No, they are not big Cessnas. The Airbus fbw family was designed to be operated by using the automation features for economic and efficiency reasons. The automation does come with 'traps' that have been misunderstood and / or poorly trained. If you are saying that Airbuses ( or Boeings!) can be flown in a similar fashion to a light aircraft - i.e. all automation, including A/T switched off for a e.g. visual approach, I agree. The reality is more complicated than the "it's just an airplane" brigade traditionalists would state. The situation in the incident under discussion is the classic, F/D not off, Open Descent and A/T on and a manually flown visual approach which leaves the A/T in 'IDLE'. This particular scenario caused a well documented crash in India with significant loss of life in the early days of the A320. It is essential that new converts to Airbus fbw types understand this in order to avoid these incidents. Manual flying: I am all for it for handling currency. However, is it 'halfway house' manual flying with A/T on or off? The operational and technical nuances need to be understood in order to fly an Airbus 'like a Cessna'. I still blame the training department because it is unacceptable that line pilots do not understand the automation features.
Cheers
Last edited by olster; 16th Aug 2016 at 10:04.
Reason: grammar!