Originally Posted by
KayPam
(Does boeing allow to fly a RNAV trajectory on raw data only?)
But didn't manufacturers (at least airbus) create incompetent pilots by depriving them of the means to fly 95% of the trajectories that they fly ?
The industry as a whole encourages to use automatics because they have a precision that pilots will never have. But this does not mean that pilots should not practise their skills to the best level that they can.
Why ?
You've seen that you can do it.
I've seen many pilots do it. The first captain that I flew with after my line check disconnected everything while in descent FL100. (He was able to do that because we not flying an RNAV trajectory obviously..)
And if you don't do it enough, your skills will erode.
The one thing that I learnt during basic IFR training is that manual flying takes less and less resources the more you do it.
It should indeed be mandatory to know how to handle things manually, to be able to detect when the FG does sh*t and to handle the situation correctly when it goes wrong.
What if a pilot that never flies manually encounters a situation where the airplane reverts to direct law ? It happens, just any failure downgrading to alternate, then gear down will leave you in direct law.
However, I disagree about the sim part.
Flying raw data in the sim is good practise for real flying. The only problem is the amount of sim practise. Two line checks per year, the majority of which is spent managing failures (leaving only 2 hours of manual sim flying per pilot per year) is obviously not enough.
But if you work tens of hours in the sim (in combination to normal line flying), you will be a decent pilot in the aircraft.
When my colleagues and I did our base training, we had spent 16 hours each (or so) preparing for it in the sim. When we touched the real aircraft for the first time, the most surprising thing was the ground handling qualities (Airbus itself admits that they don't really study "ground handling qualities"), not the stick and rudder part. We were obviously not perfect, but we all had a decent level, at least given the fact that we never had touched a jet aircraft before.
To your point on simulators, I actually don’t do much “flying” in the sim. AP on ASAP and off as late as possible. The sim doesn’t fly like the real plane. I’ll do the required manoeuvres manually in the sim, but otherwise, AP please.