Wow. A lot of good inputs
. A big thank you for your answers. The key secret of easy altitude maintenance appears to be the 'bug' on the tape and its relationship to the altitude window. Special thanks to alf5071h from one 'prune' to another for the historical/developmental perspective (hint: look at his bio). I'm going to have to look at some of the other techniques mentioned.
Lightning Mate. Been there, done that.
The best save I ever made was when the target altitude didn't look right and I didn't pull the trigger.
I asked the question because I was wondering about a couple of AF situations wherein the crews were slow in recognizing they had left the assigned altitude.
Once you are >500 feet off, the bug is no longer visible and the scrolling altitude tape & rolling numbers didn't trigger a mental alarm bell for them.
When you have been cruising along for hours and the AP suddenly kicks off, it must be interesting getting your scan going, particularly at night in turbulent conditions.
