Draglift,
You state that if you are familiar with the pitch attitude and thrust in cruise then it is safer to leave the autopilot engaged.
Well, I hate to break it to you but the autopilot is not going to give you a pitch attitude. It's going to pitch for whatever pitch it thinks is necessary to maintain what it thinks is your altitude. Your altitude comes from the same air data computer that is giving you unreliable airspeed.
So which is it? Are you going to set a known pitch attitude and thrust, or are you going to leave the autopilot engaged? You can't do both. This is the danger of ignoring the checklist, even if your "non-modern aviator" ego thinks you can do better than the checklist. Look, maybe you can, maybe you can't. As soon as you choose to ignore the checklist the "modern" pilot sitting next to you now has no idea what is going on. So now you are single-pilot IFR with unreliable instruments. Not a nice place to be.
Yes, there can be a time and a place to decide that the checklist is not the most appropriate response to a situation. Those situations are defined as where following the checklist may jeopardize safety. This is not one of them.
Just set 4 degrees and 70%. It's safe. So what if you climb then descend? It will be a shallow climb followed by a shallow descent. It's a big sky out there. Then you are both in a known situation and the checklist will help you resolve the issue.
Last edited by Derfred; 21st Dec 2016 at 08:52.