Automation on the flight deck?

[-<M4v3r1ck>-]

Hello,

In these days of increased automation and less and less air to move about in, I would be interested to know, on average, how much time (and/or which stages of) a passenger airliner's flight is flown manually? I undertand that company SOPs will probably dictate the amount quite a lot. Of course, the type of aircraft and weather etc.will also be a factor so I know its hard to gauge an "average" but what, to you, is a fairly realistic proportion? Say for a typical fairly new Boeing or Airbus?

I ask simply out of interest and as I plan to start my PPL this summer and hope to go commerical after that. I think I hav a fairly good idea of the answers I'll get but it can't hurt asking the people at the pointy end!

Thanks for any input :ok:

Mav

P.S. I get the impression that most pilots resent too much automation as it degrades their manual skills which are important when things don't go exactly to plan?

[*Lancer*]

All of the cruise, generally half/half for climb/descent, and about 5% of landings from what I've seen. It will vary between different pilots, and different SOPs though.

[wobblyprop]

From a friend of mine :

out of stansted autopilot on as soon as possible ~1000ft. It's busy and manually flying means the guy not flying has to deal with the autopilot as well as radio etc - one armed wallpaper hanger i think is the expression.

A return leg from somewhere like murcia/jerez he'll happily hand fly up to 20,000ft

Hope that helps

[-<M4v3r1ck>-]

Pretty much as I imagined. It's nice to have a feel for the spread of duties though.

Thanks,

Mav :ok:

[alexban]

manually: (on 737)
on takeoff untill 5000-10000'
on landing below 2000-1000' .More than 90% landings done manually ,
(we know the AP can do it,let's see if we can do it :o )
Hy

[overstress]

BA A320 ex-LHR:

Anytime 5 sec after lift-off to whenever (latest 160ft in Cat 1) on the final approach.

The more handflying you do, the more degraded is the operation. Sad, but true of complicated airliners containing SESMA.