The pleasure of a well flown profile descent sans flight director- just ask Anya
On numerous occasions when conducting refresher training in the simulator on 737 pilots who have booked practice sessions because of forth-coming interviews and simulator assessments, I have started with "lets do a few circuits including touch and go's and stiff crosswinds".
Their heads go into the CDU and they start typing a circuit with waypoints, turning points and and final intercepts until a work of art like a beautiful Piccaso type picture appears on the MAP. The booking is usually for one hour because it is very expensive and as their fingers go peck-peck -peck at the keyboard I remind them they have already lost five minutes of flying practice when all that was needed was the HSI, ADI, altimeter and ASI to fly the aeroplane.
But these people are addicted to even using VSI mode on base and final while the support pilot is busy fiddling the buttons and knobs at their direction. OK, the FD's are centred most of the time and some even deselect the heading mode and leaving a solitary horizontal pitch bar for altitude hold. Such is their addiction, like a smoker puffing at his stub, even half a flight director will do. Then the support pilot gets busy again adjusting headings for mid base and final and even hits approach mode to help the PF make a visual turn on to final following the FD needles. Of course the speed control is shot to pieces because the PF is not used to manual throttle control after years of autothrottles.
These are people with umpteen hundreds of hours on 737's mostly with autopilot engaged and the FD needles acting as a crutch to their own basic underconfidence in their ability to fly accurately without an FD. When coaxed into switching off the FD and autothrottle and told to have a go by looking out of the cockpit on the downwind, base and final leg, afterwards the almost universal reply is "Jeez - I enjoyed that - I haven't done circuits since CPL training"
Many years ago, I was lucky enough to have a pleasant year with a German charter operator based in Hamburg and flying the 737-400 and 500. It was there that I crewed with my first female first officer. She was relaxed after crewing with British contract captains as they seemed less strict than their German counterparts.
We were flying back from Spain I think, into Hamburg on a beautiful night and I was mesmerised at the sight of all the city and village lights over that part of Europe. The final track to Hamburg was by coincidence lined up with the duty runway from 100 miles out and Anya as PF (that was her name) had everything set up in the FMC and of course the automatics did a good job.
Top of descent was on the screen, as I thought of all the long straight-in approaches I had done into Pacific island atolls over the past ten years where, in the 737-200, we simply used DME v Height to fly the descent on profile, culminating in a level segment at 3000 ft on final to extend flaps and then straight in still using DME (if it worked ) and height. We had the FD108 FD but most of us never used it. The sense of achievement that it all worked out nicely to over the fence on slope on speed, was such a satisfying feeling.
"Anya", I said, at 100 DME Hamburg straight ahead, "how about you have a go at a profile hand flown no flight director descent, straight in". Anya wasn't sure what I meant, probably because I talked too fast. "You know, DME v Height or three times the height plus 10" I said. Anya looked aghast at my suggestion, as if I was a dirty old man.
"Shhh" whispered Anya, pointing up to, then covering the CAM (cockpit area microphone) with her hand. She seemed scared of Big Brother.
With some cajoling and promising not to tell anyone about this shocking decision not to use LNAV/VNAV , I talked Anya into the descent profile manual flying, manual throttle and FD off. She flew it beautifully all the way to touch-down with just a little help from me with flap/speed control towards the end. A greaser landing topped it all off and we heard the passengers clapping in admiration (or was it relief) at Anya's smooth landing.
As we taxied at Hamburg after the after landing checks, Anya looked over at me and she said "now that was real flying, wasn't it- - and thank you very much - but don't tell anyone, will you" and she pointed to the CVR. "I won't tell a soul, Anya and you flew beautifully" I said back to her.
Well, now I have broken my promise 20 years later and if you read Ppprune, Anya, I know you will understand and forgive me...
Last edited by Centaurus; 5th Feb 2013 at 09:05.