Originally Posted by
krismiler
Once I’m flying 2-3 days a week and I’m back up to speed again, I’ll consider a bit of manual flying in the aircraft. Every recency sim I’ve done has included an engine failure after V1 and a single engine landing, I’ve had more asymmetric practice in the last year than anytime since I did the endorsement. I’m perfectly comfortable with the automatics switched off in the sim where there are no consequences if a practice session goes a bit wrong.
At the moment I’m flying very conservatively, early descents, configuring early, fully stabilised by 1500’ and staying out of the monthly safety report will do me.
I appreciate your frankness. I'm sure there are lots of pilots who agree with your view. And as you stated, we're all sitting at different levels of comfort. The highlighted bit is concerning though. Why not take that same confidence to the plane? Let's say you go fly and turn off the automation, and wind up unstable- go around and try again. No harm, no foul. The only inconvenience is you get to the gate 10 minutes later.
And that's assuming you really mess it up. More likely, if anything, it's a messy approach, and you attribute it to a lack of recent experience. You'll walk away with a bit more confidence and skill. Next time, it'll be better. The last person asked an important question. What if on your 3rd flight back, you have to fly without the automation? What's the outcome then, when you've squandered the first two opportunities to polish your skills?
As
Bob Viking said
In my flying world we constantly try to do the hardest thing we can to make the routine things easy. ‘Train hard, fight easy’ is the mantra.
Again, I'm not picking on you personally, as I'm sure tons of pilots have the same concerns (I do too), but after a major interruption such as this, I think we need to have an open (and perhaps difficult) talk about maintaining our skills so that the next emergency doesn't catch us in a deficit.