Originally Posted by
neville_nobody
Somewhat ironic that about 75% of this thread would get you demoted if you tried it on today. Imagine 787 captain turning off the autopilot at FL420 just to test out his scan rate! The safety department would go mental. The regulator would be calling for blood. Emails galore with the AIPs/CAO/CARs/Ops Manuals cut and pasted into them pointing out the myriad of laws broken.....
neville et al,
And the result ----- HCPT-wise, the result in this "automatic" day and age, is that pilot in-flight loss of control is top of the list, or No.2 on many regulator's lists of major threats to aviation risk minimization (aka air safety)
This was not the case in the "bad old days", when pilots could demonstrate their ability to hand -fly their aeroplane in every corner of the flight envelope.
See, among other places, FAA, NTSB and Flight Safety Foundation web sites.
Even Airbus (see A350 training syllabus and associated explanatory material) have finally realized pilots must be able to "fly the aeroplane".
Tootle pip!!