This really should be two threads: 1 - Discussion of handflying and skills associated with all aircraft except the Airbus. 2 - Airbus !!
I have just converted onto the 32x series, with around 3000 hours on 757/767. I now have 300 hours on the mighty Bus and offer the following.
Firstly, you don't hand fly it, except in manual reversion as discussed earlier. It's pretty much control wheel steering which is an autopilot mode on many other aircraft. The same decisions and calculations have to be made (i.e., where to point it, how quickly and how high/low), but once you have established this, you take your hand off the stick, gently bumping it to correct deviations from your intended path.
This still requires the same skill and judgement as in other aircraft, but it's not a mighty display of crossed-controls and hundreds of little inputs on the column. Same result, different method, but I suspect after 3000 hours on the Bus, my conventional aircraft skills are going to be pretty much stuffed and I'll have to relearn how to fly every other type ! Pilots who have came straight out of flying college onto this thing are not going to have the stick 'n rudder skills that other pilots may have accumulated.
Secondly, the autopilot does a better job than we do in most normal scenarios. Sure, it doesn't cope well with extreme weather conditions, but overall you give your pax a more comfotable ride if you leave it in !
I feel a little programmed out of the loop with the Airbus. The auto-throttles, sorry, auto-thrust system doesn't move the levers, so I need to be heads-in to see what power setting I have. I can't think of another aircraft that doesn't couple the auto-thrott..thrust system to motors to give the pilots feedback. The distance of travel of the levers is too small to allow precise adjustments of power. It's exactly what someone else was saying earlier - these are not Dakotas with wire controls and I don't feel heroic turning off the FDs, the AT and poling it about.
Now, before I get accused of starting an off-topic, anti-Airbus thread... I'm not. The aircraft is just different from everything else, and achieves the same job in a different way, but I feel it is definitely biased towards being operated automatically; it can become a bit of a pain when you turn everything off....
I liked taking the automatics out on the Boeing. I knew that the deflection of the controls corresponded to the input I gave them. I could anticipate gusts and smooth out the ride. I could operate it to the manufacturers limit with confidence.
With the Airbus, I have no idea what the control surfaces are doing compared to stick input - the aircraft picks its own wing up for me in gusty conditions, not allowing me to really feel what's going on and I am always reacting 'after' the event, rather than anticipating it.
Perhaps this will change as I get more experienced on type, but I feel that the 32x series is designed to be flown on automatics. On the day that every computer system fails, you get a trim wheel and a rudder. Time to brief the cc for the crash and hope it's your lucky day.
Me, I'm going to buck the trend of the thread. Had this come round six months ago, I'd have been with y'all on the 'huzzah, FDs off, raw data NDB to minimas and home in time for tiffin', but I'm not sure now.
Think I'll leave the AP in on this machine. It seems to think it can do a better job than me, and it probably can.
It's not like I can practice manual reversion, is it.... ?