Originally Posted by
Ollie Onion
And there is the fundamental difference, Practice to me is everything, reading ex charts, fuel planning, flying a SID, conducting an ILS flying the odd visual approach is ALL practice.
Here again you say it is everything, but elsewhere you say you do not hand fly. So does it include everything, or not?
When did just hand flying equate to ‘practice’.
It is specifically the topic of this thread.
As said above pilots who pride themselves on their frequency of hand flying are judging their jobs and ability to do it on a very very small component of the overall picture.
I have never once seen someone deny the importance of all the the other elements of airmanship, based on them being good at hand flying. Have you?
Everytime I go to work I am aiming at achieving the perfect flight….. I have never achieved it and the flight becomes practice so that next time I can try again. If I go 6 months without flying a manual ILS I don’t consider myself out of practice. I turn up to the sim and demonstrate my ability in that area and are judged to be capable of that skill amongst many others.
The one time in the sim makes you so capable of that skill, that you aren't willing to do it in real life? I don't buy it.
Originally Posted by
AerocatS2A
I think he’s saying we practice whatever it is we are doing. It’s not just manual flying skills that can be practiced. Effective management of automation is just as much of an art as hand flying. I’ve seen more pilots lose the plot trying to use automation than I have hand flying.
Are you suggesting that the industry is at a shortfall of practice at using the autopilot?
Given that 99% of the time is spent with the AP on, of course that's where you're going to see problems. How many problems with hand flying are you going to see starting from 1000 feet or less on the glideslope, with no configuration changes, already trimmed, with thrust already set (or even on AT)?