PPRuNe Forums - View Single Post - Pilot handling skills under threat, says Airbus
Old 6th Mar 2010, 03:26
  #366 (permalink)  
Loose rivets
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A few weeks later an invitation to tea and bikkies arrived from the chief pilot of the airline. A pleasant kindly chap he asked me to desist from hand flying unless necessary, because the first officers of his airline were not trained to monitor raw data navigation aid flying - only automatics.
Nice as he may be, he is so, so wrong.

Any pilot should be able to maintain height and course very accurately while flying c 250 kts. In the cruise is a different matter, there, passengers really feel the slight control inputs...and they don't like it. Below cruise speeds, well they need to put up with it, while the world's crews maintain basic skills. After all, it's in their interest that standards are kept to reasonable levels.
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