Originally Posted by
hobbit1983
So since club aircraft (well at least my club anyway) don't have an autopilot (well, they do, but IIRC they ALL are marked u/s) what's your opinion on a young, approx 170hr PPL/IMC handflying a 3-hour flight with about 75% or so IMC? (hypothetical situation of course!
)
I personally didn't see it as a problem, and thought the flight went well. Am I doing something stupid re. safety here?
For me there are two things to think about. 1 how comfortable are you on the gauges. On a 'nice' IMC day where all I need to do is fly, I am happy to do it without an autopilot. The problem is when ATC have a different plan than you do and all of a sudden your in the 'now where the h*!! is that waypoint? why are they sending me here? Does this still make sense?' situation and you are suddenly wishing for George to just hold it straight and level while you reprogramme the GPS and get a grip on the overall plan.