Originally Posted by
Centaurus
(quote):
The following statement is from an earlier Pprune contributor. I don't know the date of the original post or even which forum or the author, but in my book it should be kept in every pilots navigation bag and shoved in the face of any pilot (first officer or captain) that baulks at a reasonable request to switch off the flight director and practice hand flying.
"Raw data as a competence demonstration is intended to check a fundamental ability to fly some procedure at the lowest level of instrument display required to be provided in the aircraft.
Thus, no flight suggester, no thrust management slave, no 'noughts and ones' translating input data and no stress-relieving flight control manipulator. Just that most elusive of skills, manual flight on basic instruments." (Unquote)
Perhaps the operative words being "a fundamental ability to fly."
The contributor you quote is saying that we should all be able to fly an aircraft with very basic controls - not even FBW, which is fair enough - yes we should, and when it all goes wrong that is what we have to do.
But do we drive our cars holding a paper map or remember the route like a taxi driver, or do we use Sat Nav? Do we go down to the local library to look up information, or do we Google it? Do we use a fully manual film camera and a hand held light meter, setting the shutter speed and f-stop, or do we use an automatic digital camera? Do we keep a little black book of all our contacts' phone numbers or do we use our smart phone?
Technology has moved on, and there are better, more reliable and more efficient ways of control, than there were in the 1950's. (Even cross-channel ferries use autopilots, and they are moving quite slowly!)