Flight Director distraction during recovery from an unusual attitude
In a 737 simulator recently. The exercise being recovery in IMC from unusual attitudes. The exercise started from level flight, flight directors on and autothrottles engaged. During the initial identification of the UA, the flight director indications were invalid with needles all over the PFD. This is to be expected. But what should you do about it? You could leave the FD's on while trying to ignore the invalid indications as a momentary distraction. Or you could switch off the FD's and remove the distraction.
The interesting part in this case, was the PF instinctively attempted to chase FD "commands" to force the aircraft right side up (for want of a better description). The PF later said the FD indications were so compelling he found himself trying to satisfy their commands instead of "looking behind" at the ADI 'little aeroplane' to gauge the correct attitude. He put this down to company SOP that FD's must be switched on for all phases of flight and commands followed.
Some operators require the FD's to be switched off during a TCAS RA to avoid distraction from unwanted commands. Perhaps the same principle should apply as the first action in identification of an unusual attitude identification. After all, it takes only a second or two to switch them off leaving a "clean screen" to focus on the ADI symbol? Comments invited.