into the whole automatics usage. Either all, or none.
When I was first flying 737(NG and Classic) nearly a decade ago (ouch), there were many proponents advocating leaving auto throttle engaged at all times, and active, even during the flare. Others who would use speed off (armed, for etc)
Later, it was manual control- then manual thrust. Autopilot on, then auto thrust ( unless it's not working, which happened several times).
There's numerous contradictions scattered through this concept, and I for one have never fully subscribed to the philosophy, although I will abide by the SOP.