+1 vilas. The pilot must maintain their scan of basic parameters even with the autos in.
Like when driving a car, where one should check the rearview mirrors every 10 seconds or so; pilots should regularly glance at the instruments. Even on auto at FL410 at 30W with nobody else in the sky, one should glance at the PFD and ED regularly - looking at pitch, roll, speed and V/S, and the engine parameters.
The problem of pilots unable to hand fly seems much worse than I imagined. The F/O who trembled when given control for 20 secs in the descent, the F/O who was scared to fly into IMC - they should not have been in the cockpit in the first place - how the hell were they allowed in there? How did they pas their captain's incapacitation detail and raw data hand flown approaches in the SIM?
PilotLZ
Tightening the regulatory requirements for manual flying proficiency sounds tempting right until you realise that it can also backfire. For example, if you require a pilot to perform a raw-data approach every X days, how can you be certain that, during a period of low flying activity, his/her only flight won't be in conditions where flying raw-data is not appropriate? Hence, I don't think that hard-and-fast rules are the best way forward.
You don't specify every x days, you require x approaches within every 6 month period, exactly like we did with practise autolands.
That way, on the very busy approach, on the bad weather day, on the long tiring multi sector day, you don't do it. But on the nice day when things are quiet-ish and both crew are feeling fine, then go for it. As pilots see that the Chief pilot is encouraging them to practise hand-flying, personal confidence will build; flying skills won't go so rusty and the fleet will improve its competence.
Only a tiny minority of pilots will regularly voluntarily practise their raw data flying - it's human nature. There has to be some sort of mandate from the CP to push us all into doing this.
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