Except, perhaps, for those infrequently encountered gifted souls who seem to have been born with a joystick in hand (I have encountered just two such pilots .. and don't they make mere mortals such as me envious) .. the majority of us have to work hard at acquiring and maintaining skills ..
I don't think that instinct has much of a role to play. For such as us, the aim is to move as much workload as is reasonable to the automatic cognitive level so that what little brainpower is left is maximised and available for thinking on the run .. hence the usefulness of simulator repetition skills exercises.
The sorts of exercises to which you refer are just that . .. and are intended to
(a) build skills .. both manipulative and planning
(b) expose the student to a bit of workload extension (and the majority relish this opportunity to test themselves a bit in a non-threatening cockpit environment)
(c) build confidence in the student's ability to handle high workload and unusual situations.
When it all turns to custard we are not looking for elegance (except from the aforementioned gifted pilots) .. rather a workmanlike and repeatable way of recovering from the situation.
Generally
(a) there are no magic formulae (although we all develop codified sets of "rules of thumb" to help us get by),
(b) we look for some understanding of what is going on
(c) there should be an emphasis on a healthy dose of risk management and mitigation to maximise the chances of a satisfactory recovery.
Often there are several ways to recover from a given situation .. the aim is not necessarily to demonstrate incredible prowess .. rather a "sensible" approach to managing and recovering from the problem. Sometimes a particular strategy fails, giving the student the opportunity to analyse what was planned against what was achieved with a view to obtaining a better result on the next try.
A good example of this is in the typical standby power emergency sometime after takeoff. Provided that the instructor doesn't give in to expediency and freeze and reposition for a practice approach ... but lets the student run with the problem, the student gets a close look at the quite significant difficulties associated with time management in the AC fail situation under non-visual conditions.
Your point about brain power (spare cognitive capability) is very important and the instructor bears a high responsibility not to overload the student to more than what he/she can reasonably handle. This may mean that the performance level in extension exercises has to be reduced, or the student given more time, etc. .. I suggest that this is an area where one glove does not fit all ....
I neglected to respond to one of Rob's comments in his earlier post ... the use of "standard" weight/cg operations in the sim is a bit silly, I suggest, and denies the student one of the sim's great values in exploring various areas of the operating envelope. While acknowledging that a sim is not an aircraft and the validity/fidelity question needs to be considered throughout, there is much benefit to be had in exposing the student to the range of weights from MTOW/max forward to minimum weight/max aft.
Last edited by john_tullamarine; 2nd February 2004 at 08:30.