Originally Posted by
PEI_3721
KP, yes inappropriate correlation, not cause or effect, but 'related' - associated; instruments and flying aircraft.
'… pilots have all of the skills … '. Accidents suggest otherwise, not weak manual skills, but inadequate situation assessment and choice of action.
An alternative view of manufacturing might be that modern aircraft have been designed for the primary task which is heavily automated - safer, but sufficient for manual flight, but not necessarily with the same accuracy depending on the situation; no AP, FD, RNAV could require a Pan call.
I did not say pilots have all the skills, I said they should have them, which is a slight difference.
Many accidents reflect loss of awareness about automation, and reluctance to takeover swiftly.
Why design it for "sufficient" in manual flight, instead of "optimal" ?
They litteraly have thousands of engineers, for design and certification, and dozens of test pilots (cat 1 and 2) and maybe hundreds of airlines pilots (flight operations department)
With no crosstrack deviation in RNAV, you can't fly an RNAV approach in case of loss of FDs. So suppose you fly into an airport without conventional arrivals (which could happen in the near future due to the attrition of conventional means, or is even already the case at somes places?), with an FD failure you're now pan pan. But if the aircraft was designed differently, it would be a seamless reversion to manual flight.
The subject should not be seen as hand flying or not, pilots should hand fly; instead it questions why some views believe that more manual flight will improve expertise required to manage different situations.
Where does that come from ?
Opportunistic flying in low workload conditions can improve confidence, self esteem, and refresh existing skills in that operation. However, this is unlikely to improve the expertise required in other flight areas or managing abnormal situations.
I wonder how you got there. The point of practising manual flying is to improve manual flying.
The 9 competencies are, as you know if you use this model, manual flying, automated flying, procedures, knowledge, decision making, SA, communication, workload management, leadership and teamworking.
It is obvious that flying manually will not make you gain knowledge or help you remember the procedures.
However, it has to beneficial side effects, in my opinion : better workload management (because of a higher workload which will make you practise this competency) and situational awareness, for the precise case of awareness of the aircraft.
Someone who is used to flying manually knows very well how the different flight parameters should behave. If the automation starts to do something unwanted, they will very easily catch that there is something odd. It is basic flying skill, but some accidents demonstrated that they sometimes caused a problem. The most iconic one, in my opinion, is the Emirates go around without power.