Originally Posted by
anotheruser
I've always wondered what autotrim is good for. I mean, trimming is not that difficult, is it? You do it with your thumb, instinctively, mostly subconsciously. But it gives you a feeling for your airplane, how it naturally reacts to thrust and configuration changes etc. Through everyday practise, that knowledge will be more than just learned and trained, it will become engraved into your mind and you will be able to apply it without actually having to remember and think about it. There have been occurences in which pilots brought a crippled airplane back under control by lowering gear, using thrust, extending flaps etc. They did that intuitively because they knew how their plane would react to this. Would pilots that never trim their airplanes outside the sim be able to do that?
Fair points.
With my engineer's hat on though, since my distant C152 days I personally have always thought that the need to trim aircraft for speed ought to be designed out, (and ditto the pitch-power couple).
If, owing to a quirk of physics, our cars veered to the right with increasing speed, and to the left with decreasing speed, we would all get used to trimming them to keep straight, but it is so much nicer not having to do that and having a neutral steering wheel at all speeds.
Likewise, the Airbus FBW is really lovely to fly without having to trim all the time. I have passed 7 commercial type ratings so far, 5 that needed trimming, 2 that have auto trim. I much prefer those with auto trim !