On the subject of the NG's A/P performance, I have only one complaint myself; and that is that at its enroute's VNAV's 300+ knots it will pull up on a 30 degree bank in LNAV when turning when more than 45 degrees off course. That imposes some "G" forces on my pax and myself that are, say, unconfortable. Then, is the time when you take it out of LNAV, set it to HDG SEL and 20 degrees bank and anticipate the turn that way. Other than that, I have no problem with the A/P performance. As someone said earlier in a thread, the A/P is there to help you, not to FLY for you. There are many instances in which reality catches up with A/P design limitations and that is the time you have to take over control and fly it manually! Be it windshear, ATC vectoring or greater tailwinds than expected. Yes, boys and girls, believe it or not, to fly manually is still a required skill for an airline pilot! Don't bash the NG senselessly as there is no point in doing so, as its commercial success speaks for itself. Boeing engineers did want it to be so much more up to date, technologically speaking, but it was the customers who mandated it to be the way it turned out to be. Personally I enjoy flying it manually a lot; as Jim Webb said once, just 'Fly the Wing',
and when you fly this aircraft, that is what you do, you fly this magnificent new wing Boeing put on the B-737. As to the Airbus vs. Boeing never ending feud, let me just say that with Boeing, the pilot is still the final decision maker as to when what and how much, that is not the case in Airbus and just for that reason alone, Boeing will always be more dear to me than Airbus ever will, no matter how sophisticated its avionics and systems are.
