Originally Posted by
macdo
Its a No on that one, the manuals clearly state that if the FD's on they should be followed to avoid a conflict between what the FMGS is commanding the Athr to do and what you are flying manually, it can get embarrassing . The normal case is to switch the FD's off during manual flight if flying visually automatics off. If you have a full and comprehensive knowledge of how the AP/Athr/FD/FMGS and Side Sticks all inter relate with each other then what you are doing in the departure is OK-ish if not sanctioned. If you want some real excitement try a FD off manually flown SID. Tried it once, didn't like it! :-)
That said, I just remembered that at LGW there was a SID that we were told to manually start the turn inside the FD bars command so that we complied with the noise abatement measurements. It would always flag up a noise transgression if you left NAV to do its work!
We didn't have any problem at all with conventional SIDS all manually, during MCC course (all manual = FDs off, of course, manual flying with FDs on is being a flight control actuator rather than a pilot)
But how can you fly an RNAV sid without FDs ? If you don't have any deviation indication, except the ND map ? I never encountered the case.