Of course 'manual flying' increases workload. Autopilots were 'invented' to reduce workload. But the workload increases when the pilot(s) are out of practice with hand flying. What is the saying? "Practice makes perfect". Airlines that are discouraging the practice are increasing a potential safety risk for one day when the automatics fail. (I heard an airline's Flight Op Director once say "If I hear of any captain saying we don't hand fly in this airline, I need to put him right" -- that practice is important.) Many years ago I flew with someone who was hand-flying entire sectors regularly (OK, only about an hour length each...) and this prompted me to 'reciprocate'; after a short while we were both very proficient and accurate with our workloads coming down to near the levels of automated flight. "Practice makes perfect"! (It was a bit more tiring though, those autopilots were invented for a good reason!)
(My bolding)
Or, as a very pragmatic DAME once observed during a renewal, when I jokingly queried why he was putting me through the (cold) stethoscope thing, ... "if I don't practice them, I lose the skillset elements". l think the comments from the previous post are extremely relevant to the philosophy of things.
I am not suggesting that one should necessarily do this or that - for such is the province of regulatory oversight and operator SOP, especially for routine operations.
However, it is a lemma that those who practice intelligently and regularly generally get good at what it might be that they practice. Those who don't practice, often get very bad at what it might be that they don't practice .. especially when Murphy conspires to put them in a situation where they have no option but to demonstrate either their competence or lack thereof. Most will be aware of the longstanding aphorism, variously attributed to a variety of folk including Gary Player, Charles Goren, and others - when asked how it is that they are so routinely lucky in their chosen activity, the response is along the lines of "the more I practice, the luckier I get".
The guy impressed me when he said that he flies the A320 quite happily at 30-35kts above VMO all day
.. but probably displays a lack of certification knowledge and regulatory compliance discipline. I would have been more impressed had his observation been along the lines of "it isn't going to cause a problem if Vmo is exceeded for a short period, but I won't intentionally permit it to occur unless specifically authorised".
I am presuming that the Airbus is aligned with the usual Vmo/Mmo requirements as, for example, in FAR 25.1505 (
https://www.ecfr.gov/cgi-bin/text-id...11505&rgn=div8)