Originally Posted by
Fursty Ferret
One of the best comments I've read here.
Flight Directors are suggestions, not commands.
Indeed, FDs are just an aid. What I found about FDs is that in a crew where SOPs and CRM are
proper - the need for Flight Directors is little.
Such need arises when one crew member is doing something that the other didn't expect, and the FDs is the aid to bring them back in sync. Most of the time, the "intervening" crew member would be the Captain, and the "lagging" crew member would be the cadet, so the Captain would tell him "follow the flight directors!". Should they've followed their PF/PM roles properly, the Captain would say "adjust speed" rather than adjusting the knob himself.
Unfortunately, many Captains are feeling free to "correct" their peer by intervention, which isn't a good practice (unless he does some hazardous ****, of course). Letting him do his job as good as he can would be more productive, reducing the need for flight directors. Flight directors is not a workaround for poorly trained crew but for poor CRM - in my humble opinion.