Training & Autopilot, Flight Director, other Gadgets
Good day everyone,
To begin with, I am not a FI and not an examiner, but the recent posting in the news forum re. the Air India mishap made me want to get input of you all, who actually try to make sure future pilots are capable of saving the day should they need to.
My completion of Cpl Ir training in the US (am now flying under JAR in Europe though) is just two years down the line, so I don't consider myself particularly experienced or a very senior, old-generation pilot.
Still, I was lucky enough to learn on old 1960-1970 SP aircraft, and can say I have - never - in my first 250hrs as a pilot used an autopilot or flight director.
It was all raw-data VFR & IFR SE/ME training, hands on stick all the time even on 5hr cross-country flights.
I wasn't particularly impressed by that until a few days ago, when I overheard an IR student in the briefing room talking to his CFI and briefing him on his flight preperation.
To quote it freely, he went along the lines of: "The first of today's two legs has a VOR approach with a step-down, so I will let the autopilot fly it and then land manually."
It honestly gave me a chill hearing this student making it sound as a VOR approach is something terrible, unbearably dangerous that he'd rather not hand-fly. Even worse was that the instructor accepted his decision.
I am curious, am I just overly sensitive here or does it seem that the big schools spitting out soon-to-be airline pilots teach too little actual hand flying and instead learn students how to control the systems instead?!?
Any similar experiences, inputs or training methods of you all would be appreciated - I'm curious.