Originally Posted by
Tee Emm
The flight director is amazingly accurate provided the information sent to it is correct. But you don’t need it for all stages of flight. Given wrong information and followed blindly, it becomes a fatal attraction. Yet we have seen in the simulator a marked reluctance for pilots to switch it off when it no longer gives useful information.
Instructors are quick to blame the hapless student for not following the FD needles. This only serves to reinforce addiction to the FD needles as they must be right because the instructor keeps on telling them so. For type rating training on new pilots, repeated circuits and landings sharpen handling skills. Yet it is not uncommon for instructors to teach students to enter waypoints around the circuit and then exhort the pilots “Fly the flight director” instead of having them look outside at the runway to judge how things are going.
First officers are a captive audience to a captain’s whims. If the captain is nervous about letting his first officer turn off the flight director for simple climbs or descents, or even a non-threatening instrument approach, then it reflects adversely on the captain’s own confidence that he could handle a non-flight director approach himself which he probably can't. . The FAA has already acted belatedly in publicly recommending that operators should encourage more hand flying raw data if conditions are appropriate. But switch off the flight directors if you want real value for money, particularly with low-hour pilots. It may save lives on the proverbial dark and stormy night and the generators play up.
Very well said, sir. Could not agree more.