Just my comment:
I fly medium and short range out of the UK. I donīt get the comments posted here: a pilot who flies more raw data ils than others is a better pilot? Come on, be professional. I NEVER had the feeling the guy next to me was unable to fly or control the airplane. NEVER. We fly challenging approaches: Salzburg, Innsbruck, Bastia, Dubrovnik, Olbia, Funchal and so on. I have always seen and flown safe approaches and landings.
I believe keeping up the skills is important. Flying visual approaches is the greatest thing on earth and our company encourages us to do so in nice weather. But truly flying for me is like swimming: i learned it, i practice it and i can do it. I believe in my skills. So mavericks and overconfident pilots whats your problem? Be professional. Dont fly raw data in
weather conditions to prove yourself. Stay with the automatics. And nice argument in posts before: i wouldnt place my family in your aircraft when flying raw data at minimum weather. No way.
And please dont tell me the stories of no FD in stormy weather with minimum visibility and heavy crosswind. In this case you should have enough extra fuel to divert and do a safe landing somewhere else. Otherwise you shouldnt sit in that damn cockpit.
So i dont fly long range but i could imagine that the jockeys there are not that much proficient. For sure: my friend on the 747 makes maxiumum 3 landings a month with autopilot on till 500ft agl. You can't be really proficient that way.
Sometimes i think we could improve out landings and techniques. I have seen a thousand of them with a too early thrust reduction, the damn autothrust reducing to early the power, no flare at all, too long etc. I think we should improve in this section not in flying the perfect raw data ils and
up the landing.
Thanks and comments appreciated
PS: Excuses for my bad english, itīs not my native language