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 !!!!! 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.
Few points :
1) manufacturers create safe and efficient airplanes by using the best combination of technology available at that time and upgrading it as time goes by. They also train pilots -if required- to be competent and proficient.
2) You can't practice ALTN or Direct Law on the line for obvious reasons ; hence flying manually during normal line ops will generally do more harm than good (increases workload, reduces spare capacity for other tasks, etc..). It is beneficial -generally speaking- only in the case of cadets to get a better feeling on the machine.
3) From a training and confidence point of view, is it a good idea to visit the SIM twice a year for a total of 3 or 4 days ? NO.
BUT governing bodies across the world prescribe it as an acceptable minimum, and since operators do not like to throw money out of the window, they generally comply with that.
Think about crosswind landings : you can hand-fly as much as you like on the line, but if you never encounter crosswind conditions, it is likely that your crosswind landing technique will need a brush-up. The only way to practice it would then be in the SIM, otherwise when You are out and face a max crosswind landing when the toughest thing you have done in the past 6/7/8 months is 10 kt cross you will be definitely sweating.