B-757 Captains during my 757 FO years (over three) sometimes hand-flew the plane to above FL 180 in good weather (but not on the east coast). Is this a disturbing thought for anyone? By the way, if you see a Resolution Advisory on the IVSI, you can react much quicker and better. As usual, this topic on Pprune might not apply to the pilot culture in the US. In the 1980s, pilots hired by major airlines here all had about 3,000-6,000 or more hours if from a transport background, and often 1,500-3,000 if they flew military trainers/tactical jets/small turboprops (i.e. T-34 or OV-10). In the 90s, most transport guys/gals (gals at my company) had at least around 4-5,000 hours, for the most part. They are our ("my") FOs .
Therefore, unless one was trained to avoid hand-flying in the simulator during Initial Training, i.e. using MCP/FMC modes for Cat 2,3 ILS and certainly " VS mode" for ALL non-precision approaches, a pilot always had a very solid background to lean on. Maybe the Airbus philosophy, being foreign, assumes that pilots will always use as much automation as possible? For many, older and even younger pilots, figuring out combinations of Boeing autopilot/flight director/autothrottles was a challenging experience. They never had a problem with real hand-flying, as long as they could guess which power setting to use (if autothrottles inop. per MEL, or not) and the non-flying pilot kept up with FMC and MCP changes plus radio calls and checklists during climbs and descents
. "On a 'two to go' callout, how do we reduce thrust for a modest climb rate and avoid an abrupt level-off"? "Oh, somebody said to set the Vertical Speed mode and use 1500-2,000 fpm, etc!"
Reading Pprune, I'm always baffled by the fact that many foreign airline cultures tend to discourage hand-flying the plane. Is this in lands which have little general aviation, due to weather and very high cost? The ironic point for laymen is that until one gets used to most modern transport aircraft, the automation is NOT at all automatic-modes and changes are constantly required. The airplane does NOT know what we want to do, or change
. There can be three vertical and three or four lateral navigation modes (enroute or approach). We must tell it at what point we need to be at i.e. 12,000' and 250 knots etc. Due to the constant need to extend speedbrakes, it takes a good bit of getting used to, due to the fact that they are difficult to descend and slow (757 and A-320).
Do many Fleet Captains and Chief Pilots not have faith in their line pilots, or do they feel that mgmt is not getting the most value from the airplane, or both? Do they only trust their standard operating procedures, or should developing pilot judgement and experience not translate into long-term safety, provided the traffic and weather situations/terrain are near optimum, along with normal system operations?