How many sectors do you handfly?
 

Hello friends,

just a little question: How many sectors do you handfly without FD and AP and ATHR to stay in practice? Im talking about normal Ops, no low vis etc. I used to fly as much as i can, but unfortunately the airbus is operated with max use of equipment .

Cheers!

PRNAV required and RVSM
 

I´d love to handfly more to keep my skills, it is also encouraged in our OM-A to do so if WX/Airspace permits and you are aware of the increased workload on Pilot Monitoring.

However, as 90% of all SID´s and STAR´s we fly is PRNAV required we have to use the FD. And with RVSM also the Autopilot above 280. Have flown a few short sectors below FL280 with visual departure and arrival/approach by hand with no use of FD and Autopilot, great fun and wish there were more opportunities.

It should be realized though that in todays airspace there is a safety gain from the increased situational awareness and reduced workload that comes from utilizing the automatics. Just as long as one selects the proper level of automation for the task at hand, and have the skill to do it without need be. Just search on youtube for: "Children of the magenta line" And you will see what I´m on about.

Airbus? Are you joking?

Do not do it.

Personally - if the conditions are fine and the other chap is happy I try to do one a day.

Why not hand-flying an airbus?

Without A/T's? Every landing.
Without FD? Never. Ignore the FD? Every flight. :ok:

If you mean hand flying the entire flight, I've only ever done it twice.

I do turn off the all the automation between 10k and 20k every few weeks though.

So you are just flying a heading and attitude? 10,000 ft and below is where Manual hand flying should keep up your flying skills. The day your automation fails you need these skills to do an approach and land. It is the way we always did it.

That means no AT, AP, or FD. It is quite easy because we all did it 10 years ago with no problem. I am sure we could have flown the Airbus the same way unless it doesn't fly like a real airplane like Boeing.

You Kids

You still actually believe in flying

:mad:

When you need to do it react and base it on previous experience. Oh hang on .....

Flying full sectors without FD, AP, AT? Did around twice a day a few years ago, but nowadays im too lazy, its usually just til climb speed is on past 10k and then somewhere below 20k off and the rest manually. However, without FD? Quite often actually, the whole flight. Don't need it for the AP and not for manual flight anyway.

I thought I would get a lot of hate mail over the anti Airbus coments but didn't. I just don't think Airbus should be making pilots button pushers and lose their flying skills. Most of them have already, unless they went to the airport and did it on their own. AF447 showed the loss of their flying skills flying the Airbus. They turned a simple loss of airspeed into a deep stall for no reason. We need to go back to where pilots were pilots, not computer operators.

It's not only an Airbus issue. It's more a company SOP based issue.

I'm lucky to be on the Boeing. On a four sector day, I offer my FOs the opportunity To give the autopilot a day off from work so they can manually fly the jet from T/O to RVSM. Then from TOD to landing. FDs and A/T at their discretion. VMC is not required either:ok:.

Not to mention FARs: RVSM, RNAV Sids & STARs, Q Routes...

Fantom

What's the problem. I have flown several zero automation flights in the bus. It is a delight.


Bubbers

What boeing are you taliing about, 737, 747, ,757, 767... Or flybywire 777 and 787?

Airbus is a real airplane. What would make it unreal? Fbw?

All boeings have automation. Continuous use of automation degrades hand flying skills, no matter what the model is.

Company policy and captain's attitude towards hand flying will determine the degree of hand skills in a given company. Not the model.

By choice I just flew Boeing aircraft so never flew an Airbus. Airbus pilots on this site keep saying you need to leave the automation on. I was wondering why the Airbus had to be flown differently. Is it because they are taught to never hand fly? Why can us Boeing guys hand fly the whole flight if we choose to but the Airbus guys need automation?

To answer your question, 737, 757, 767. MD 80 also now.

AP on immediately after take-off with auto land, where possible, should be considered normal. This allows PF to view the complete picture and manage the flight. Most I ever did was hand fly from 10 thousand ft or hand fly with double FMGC failure.

A more important question would be, how many sectors do you give to your F/O? And do you set conditions that make him/her feel that the sector really is PF without undue prompting? On a 5 sector day do you ever give F/O 4 sectors? Do you make F/O feel like a valuable crew member? My experience with F/O reaction was that they seldom got this consideration.

As captain, if you are mostly far removed from these principles, reconsideration is due.

How many sectors do you handfly?
 

A320

I always fly rawdata with a/thr off. I disconnect between 5000-10000ft, when it starts to get interesting. Except LVO or when something else is going on. Beware of copycat behaviour though.......

