I have had people who probably should know better telling me of the superiority of the autopilot for a long time now. When we moved up to an aircraft with an FMS then we were supposed to become a sort of "flying computer programmer," servant to the FMS, itself master of the autopilot. "Airplane not doing what you want it to?" Go head down into the keyboard to reprogram the FMS rather than just kick out the autopilot to hand-fly an ILS, for instance.
For a real-life example of what I am writing about, we would set up for an ILS, inbound to the FAF in NAV mode with APP armed. Well, this wonky African ILS had sidelobes the size of Pamela Anderson's bazongas and our trusty electronic servant would catch one, switch from NAV to APP, turn onto the final approach miles off course but then lose the sidelobe... when our computer programmers would lose the plot! "What is it doing now?" would be the plaint. Umm, well, if you just look out the window you can see the destination airport over there to our right at 2 o'clock, the FAF easily identifed by that big patch of green at 3 o'clock, the only one around, so that perhaps we should just revert to hand-flying for the PF while the PNF gets this stupid thing sorted out... what we used to call "airmanship"?
No, no, no! That's "flying like a bush pilot" (my approach to life, basically since I am one of those for the most part) and there must be an easy way to just type in the FAF ident in the FMS and then line-select DIRECT TO... No, that doesn't seem to be working since we are still on a heading to Antarctica, basically a long way from our point of intended landing now passing our 2:30. Hmm... What mode are we in here? Oh, yeah... with the over-riding logic being that the autopilot could fly better than a human, when I really, really never thought so. Not least, show me an FMS computer that is as powerful as the human brain. Okay, some of our human brains are a bit addled but still...
I am happy to wait for the final report on this one but I could easily imagine a situation where some low-time, inexperienced guy is faced with a fairly complicated aircraft and a rushed approach into a very, very busy airport, when he reverts to what he has been told and just lets the autopilot (and the autothrottle) get on with the job of flying the aircraft.
Not strictly part of the professional's world (thank God) but true enough is that I have encountered quite a few wealthy American owners of complex aircraft who cheerfully admit to being pretty much incapable of hand-flying on instruments so that they count on turning on that magic box of tricks, their autopilot, in IMC and letting it fly the aircraft.
No professional should ever go that far but that is the direction of the trend vector, I think. Less-capable because lower- and lower-time with less and less practical experience young pilots (look at the background of the Colgan crew to see what I mean) are flying more and more capable aircraft under more and more pressure. The systems and the SOPs are taken to be enough to ensure safety when it's pretty clear it should take a bit more than that except that no one wants to pay what that should cost. This is like enjoying motoring in a Ford Pinto, cheap and fun until the crunch comes yet with the level of loss still acceptable.
I have had all-inclusive holiday flights where I literally had never heard of the operator of the Airbus or Boeing I and my family were on, regulated by Turkey or Cyprus or God knows where but, hey, it was cheap!
Last edited by chuks; 3rd Feb 2010 at 18:09.