I recently went through 767 school, yet again and presumably for the last time. My sim partner was coming to the airplane for the first time, after 20+ years on the Airbus 320. We had to constantly remind him to put his hand on the throttles. To say he had no scan would be an understatement. It was a very tough training exercise, not least because the standard company training profile cannot be altered. If it’s Tuesday, this must be Belgium…or non-ILS day, or whatever. The company idea is that if you need extra training, they will provide that at the end of the course. In this gentleman’s case, I’m pretty sure I could have worked out most of his kinks with a two hour sim block at the beginning…just for basic instrument stuff. The man was not a dummy. But he had become inured by years of flying an airplane that does everything for him.
Contrast that with one of my very favorite first officers, a woman who, with her husband, owns a small airport and several light airplanes. She cut her teeth flying auto parts around in Lears on the back side of the clock, and regularly tootles around the family patch in a Luscombe. Her ability to hand fly the MD80 is a joy; it is literally fun to watch her work. Autopilot/autothrottle off in the downwind, and when it comes time for the 500 foot call, all you need to do is fold down the top of your newspaper, make the speed and sink calls, and go back to your article. Obviously I’m being slightly facetious there, but in fact, no matter what the condition, the airplane is going to go where you want it to go, without a word spoken. When we were getting a line check last year from the FAA, I waited until she had called for LNAV after the takeoff, then I leaned back toward the Fed and said, “Watch this”. Sure enough, all the way through the RNAV departure turns, with maybe 0.1 nm lateral deviation in the 90˚ turn. I have seen many autopilots that couldn’t hold those tolerances.
What’s the difference? My MD80 friend has a genuine feel for the airplane, and I’m pretty sure that’s any airplane. My sim partner, not so much. She has probably never let any airplane fly her; he had become accustomed to an airplane that would, without some opposing effort, gladly fly him.