Originally Posted by
stilton
Is the Airbus really that magic you only have to fly two approaches manually per year to be ‘top notch’ ?
I find that extremely difficult to believe
Only flown Boeing and Douglas but I didn’t know a single pilot who could claim that credibly
Airbus with stick free maintains 1g flight and wings level or whatever bank pilot has given. So in airbus FBW you don't fly but make changes and aircraft will maintain that unless pilot changes that again. Stick has no feed back. It's left alone most of the time. When one flies raw data very infrequently it's the instrument scan that deteriorates and creates problem as long as scan remains OK average performance is possible. B737 flight path is speed stable and changes pitch with speed and thrust changes which need to be countered and manually trimmed. For that reason there's tactile feed back in form of q feel is provided. Infreqent handling caused this feel also to deteriorate along with scan. B737 won't maintain bank either or wings level beyond it's stability. So yes, A320 needs much less handling practice. How less depends on individual skill.