I fly the aircraft off the runway, with BOTH flight directors on, as this provides a safety net in case of engine failure. I want to practice my flying skills, but I would like to have guidance or help in an emergency situation
I have always found that concentrating solely on the flight directors following an engine failure after take off increases the work load significantly since the intense scrutiny needed to keep the needles exactly centred leaves no time to be aware of what is happening outside of the immediate area of the instrument.
The slightest aircraft attitude may cause one or both of the two needles to change position and one is automatically driven to `follow` them blindly at the expense of other things around you.
In the simulator, I have seen many pilots lose the plot due to over controlling when they over-react to flight director information and chase the offending needle (s) in order get things squared away. One man's `chasing` is another man's `correcting. Everyone's a critic when this happens. ... and doesn't it piss you off when the instructor steadily intones "fly the bloody needles".
The technique this scribe favours with an engine failure after take off, is to immediately use the standby ADI as the primary attitude reference. Of course there will be howls of indignation from FD aficionado's. Yet there is also evidence that some pilots are seriously spooked by FD needles during coping with engine failures. The slightest yaw produces rapid needle movement and in the haste to get the needles squared away in quick time, pilots may over-control causing more fluctuation of the FD needles.
It then becomes a vicious circle rather like trying to control a dutch roll. Although some instructors exhort their students to "look through" the FD needles to see what the primary ADI is telling them, I find the FD needles often cover the pitch indications on the face of the ADI and again this causes loss of concentration on what should be a simple task of flying the appropriate pitch attitude for the circumstances.
If there is a knack to "looking through" FD needles to see what the primary ADI is displaying behind the needles, then this suggests that FD are over-rated and may cause more grief than they are supposed to prevent
The beauty of switching one's glance to the standby ADI for basic climb out attitude is that it is unencumbered by superfluous other information. In the simulator I have observed others who admit to shamelessly disregarding the `dancing needles` of the FD information in favour of the pure instrument flying ability needed to use the standby ADI.
Choosing to switch off the flight director if it is distracting you from the prime job of flying the aircraft accurately on one engine will generally arouse the ire of some simulator instructors. They forget that flight directors are
an aid - not a `you will crash without them`, item.
Switching your scan directly to the standby ADI solves the problem because the instructor wouldn't have a clue where you are looking. To students who have difficulty and are spooked by the FD needles during engine failure after lift off, my advice is to use the standby ADI every time. In every case that I have seen (hundreds during type rating training in the simulator) it has worked and they have had no further problem with accuracy of climb out. The fascinating part is that after using the standby ADI as primary attitude instrument the FD needles are magically centred.