Originally Posted by
pineteam
Of course pilots should be able to hand fly in any conditions. I don’t expect my colleagues to fly as accurately as the AP but he should feel confortable at any time to disconnect the AP If required and fly within acceptable limits. But sadly many aren’t. Once a friend of mine was observing my flight; that’s part of the upgrade process. That day I was flying with a very weak first officer; one of the weakest actually: one of those guys who never ever hand fly. That day I was doing a raw data approach ( no A/THR, no bird) and to show my friend how nervous this guy was even in a perfect CAVOK day. I asked the FO to take control pretending I needed to adjust my seat. He had nothing to do really, only keep the same pitch and leave the leavers on Idle. We were still passing 6000 feet descending to 3000. As soon as he took control, I looked at him he was completely overwhelmed, nervous as hell and shaking. Not even 20 seconds later he told me very nervously: “Let me know when you ready to take control!” I then took control and told him that he needs to relax and at anytime he could practice raw data with me. He is a nice guy actually tho; I actually feel sad for him; but yeah you get the idea and this kind of weak pilots is not an isolated case. Some are even on the left seat and I bet you in your outfit too. Those guys are a timing bomb for the next air disaster but let’s keep denying it... SMH
Interesting story. My inner instructor would’ve come out, and I’d have let him hand fly for a bit to build confidence. Still, very sad that we’re discussing this though.