Bamboo 30 said
Many times seen first hand how the so called oldtimers with self professed stick and rudder skills simply disc AP and AT during descent cos the descend spd in vnav wasnt what they wanted. didnt prog in the spd in vnav of course spd is different. Simple case of not understanding the automatics and assuming auto fails.
It's called flying the
aircraft (FTFA).When the automatics are not doing what you don't want them to do or can't understand what's going you you FTFA and that includes disconnecting the automatics.
Felix wrote
Two points….of the two non operating pilots, the guy sat in the jumpseat behind the operating FO can see next to nothing of the flight instruments…his view is almost totally blocked. The guy sat on the jumpseat behind the centre console is another matter however….
Almost true. From the second observers seat you can see the captains instrument panel and if you lean a bit to the left you can see the centre console including thrust levers and EFIS panel with engine indication. I spent a lot of time in that seat. If there was only one of the relief crew in the flight deck I expect that s/he was on the first observers seat with a view of everything.
To say you thought the A/T was taking care of speed does not absolve you from the responsibility of FTFA. The automatics will only do what you tell it to do.