First of all, I would like to thank
Irishpilot1990,
Microburst2002 and
Mrs-rodge-bless-her for their comments about Sabena pilots. I'll take that as a compliment!
I'm glad to see that almost everybody seems to agree that it is necessary to stay proficient in handflying airliners with raw data!
A quote from paull (
#47):
I understand the need to stay competent with manual flying but I have a fear that the lawyers might one day restrict the choice. You are handflying on Flight XXX and an accident results. The victim's lawyers have access to a report saying that the safest thing to do is have A/P engaged. Saying that handflying on Flight XXX is for the benefit of all other subsequent flights might not be easy to argue and unless your airline can prove the long-term benefit of having a minimum of handflying practice then do they leave themselves open to higher risk/legal claims?
I would like to argue that there are quite a few accidents resulting from badly using/understanding/monitoring the automatics. The
Turkish crash in AMS and the
Air Inter crash in Strasbourg immediately come to mind. Those crashes would not have happened if a pilot would have been handflying.
I am convinced that pilots should use the automatics intelligently. That includes using the automatics when there is a good reason to use them and NOT to handfly the beast when there's a good reason not to! I remember when I was a 737-classic F/O in Sabena and flew with a very young captain who had just been promoted to the left seat. He was PF to a Scandinavian airport with snow and the cloud base and visibility reported very close to the minima with a 15 kts crosswind. He disconnected "everything" at 5000' and then handflew the 737 perfectly to the minima and landed perfectly. I still think he's a fool who was just trying to impress me. I can assure you that he didn't! Fortunately he was an exception at Sabena and almost all other captains were much smarter. Confronted with the same conditions now I would use the A320's auto-features to bring it on the ILS fully stabilised and then disconnect A/P and A/T to continue with the F/D on. Why not leave the A/T on and just disconnect the A/P at the minima you might ask?
Well, I believe that any pilot, after some practise, is more intelligent and better at managing thrust then the Airbus A/T system! This is what I wrote in
an other post:
All pilots in my company will agree that we, as pilots, can do a better job then the A320 autothrust system. It's my experience that if you fly the A320 by hand but with A/T engaged in stormy and gusty conditions, the A/T is a very foolish "speedchasing device". For instance: when you're a little low, but a little high on speed -due to shifting winds for instance- the A/T will reduce thrust too much and not anticipate fast enough to stop you from getting in a nose high, low speed condition when you pull the sidestick to recover from your low trajectory. It appears to me that that is what happened to you during your flare.
I also believe that it's best to disconnect the A/P a little before the minima, especially in gusty and windy conditions, just to have a little more time to get it "in your hand" again.
I am very much in favour of using either all automatics (A/P, A/T + F/D) ON
OR everything OFF. I think you could actually train a chimpanzee to follow a flight director, so I do not like it very much when one of my F/o's keeps handflying the A320 with F/D on during climb until long after flap retraction. What's the point??? Any chimpanzee can do that!
The same during approach. What use can it have to fly a descent + final app with A/P off but F/D and A/T engaged? You don't have to think or keep situational awareness for that.
Just smoothly follow the F/D cross!
So this is my own personal policy: Take off is done in the "normal" Airbus way with F/D on. I usually engage the A/P when the flaps are up. (I leave the A/P to do the chimp's job) Once in a while I'll do a take off with the F/D's off. (as per the procedure in FCOM 4.05.30 P5) And yes, handling an engine failure with F/D off would not be a problem! (We have been taught to initially rotate up to 12,5 deg and fly through the F/D's anyway in such a case.)
Every time I do not feel too tired, traffic is not too busy and the weather is not too lousy or I can't come up with a good reason why I shouldn't, somewhere during the descent I will switch to handflying the ship.
I am 100 % convinced that, if common sense is used, this will not impair safety.
On the contrary!!
So my advice to everybody is: use common sense, make sure you know how to handle the automation but also make sure you can handfly your A/C smoothly and accurately in any situation! You can only stay proficient by doing it regularly!
Sabenaboy