411A
You would appear to have absolutely no conception whatsoever about the modern, (and that excludes the L1011), two crew automated cockpit.
In order to obtain certification for most of the modern, automated 'glass' cockpit aircraft flying to-day the manufacturers had to introduce sufficient automation to enable the Flight Engineer and his panel to be removed. In order that the aircraft can be flown properly, in all conditions, both normal and abnormal it essential that the crews maintain a very high degree of competence in operating the automatic systems so that when things go wrong or the workload gets high they can smoothly and efficiently conduct a safe operation. This is unlikely to happen if a pilot decides to dispense with automation and hand fly as they will then require continuous monitoring whilst calling out instructions and requesting various checklists from the other pilot who will be covering the R/T, executing the required changes to the FMC and and MCP and doing abnormal check lists at the same time.
Practise hand flying by all means to cover the very rare occasion when you have no alternatives but please try and remember that with the passing of the flight engineer and the introduction of high levels of automation flight deck philosophy has also changed.
Last edited by BlueEagle; 12th November 2003 at 05:25.