Originally Posted by
AerocatS2A
This is all true, but it is not fixed by manual flying in the cruise. It is tedious and trivial to fly straight and level. To keep your scan sharpish you need to fly manually in a dynamic situation, take-off and approach for example, even that is not particularly taxing.
When I did my 146 upgrade line training, I had something like six sectors that had to be flown manually due to various autopilot failures. It was not in anyway difficult and I am not one who “practices” manual flight as I think it is a waste of time, you can either do it or you can’t. The problem is that a number of pilots could never do it and increased automation means their lack of basic skills remain unexposed for years. All that manual practice does it’s lets you know which of your colleagues can’t fly, it doesn’t do anything to improve their flying.
I tend to agree but there are ways to improve psycho-motor skills. There is plenty of research out there to show that using a PC based flight simulator can help if you are deficient in this area.