I'm not going to justify why I held the the TP job for such a short time to the two sky-gods who think they know how all pilots should go about their career. Life throws many difficult choices at you that are not as black and white as some of you would like to assume. Age, money, location, family situation and level of danger are just some of the factors involved and as two of our guys (one whom was in my joining batch) crashed into the sides of mountains (2 separate incidents) just weeks after me leaving, I feel it was kind of a good move! Does anyone wish to discuss this further?
For the avoidance of doubt, I'm not talking about isolated incidents here. I'm talking about most of the guys who I have flown with habitually and routinely turning down such requests, and YES, most certainly, all requests come during the approach briefing and as I stated originally, I only ask when the the situation allows it. In addition to good weather, of course it's got to be a quiet airfield, and as a crew we must be in good shape for it. Please don't assume the naivety of a newbie so easily!
OK, so I've hit a couple of nerves, clearly. I'm sorry, it was not my intention to come across as a selfish glory hunting ****. I was just painting a picture of what I feel some of the obstacles are in trying to avoid automation dependency. The suggestion about asking some of them in the debrief about their reasons for not allowing manual flight is a good one but the backgrounds and cultures of some of the people I fly with make this a move that I might regret.