Originally Posted by
Dream Land
1. Hand flying to 10K does nothing IMHO, I have crew members doing this all the time, it's funny, they simply do not engage the A/P and follow the FD's up to 10K and think they've accomplished something, when in fact I could go in the back and get any 10 year old kid on board to do the same thing, holding the aircraft symbol on the big cross takes no talent.
2. Yes I do believe that hand flying can overload a crew in some of the busier terminal areas, much different than when I was flying full procedures from an IAF, it's simply too busy in many areas with very complicated STAR's.
3. Now we then move to sim world where the A/P is - often U/S with the multiple emergency scenarios.
4. Now many of my colleagues have less than 300 hours flying a real airplane, then they go straight into the computer, so how can you lose flying skills they never learned in the first place?
Hi mate, good post. In addition to your 4 points.
1) Turn off the FD on the STAR!!! Simples. Then the pilot at least learns to scan. FD/SPEED/FD/SPEED is not a scan you are correct 10 yr olds can do it. Do a few STARS and learn the real scan, then fly some approaches.Still plenty of RNAV sids around
2) Knowing when to fly raw data is the most important thing about doing it, not how good you are. High workload, difficult or busy departure, bad weather. Do not do it. Plenty of good opportunities to practice at quiter times or low work load approaches. Request a visual and fly.
3) So many pilots/button pushers kid themselves that they can fly because they do it for 15 minutes twice a year in the simulator. Again typically with FDs.
4) If you are not one of the rookie 3,000 hour Cpts who do not know how to fly either teach the FO. Obviously again comes back to point two, knowing WHEN to fly!That comes down to airmanship and common sense, two things that the industry is also losing, mainly down to the reason people stopped flying....treating the OPS manual as the bible and making poor decisions as a result of not factoring in the individual circumstances around events.No SOP for every scenario.