A320 TRE

The PIC should be proficient as well as the FO being able to be at any second able to take over the aircraft with a malfunction with no problem. Anything short of this should require retraining to reasume duties. SOP's should never make you an autopilot monitor only. That is the way we always did it. We should be able to do it in all aircraft, including Airbus today.

Bubbers44

The problem, Sir, is that taking over manually requires some real hand flying time, IN WEATHER. Today's pilots don't do that because SOPs don't allow it. Thirty-plus years ago, in thick cloud, I went lost wingman from lead. Unknown to me, we were in turn, into me. When I put my eyes on the MM-3 (type was NAA F-100) I was at low altitude, at 60+ degrees of bank. It was hard getting my internal gyros back after the fast roll to wings level. How many of today's sports could handle it? I did have many hours of hand flown IFR, moving cancelled checks.

Well I've flown for three different airlines and five different types and I've never seen such an SOP.

LSM

The theme of this thread, and of the nearby one on FAA SAFO 13002, is that thru SOPs, training policy, standards or Captain's Perogative, hand lying skills have not been practiced; that a record of incidents where poor hand flying skills resulted in unsafe or unplanned aircraft attitudes. My point is that 250- hour cadets don't have the requisite hand flying time to be truly proficient at it and an airliner isn't the place to learn. I had over 5,000 hours, 1,000 actual, hand flown IFR in my class and WASN'T near the "high guy" in the group.

GF, I had it happen in a Lear 23 with a friend handflying and he was going into a 45 degree bank when I took over as I had been balancing fuel when I felt level but all three atitude indicators indicated a 45 degree bank. We were still in the clouds over 35,00 ft. It takes a lot of trust to not trust your brain but go by what the instruments say to save the day. You need to do it anyway.

GF, I had it happen in a Lear 23 with a friend handflying and he was going into a 45 degree bank


Apparently guys couldn't fly back then either even without FBW and FMC's.

Vertigo is what we called it back then. Your brain told you you were doing one thing and the instruments something else. JFK JR had that happen to him. He crashed because he didn't trust his instruments. He went by what his brain told him to do, not his instruments. That is why you need to discipline yourself to trust your instruments..

It's a nice thought hand flying the entire sector but unfortunately in most airlines SOP just won't allow this. My last airline had an SOP to not disconnect the A/THR unless a procedure or impending 'excedence' required you to do so. In my current airline there is an SOP to say that the A/P must be engaged at all times above 10,000' and that below 10,000 manual hand flying should only be undertaken in 'good' weather and the could base must not be within 1,000' of the applicable minima. Having said that over half my approaches are generally visual approaches and all hand flown so I get plenty of practice.

Fantom:You're the one joking right? If anything it's far easier to hand-fly the bus than a Boeing raw data...

Autoflight:You're kidding too, right? :{

In answer to the OP: on mediumhaul (A321) I used to do at least one or two raw data approaches a week (no A/P F/D A/T), but an entire hand-flown sector probably only about once a year. They're a pain because cruise is the time to do paperwork :} and fuel checks, and the fun/challenging bits are climb and descent anyway. Plus you really have to be flight-planned below FL290 otherwise it's RVSM and the A/P should probably be engaged.

Now on medium/longhaul (B744) I never do an entire hand-flown sector for obvious reasons, although I try to do one raw data descent/approach a month if I can.

I have never flown for an airline that discouraged manual flight and hope I never have to.

Due to the autotrim the Airbus is actually a bit more challenging to fly since ANY correction in pitch needs a counter correction when back on the glide. You can't just nudge the plane back on the glideslope whilst remaining in trim like in any other airplane. This is a minor difference, but it shows...

Having said that, I actually handfly the Airbus raw data during the approach far more often than I ever did on the Boeing, to avoid becoming too lazy. Maybe 10% of time? Yes, in good wx.

ususally in good weather, I takeoff with no F/D A/THR or any automation.

On landing when I hand fly for the last 1000 feet, I disconnect the AFDS using the A/P DISCONNECT button on the MCP on my 737-800. I personally do not rely on the F/D on landing since I have my own landing technique.

Is that so? Maybe you should get licensed and rated first.

[qoute]I personally do not rely on the F/D on landing since I have my own landing technique.[/quote]

Now I'm very curious as to your landing technique..
And I sincerely hope you don't mean the flare!

And why wouldn't you just use the disco button on the stick?

No excuse for airlines that forbid their pilots to stay proficient!
 

The problem is not the lowtimers. Blame the company's training department!

