Automation/Hand-flying
Does the sim provide a good replication for hand-flying skills at high altitude? Obviously this is important to practice in the various degraded laws if so.
I believe from the tone and content of some folk that they see as straightforward hand-flying a heavy A330 in alternate law (without protections) in a jet at night at high altitude in severe turbulence with many distracting and conflicting audio AND visual warnings going off, along with wildly misleading airspeed displays due to ADR faults. This ain't so. I've had this happen in part climbing through FL200 in an A321 in stormy weather (not inside a cb) at night, and it is not easy for the crew to manage.
However, I am not implying that a cool head and a competent pair of hands cannot manage the situation, simply that it is far trickier than non-A330 guys may think. Trite remarks about hand-flying and automation are useless. No-one flew the 707 or DC8 in the cruise by hand unless forced to. And that's 50 years back.Incidentally we all hand-fly the 330 when operating; long-haul means we don't do it so regularly as short-haul guys. Twas ever thus.