Hand flying practice.

[Paradise Lost]

Several other forums are discussing lack of REAL flying practice. How many of you PROFESSIONAL pilots actually hand-fly your automated jets when on deadheading legs?
Simulator training is all well and good, but it is all premeditated drills. Who really simulates single engine failures, limited panel flying, A/P and A/T failures, raw data approaches etc.in the aircraft?
There is a dangerous trend developing in the accident stats, of loss of control of perfectly serviceable aircraft due to a lack of basic handling skills.
In my experience, very few operators are taking the opportunity to self improve their hand flying skills, and use their imagination to practice abnormal drills. Complacency......I reckon so!

[Flintstone]

I did, today.

I'm still rubbish though.

[SNS3Guppy]

Several other forums are discussing lack of REAL flying practice. How many of you PROFESSIONAL pilots actually hand-fly your automated jets when on deadheading legs?

What has deadheading got to do with it?

I find that handflying is usually the easy part: I find that I need to force myself to use the autopilot more in order to maintain systems proficiency. My tendency has always been to kick off the autopilot and handfly at the first sign of difficulty...my challenge has always been making myself work through the automation.

So far as dead legs...what's the difference? I hand fly with passengers or without. Whereas RVSM requires the autopilot to be engaged, this relegates hand flying in most cases to the climb up through FL290, and somewhere on the lower portion of the descent.

Simulator training is all well and good, but it is all premeditated drills. Who really simulates single engine failures, limited panel flying, A/P and A/T failures, raw data approaches etc.in the aircraft?

I'm not certain what simulation experience you have, but far from "premediated drills," most of my simulation experiences have been indistinguishable from the actual aircraft. I'm seldom given in advance to know what abnormal or emergency situation may develop, and I'm certainly not going to do something in the aircraft differently than I would do in the simulator.

Do we simulate engine failures in the airplane on a revenue leg or an empty leg? No, of course not. That's why we have a simulator. Do we reduce the instrument panel information during actual flight? We have no need. We do that in the simulator, too. We also do rejected takeoff and other high-risk activities in the simulator, for a good reason. Autopilot and autothrottle failures are uneventful issues, because it's simply a matter of manually working that system, or handflying the airplane...which we do all the time anyway. We fly raw data approaches all the time. Again, however, we have a simulator for specific training events, and there's no reason to go reducing capability in the airplane in flight when it can be done realistically and effectively, and economically in the simulator.

In my experience, very few operators are taking the opportunity to self improve their hand flying skills, and use their imagination to practice abnormal drills.

In my experience, you're wrong; most operators do take that opportunity, and we call it recurrent training. Very little imagination is required. One does not need to reinvent the wheel to provide meaningful, regular recurrent training.

[weido_salt]

Yes it can be a problem and it will get worse. Some companies it is actively discouraged as you are no doubt aware.

I've always maintained, the best hand flying practice for honing basic IF skills was to hand fly the aircraft in the cruise, raw data. If you can do that with a reasonable amount of accuracy, then you are doing OK. However since RVSM does not allow this, the next best thing is fly a raw data approach. I am also one who will go for the A/P disconnect button, earlier rather than later, if things are not as expected with the automatics.

There are schools of thought however that while one is hand flying, it is effectively reducing his/her lookout monitoring etc., thereby increasing the load on the other or rest of the crew members. In some situations, this is true, especially as they are all 2 crew cockpits now. depends what sort of a job of hand flying is being made I guess.

Had a young person new on type, in fact any type, recently on a dead leg, asking if he could hand fly it for a period. Yes sure I replied, as I actively encourage hand flying, when conditions are suitable. However passing through the mid 20's on the climb out on this occasion, the head F/A came up front and asked whats wrong? Nothing I said, why? We are all feeling sick back here, the aircraft is going up and down she said. Confirming the A/P does a better job than most of us humans.

[Chippie Chappie]

Had a young person new on type, in fact any type, recently on a dead leg, asking if he could hand fly it for a period. Yes sure I replied, as I actively encourage hand flying, when conditions are suitable. However passing through the mid 20's on the climb out on this occasion, the head F/A came up front and asked whats wrong? Nothing I said, why? We are all feeling sick back here, the aircraft is going up and down she said. Confirming the A/P does a better job than most of us humans.

Chasing an airspeed rather than flying an attitude?

