Anybody who NEEDS a flight director or autopilot to fly an aircraft safely has only one place to go - OUT, RIGHT NOW.
Yes, flight directors can improve accuracy. Yes, they can reduce workload. Yes, they can prevent an altitude bust if you are really tired or switched off. Yes, they are usually reliable. But to suggest you NEED a flight director to avoid altitude busts etc. is an admission of weak flying skills to the extent of being dangerous. I do not wish to share the airspace with someone who is that weak on basic flying skills. Also, flight directors are great tools but to say they are put into aircraft to purely increase safety is misleading. They are put into aircraft so that we can operate the aircraft to LOWER LIMITS with an equal level of safety to increase reliability and profits. (This is good business practice). There is no net gain in safety, the equipment is better so the limits are lower, safety remains the same.
The biggest difficulty with flying raw data nowadays is that, with the introduction of glass cockpits, some of the instruments are actually more difficult to interpret than they were in round dial days. Glass can actually reduce situational awareness - unless your idea of situational awareness is watching a moving map display and disregarding raw data. (Except that attitude indicators are almost universally better in glass). Over reliance on electronics is FAR, FAR more dangerous than the occasional raw data practice under reasonable conditions.
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[This message has been edited by BOING (edited 07 January 2001).]