Merged: To hand fly, or use the automatics?

[Tee Emm]

Once again Australian domestic airlines are recruiting and general aviation pilots are realising their dreams of being in a front seat of a 737 or A320. A user-pays type rating follows. Chances are the new hire will never have seen such wonderfully accurate automation which makes the type rating a breeze providing he or she studies hard at the books. Of the total simulator lessons covering the type rating it is estimated ninety percent of each lesson will involve automation in some form or another. Mostly the type rating will be on automatic pilot because that's the way things are taught nowadays.

Inevitably, the new and enthusiastic hands-on former Metro or Chieftain pilot will learn to fly the 737 or A320 on autopilot with incredible skill. He will become an expert at the knack of fast typing, picture building on MAP and listening to the radio simultaneously. Within a few weeks of completing line training he will be flying into familiar airports around Australia and will learn how to type his way into downwind and fly a visual circuit all on autopilot.

Exciting new navigation systems allow him to "build" a circuit like an artist paints a canvas. A dob of speed paint here, a light brush of altitude restriction there, a joining of waypoint dots at the beginning of the downwind leg leading to another waypoint three miles abeam the threshold and a further VOR distance and bearing waypoint just before base and a beautifully placed waypoint on long final completes the MAP picture. Picasso could never match this MAP as a thing of beauty. No need to look outside on a sunny day. Trust the MAP and TCAS says one experienced captain. . . With a quiet gasp of wonder the new pilot watches the aircraft symbol slow up quite safely as the flaps extend and in-built slow speed protection keeps disaster away - not like some macho bogans who to risk lives of passengers by stupid hand flying.

The picture continues as final flap is selected and now the new pilot gets as near to hand flying as he dares by twiddling the VS mode wheel to hold the PAPI and watches the beautiful smooth operation of the thrust levers. Regretfully he lifts his eyes from the MAP and it's beautiful colours and sadly accepts that like a lovingly fashioned sand castle on the beach his MAP picture will vanish disappear forever after the touch down. He knows the critical moment must arrive when he must disconnect the autopilot at 300 feet and actually fly his way to the threshold with nervous fingers on the controls. . Commonsense prevails so he leaves the flight director and automatic throttle engaged - just in case of a go-around caused by a straying donkey cocking a leg on a runway light at the 1000 ft marker. I kid you not. This happened at Apia in Samoa not too many years back and the landing 737 was a wipe out not to mention the poor bloody beast who was hit to leg in more ways than one. So a new pilot can't be too careful if forced to actually hand fly on short final. If not a stray donkey it could be a stray drunk weaving across the runway to his village on Nauru.

This then is your future as an airline pilot. Good pay, beautiful female flight attendants (male if that is your preference), the cockpit door securely locked against the great thonged black singlet hairy leg mob down the back who pay your wages. And best of all beautiful and awe inspiring automation to make flying safer.

But a hint for the new pilot once lined trained. Never ask the captain if he minds if you try your hand at hand flying unless it is the first few hundred feet after lift off and the last few hundred feet on final. Some captains are so terrified of rocking the airline boat by allowing hand flying that even a meek request to turn off the flight director CAVOK will surely bring down God's wrath and the risk of censure.

Eventually your enthusiasm for the wonders of automation will wane. You will soon bore of jetting between Adelaide and Perth, Melbourne to Canberra or Cairns to Townsville. In the cockpit talk turns to mates now flying for Cathay, Emirates, Dragonair and Singapore Airlines. Great destinations, long stop-overs, big bucks salaries and a never ending supply of exotic nubiles at the end of the day. A rugged life style of course - but bearable.

Fond memories of when you were a real pilot in GA flogging a radarless, buggered, and unreliable autopilot equipped Chieftain into Black Stump airport back of Bourke in a dust storm, will come back to haunt you like mirage of beautiful women of which 72 were virgins of your choice. Very rare back of Bourke - virgins that is. Alas you are hooked forever on automation and it is with sadness you think that never again will you be a real pilot with real handling skills. You are now a three bar rank systems status monitor. Don't tell women that of course - they think you are still a pilot..

Levity aside, a point needs to be made. There is no doubt that for the newly recruited airline pilot in Year 2010, like his compatriots in the years before, the total accent on automation in the cockpit means confidence in your own ability to pole a 737 or A320 by hand, will fade away.

The next step in this insidious process is you begin to believe what your check pilots and instructors will tell you - that your hand flying brings with it the risks of "overloading" the chap in the other seat. Think of the passengers down the back says the check captain. - would they appreciate your sad efforts at hand flying where your over-controlling on the wheel makes them airsick?

Soon you will find yourself knocking back the offer from another captain to hand fly a descent using the old fashioned DME versus descent profile. Rather than risk embarrassing yourself by admitting you haven't a clue how to fly a profile on basics (as against FMC derived), you will pretend that hand flying basics is for idiots or the overconfident.

By now the rot has set in. You have now lost confidence in yourself and you settle for the baby sitting comfort of the fabulous automatic pilot. Then one fine day you are at last promoted to captain. Small flecks of stiff white hair appear at your nostrils and your steely blue eyes take on the narrow killer look of the experienced autopilot monitor.

A young and new keen first officer just out of Alteon asks your permission to fly a visual approach into Hobart without FMC guidance. He was always a rebel at Alteon. In other words Mark 1 eyeball, DME versus height, eyes outside the cockpit looking for traffic and with flight director and autothrottle turned off. In the eyes of the new first officer you are Captain God and whatever you say must be the good gen. So he believes you when you say in that authoritive voice " Stick to the automatics son - its safer. Pure flying skills are for the birds".