In my company it's done like this: Starting in the type-rating sim sessions the F/O's in training are learned to fly the Airbus manually (A/P, F/D & A/THR off) on many occasions whenever the exercise permits it. (And, for training, having one engine out is NOT a good reason to keep the A/P on. := ) Then, during base training they'll fly a few touch and go's, again without the automatics. Later on, during the initial line training, they will be asked to fly manual raw data approaches, whenever the conditions permit it. Believe me, once they're fully released on line they'll handfly the A320 pretty well, or ... they won't be released on line. :=

Unlike many others my company encourages pilots to keep their handflying skills up to date. Most of the time, I don't have to suggest my F/O's to turn the automatics off. they will have asked me before if they can. More often it happens, especially with the newly released kids, that I have to suggest them that it would be wise to fly with the automatics on when the metar warns us about low clouds and moderate visibility or when flying into a busy airport we are not familiar with! :p It's not that they are not smart enough to know that, it's just that they were so used to raw date flying during their training, that using the automatics for approach has become the exception, rather then the rule. :p

I'll admit that sometimes those new F/O's are not so great in using the automatics. For instance, the first time they have to intercept a G/S from above with the A/P, they will often have a problem. Not amazing, they've trained it once in the sim and then they were expecting it! So confronted to this situation these guys (and girls) will disconnect the A/P when it captures the initial approach alt before the G/S iso using the Airbus procedure for this. (dialling the altitude up and using V/S to get to the G/S.) Oh well, manually intercepting the slope and then re-engaging the A/P gets the job done just as well and it gives me something to talk about during a friendly post-flight debrief. :ok:

There is really no excuse for Airlines who forbid their pilots to keep their raw data handflying skills up to date.

I do sincerely hope that you were just kidding. :ugh: I can assure you that it's a great machine to handfly with A/P, F/D's and A/T switched off! Last week, at the end of a sim recurrent, we had some spare time and I did a handflown ILS app with A/P, F/D and A/T off to catIIIb minima (ceiling at 25 ft and rvr 125m, no wind) I greased it on the centerline (no applause please, I'm pretty sure that 90% of the pilots in our company would be able to demonstrate that!)

For those who regularly hand fly, to keep up their skills -

How many calculate an off-track critical point, point of no return and last point of safe diversion (including engine out and depressurisation contingency checks) while in the cruise?

Are you keeping ALL of your skills up? ;)

Cut and pasted from Pprune SE Asia and Far East Forum.


No take off and landings for Lion Air F/O's?


Understand Lion Air has issued a notice to pilots that all take off and landings and operations below 5000 ft must be conducted by the captain. This in response to many incidents such as tail-strikes caused by inexperienced first officers. The F/O's are allowed to handle the aircraft only above 5000 ft.

Maybe more concentrated simulator training on take off and landings are needed before line training?


Now that is what I call real scary. What hope do first officers have to take over from the captain in case of captain's incapacitation? I understand one Asian operator with A330's bans all take off and landings for A330 first officers until five years on type. Then after five years they go on to the A320 for take off and landing practice then back on the A330 and get the occasional landing after that..

Lion air is a ptf airline. That is, there is CM 1 and superfirstclass in row 0 R.

Hand flying skills do not depend on type, but on policy and kind of operations (major airports vs touristic island airport, for instance). But it is true that pilots who are afraid to hand fly say that airbus is not the airplane for handflying, that it is meant flr full auto only.

In my airline boeing pilots are as restricted as airbus ones in this regard.

Bubbers, you would equalky handfly the 777, which us fbw. And the airbus if you dared

I handfly with as little automation as possible when I can - which is not that often when you're doing 6-14hr sectors, often into dodgy weather and terrain at strange times of the day or night.

For me, there's not much point taking out the autopilot if you're going to leave the FD on and AT in... Unfortunately, we're not supposed to take the AT out, so that's one thing gone. You can mimic manual thrust by putting it in LVL CHG (777), but that can leave you without AT wakeup, should you get distracted.

There are many areas where A/P use is mandatory or highly encouraged, like RVSM, some RNAV SIDs/STARs, RNAV(RNP) approaches, etc. You just get in the habit of flying it through the FMC/MCP, which, to be honest, sometimes requires more knowledge and skill than basic handflying.

Given ground-based navaids are continually being withdrawn, waypoints are becoming purely RNAV and curved approaches using WAAS/LAAS are on the menu, there won't be much real flying to do unless you happen to see the airport through a gap in the clouds and they let you go visual. :sad: Just as well I have my own aircraft to do what I like in. :)

MB02, I would dare if I ever flew an Airbus or 777 but since I haven't because of choice and quality of life in both cases can't compare them with the four jet airliners I flew as captain that were easy to fly with all automation including FDs turned off. As I said before we even got dispatched with AP inop. from LAS to MSP and back at high altitude with no problem as a new captain with a brand new FO never in the flight levels.

I have been listening to posts of Airbus pilots that would never fly unless their automation was working. It might not be true but that is what they post.