Sometimes, hand flying is appropriate, sometimes it is not.

[weido_salt]

Possibly but I suspect a little rough all round and being out of practise.

We all started and were at that stage, where we not?

[con-pilot]

When I did fly my usual procedure was to hand fly the aircraft to 10,000ft and then engage the auto-pilot, the only exceptions would be in an extremely high traffic area where it was best to have all the eyeballs looking out of the cockpit, then I would engage the autopilot, but keep my hand on the yoke and the other hand on the throttles.

Same on decent, autopilot until 10,000ft, then hand fly to landing. VMC/IMC makes no difference.

But then again I'm an old fart.

Oh, there was one aircraft that I hand flew all the time except cruise, that was the early Lear 23/24s, those autopilots were terrible.

[smo-kin-hole]

SLF gets sick.

'Salt has a good point. It is all but impossible to avoid those subtle sideloads which result from handflying. The general public is very used to the comfort of autoflight. Every once and awhile I ride a major airline and the tail gets whipped around far more than the crew might realize.

In 20 years, autoflight will be linked to CAT IIIa autoland in all airliners and the point will be moot. They'll tug the plane to the runway and tug it back in and pilots will be called "Disengaged Remote Overseeing Nominal Employee, DRONE for short.

[Stratocaster]

My 2 cents...

I handfly the plane until cruising altitude. Once straight and level, trimmed, etc. I engage the autopilot. A few exceptions though: when there's a lot of VFR traffic, if the SID is particularly tricky, or anytime a second pair of ears is more than welcome to deal with supersonic speech rate from ATC/unfamiliar accents/etc.

Brain resources are limited. Handflying is therefore only for the days when my CPU has a few cycles to spare... and the other guy next to me agrees!

Works fine for our type of operation but cannot suit everybody.

[Tmbstory]

Good for a smile!

During hand flying practice on the climb to the cruise and if the heading information permits, just cover the heading with your hand and ask the Pilot flying what his heading was, then lower your hand and compare results.

A pilot hand flying should be able to fly and maintain a heading to the same standard as the autopilot.

Tmb

[weido_salt]

tomstory

"A pilot hand flying should be able to fly and maintain a heading to the same standard as the autopilot."


You must be good, or you have been working with some very bad autopilots.

[Chippie Chappie]

weido_salt:
Possibly but I suspect a little rough all round and being out of practise.

We all started and were at that stage, where we not?

Absolutely. And that's just one of the reasons why sometimes appropriate and sometimes it's not. For the record, I favour hand flying when it is appropriate.

Happy contrails

[Bruce Waddington]

SNS3Guppy,

You write, "Whereas RVSM requires the autopilot to be engaged, this relegates hand flying in most cases to the climb up through FL290, and somewhere on the lower portion of the descent."

Not quite so. Eurocontrol publishes the following:

"(d)When changing levels, the aircraft should not be allowed to overshoot or undershoot the cleared flight level by more than 45 m (150 ft).


Note - It is recommended that the level off be accomplished using the altitude capture feature of the automatic altitude-control system, if installed.


(e) An automatic altitude-control system should be operative and engaged during level cruise, except when circumstances such as the need to re-trim the aircraft or turbulence require disengagement. In any event, adherence to cruise altitude should be done by reference to one of the two primary altimeters. Following loss of the automatic height keeping function, any consequential restrictions will need to be observed."

Item (d) indicates to me that it is not required to use the autopilot during climb or descent in RVSM airspace, it is only recommended that the level off be done using the altitude capture feature of the automatic altitude control system, if installed.

Item (e) states the the automatic altitude control system "should" be operative and engaged during the level cruise portion of the flight except in the conditions mentioned.

Note that nowhere does Eurocontol use the word autopilot. One view of an automatic altitude control sysyem might well be Flight Director System capable of automatically directing aircraft attitude to maintain the cleared altitude. And of course automatically capture the cleared altitude :-))


best regards,

Bruce Waddington (a big fan of hand flying when work load permits)

[411A]

Hand fly all the time, except for CAT II/III approaches, and so does the First Officer.
After takeoff to FL150 or thereabouts and descending from FL100 on down.
On the 'ole 1011, it's quite delightful.

[Aussie]

Yeah handfly every single flight. Wont engage the AP below FL100 and disengage usually as soon as cleared for the approach, often opting for the visual approach is possible. However some capt dont allow you to disengage the AP too early or engage too late, so all within possiblities.

