Originally Posted by
Uplinker
+1 vilas. The pilot must maintain their scan of basic parameters even with the autos in.
I agree with
vilas in theory. AP on or off, your scan shouldn't change.
Now let's take a step into reality. It does. I'll admit that I've flown approaches where I didn't know what my speed or N1 was, because the AT was on. Now imagine I'm the sort of person who never turns off the AT- it won't take much to overload me on the day that it fails.
I wonder how some of us ever got through an instrument rating checkride in a piston single where the only automation was a mode C transponder.