Why is automation dependency encouraged in modern aviation ?

[Olympia463]

Hand Flying

I'm a glider pilot, a very old glider pilot in fact. I have 2200 sorties in my log book, on most of which I was hands on 100%, except when my pupil was doing the flying. Lest you think I never did long flights, I did stay up for 5 hours once in thermals (a Silver badge requirement), and made many many other flights in excess of three hours.. I retired from gliding over forty years ago, but in 2007, after a 30 year break, I went back to a local gliding club for a weeks flying to see if flying was like roller skating - something you never forget how to do. And it IS like roller skating - I re-soloed in the early part of that week and spent the rest of it cruising around the beautiful hills of Scotland. My point is that manual skills are never forgotten once you have them. But, and is is a big but. you have to acquire these skills. I would suggest that airline pilots should join a gliding club and either fly the gliders or tow them. I'd favour doing both actually. That way you will keep your manual skills in good trim. It is very significant that Sully was a glider pilot at one time, and the 'Gimli glider' was also conveyed to the ground in one piece by two ex-glider pilots. You could say that every flight in a glider is a controlled crash, but that isn't strictly true. Gliding is real flying - you become part of the plane - something you will never be if the plane does all the flying for you. Lest you think I flew only in good weather in the summer, I flew in every month in the year in the UK and in every kind of weather and had no accidents.

I hear the cry of you modern pilots missing the handling of the controls. The idea that automation will ever totally replace human pilots is rubbish, but you guys have got to make an effort to maintain your raw flying skills at all costs for the day or night when something you were not expecting happens.



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