Call me a Luddite, but I treat the flight director the same way I treat most computing devices. If they don't give me what I want - as in 'right bloody now' - I turn the poxy things off, give them a bit of time to review the error of their ways, and then - being the forgiving type that I am - allow them another chance to satisfy my desires.
Somewhere in the recesses of my training I recall reading, or being told, that when the flight director or any other automatic goodie is not giving you what you want, deselect it. It is actually easier to fly attitude and heading than to mentally filter out unwanted information such as excessive pitch up demands or bank angles greater or less than needed to do the job.
As for whether pitch attitude being flown is producing the required climb gradient, surely the old rate of climb over groundspeed formula can be computed mentally by most. All the info you need is right in front of you on the panel (unless you are flying a DC3 with no GPS, and how likely is that?). Or don't pilots do this basic stuff nowadays?
Like Greed, Easy is Good.
Last edited by Mach E Avelli; 4th Jan 2014 at 02:16.