Good practice i say. Needs to be done more. How many times we seen autothrottles fail and overspeeds occur? Happens a bit my way.

Cheers

[Paradise Lost]

OK, some good guys then!

Some interesting replies, mainly as I expected, from you guys that do maintain your manual flying skills.
SNS3Guppy has tried to infer that "most operators do take that opportunity", but IMHO he is incorrect......most operators do NOT, and as posted here, some OM's/CP's positively discourage crews from flying with the A/P and A/T disengaged.
I chuckled at Flintster's honest appraisal of his hand flying skills (or lack of proficiency thereof!), because I believe that is where MOST guys are at....myself included. I have flown with several captains, who by virtue of their backgrounds (Test-pilots, flying older types with unreliable/no A/Ps etc.), hand fly the entire flight, and no-one in the back would know. Some of those pros aren't really comfortable using the "new-fangled" automated systems, but their scan, feel, ability and practice make them very smooth "manual operators".
SNS3G's assertion that

regular recurrent training

should suffice is exactly what I'm saying is NOT sufficient. Sure, if you are on a full service contract and you go to the sim at least twice a year, you will do twice as much as most people who only go once a year....if they're lucky! The simulators are excellent tools for reinforcing skills and drills needed for critical system failures, practicing emergencies that CANNOT be done on the actual a/c, but they absolutely do not replicate the "shock, sounds and sensations" of real-life malfunctions.
There is no reason that I can think of, why you should not pull back a power lever during climb out on an empty sector, just to experience what your normally grossly over-powered rocket REALLY feels like on half power. The aim of this thread was to provoke a little introspection, and see if in these days of ultra-reliable and fully automated aeroplanes, we could help ourselves to maintain those diminishing hand flying skills.

[411A]

There is no reason that I can think of, why you should not pull back a power lever during climb out on an empty sector....

Bad idea with other than an experienced check pilot in one of the seats, as engine-out training in the airplane needs to be approached with absolute caution....and planning.

IE: use the six P's (Prior Planning Prevents Pi** Poor Performance).

[Miles Magister]

I hand fly often as I was lucky enough to do my apprenticship on big aircraft with a rubbish autopilot and a back end fully of ugly military people who soon let you know if your handling was not smooth, and I liked my dinner brought forward nicely! However I do generally recomend that recently trained pilots use the automated systems on revenue flights. partly as they generally do not demonstrate a great deal of awareness when hand flying and partly because I have seen too many who fly as rough as old boots when they think they fly as smooth as 411A, which upsets the pax as also mentioned above.

It is a good idea to develop the skills on dead legs.

The point above about the dangers of single engine approaches when you have not been trained to recognise the potential problems is a good one.

I read an article last year, cant remember where now, that suggested 95% of GA accidents were on transit flights.

When I did the GIT Course I was taught the 7 Ps Prior Preparation and Planning Prevents P*** Poor Performance.

Plan and treat your transits just like a revenue leg and stay safe, whichever input method to the CC you use.

MM

[SNS3Guppy]

Note that nowhere does Eurocontol use the word autopilot.

Note that nowhere did I say that Eurocontrol does use the word autopilot.

However, in all aircraft I've flown in RVSM airspace, both the aircraft requirements, and the operator requirements demand that the autopilot be engaged while in RVSM, as part of RVSM certification.

Eurocontrol is not the be-all and end-all of RVSM airspace, and the world is somewhat bigger than Europe.

SNS3Guppy has tried to infer that "most operators do take that opportunity", but IMHO he is incorrect......most operators do NOT, and as posted here, some OM's/CP's positively discourage crews from flying with the A/P and A/T disengaged.

Perhaps most operators with which you are familiar discourage it. All operators with which I am familiar encourage it.

[Bruce Waddington]

SNS3guppy,

You write, "Eurocontrol is not the be-all and end-all of RVSM airspace, and the world is somewhat bigger than Europe."

Quite correct. I thought you were from Europe so please accept my apology.

My flying has taken me all around the world but lets concentrate on your home, the USA. In a recent search of the FARs I have been unable to find a section that requires the use of the autopilot in RVSM airspace.

I always look for opportunities to learn from others so if you can direct me to the appropriate section I would be indebted to you.

best regards,

Bruce Waddington