Originally Posted by
Judd
The flight director is a highly compelling instrument which because of its design- keep the needles centred and everything will be fine Bloggs - means concentrating on two needles often to the detriment of correct scanning of the rest of the flight instruments. Despite what some claim it is not possible to effectively "look behind" a FD. It has to be turned off to see the full ADI picture.
I quite agree, and in fact would go further.
Having gone back and forwards a few times between old school steam driven instruments and a variety of glass cockpits, I have come to believe that whilst some aspects of EFIS cockpits such as the map display/wind/drift etc are hugely beneficial to situational awareness, I don't think the actual flying instruments are as good even leaving aside the issues with FD focus for maintaining a scan.
The basic "T" I find leads to better flying, but it is of course possible that I am biased from having an old school upbringing in aviation.
When I flew Airbus for an Airline, I also used to fly an old aircraft as a sideline, and my airbus instrument handling was greatly
improved by each time I flew something more mandraulic.