Auto Pilot Usage

Nick said:
This is also the reason that the larger the aircraft, the greater the percentage of passengers and cabin crew that are vomiting uncontrollably all over themselves and all over each other, due to the G-forces they're experiencing as the ham-fisted ego-maniac up front attempts to simultaneously guide the aluminum beast to cruise altitude and track course without the use of autopilot.
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This statement certainly doesn't give me confidence in the abilities of airline pilots.

While handflying the jet may not be as perfectly smooth or as efficient as the a/p, it shouldn't be rocket science to perform by what should be experienced pilots. I'd like to think that just because the "ham fisted ego maniac" up front is flying manually, that he still has a Pilot Monitoring and that CRM is still occurring.

Or is the ego-maniac PM deliberately not helping the ego-maniac PF because he wants him to fly single-pilot also? :)

Know both the automation and what to do when it's not working. Use the automation, but ensure you keep proficient on all facets of flight. That's really all this thread needs to say.
 
PeanuckleCRJ said:
Pssst, MikeD... his post was dripping with sarcasm.

With a good airline pilot, whether you are handflying or have it all coupled up, it should be transparent to the passenger. A mastery of all regimes should be the goal, and it is what is recommended in our manuals.
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Oh I figured, but my point is that there are people who actually believe the sarcasm as fact. That's whats sad to me.
 
PeanuckleCRJ said:
Pssst, MikeD... his post was dripping with sarcasm.

With a good airline pilot, whether you are handflying or have it all coupled up, it should be transparent to the passenger. A mastery of all regimes should be the goal, and it is what is recommended in our manuals.
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Agree, and if handflying a visual was some kind of excessive danger, I would expect to see numerous smoking holes and leftover holes all over the hills and terrain of Kai Tak. Everything has a time and place. Obviously handflying all or even a majority of the time isn't optimal these days, but keeping the feel of the aircraft by doing segments here or there by hand is necessary for skills maintenance.

On a related note, one plane which comes to mind that definately was far more difficult manually to fly than having the automation do it, was the F-117. Wasn't called the Wobbly Goblin for nothing. And while hand flying the thing wasn't at all impossible for basic flying and airwork, it certainly wasn't as smooth and efficient as letting the autopilot do it, as the a/p had a far better relationship with the FBW than we the human did. However the primary reason we always flew on autopilot in that plane wasn't for cruise at altitude, airline-style flying; it was for combat employment purposes. Being a single-pilot plane, that pilot was far more busy being a WSO than being a pilot. The flying had to be left to the a/p because the weapons arm/release and targeting search/track functions had to also be accomplished, and to do manual flying and WSO work all at once in that plane was very excessive overload. Most times, it couldn't be done. And even when practiced, it couldn't be honed to a point where the pilot was sufficiently ahead of the aircraft at all times, simply due to all the monkey wrenches that would get thrown in with regards to threats and threat avoidance, route changes, strike timing changes, etc. The automation was critical for those tasks.
 
The AP is useless when we're "on the job" so it just stays off. Sometimes I'll set up the FD for ALT hold if our work involves strange altitudes. It just helps tighten up your scan with the pilot display.

I get all the stick and rudder time I need while working. So on the ferry flights to or from the jobs I'll just set it all up, sit back and watch the show. This gives me a chance to observe the AP and make sure it does what it's supposed to do and where the gremlins like to hang out. It also keeps me from getting rusty with the automation.
 
MikeD said:
Or is the ego-maniac PM deliberately not helping the ego-maniac PF because he wants him to fly single-pilot also? :)
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As you're probably aware, the rule up front is to make it from A to B with no phone calls ("Hey Blue, it's your chief pilot - hey listen, I have an inspector from the FAA on hold..."), no ASAPs and no live stream to Fox News. I do whatever is necessary to make that happen.
 
Autothrust Blue said:
As you're probably aware, the rule up front is to make it from A to B with no phone calls ("Hey Blue, it's your chief pilot - hey listen, I have an inspector from the FAA on hold..."), no ASAPs and no live stream to Fox News. I do whatever is necessary to make that happen.
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No political arguments with laptops open resulting in 200nm overflights of destination. :)
 
Autothrust Blue said:
We must CHANGE THE CULTURE that drives us to operate at the HIGHEST level of automation...

(20+ years later, still true. Attitudes are difficult things to change.)
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Funny thing is, the guys trying to operate at the highest level of automation at all times are the ones who usually mess the approach up the worst. I've seen guys try to program entire visual approaches into the box to let the LNAV/VNAV handle the work; it works great until ATC has another plan.

LNAV/VNAV/AP/AT/FD are all great tools (I use them every time I fly), but the basic pitch/thrust tenets of flying remain the foundation.
 
Threads like this make me shake my head.

Several of us are instructors for different types of operations. We see pilots under high-stress performing once, if ever, maneuvers.

Pilots unable to switch freely between various modes of automation (from old school no nothing up to fully coupled flight and everything in between) typically have the most difficulty. Pilots unable to manage the aircraft in fully automated modes typically are just as bad as pilots that can't fly without the crutch of automation.

In all cases, it seems to be a lack of understanding of the state of the aircraft using whatever tools are onboard to develop the SA picture. They also tend to be weak in managing the workload of the cockpit and staying ahead of the airplane. I'm not talking about sim jackhole instructor guy loading the crew to task saturation. I'm talking about a single abnormal and a busy checklist and coordinating an air return.

There are "children of the magenta line", but I do see it as most in this thread do. To me it seems it's people transitioning out of classic aircraft and don't understand how to find errors WE AS FLIGHT CREW have made programming the equipment. In the opposite realm, we have people that don't trust the automation, immediately panic, turn everything off and have lost all SA as the tools the aircraft give us for developing our SA aren't used (equivalent to tuning in ILS for a runway you don't want to land on).

In the other hand, you have pilots that never touch the controls and can barely hand fly straight and level in a trimmed up airplane.

Never in these academic circle jerks is the consideration of the wide array of equipment out there taken into consideration. There is stuff I do in the 744 I couldn't do in the 742. It's just the way it is.

As a collective, the royal We if you will, need to develop ourselves (if you haven't) to be proficient at ALL LEVELS of automation, in all phases, in your current machine. Anything less is a disservice.

/soapbox
 
dasleben said:
Funny thing is, the guys trying to operate at the highest level of automation at all times are the ones who usually mess the approach up the worst. I've seen guys try to program entire visual approaches into the box to let the LNAV/VNAV handle the work; it works great until ATC has another plan.

LNAV/VNAV/AP/AT/FD are all great tools (I use them every time I fly), but the basic pitch/thrust tenets of flying remain the foundation.
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Again, I could have fingerbanged the FGCP on my way into Methford this morning ("Descend, descend, okay, altitude capture, set the next one, descend, descend, ..."), or I could have just pushed the big red "AP/TRIM/PUSHER DISC" button. Choice (B) was clear and obvious.

The worst aircraft handling I've seen is trying to make a high energy visual approach (yes, we have them too, it's possible to be too high and too hot even with 10.5'-diameter redneck speedbrakes) in this airplane with the autopilot engaged. Just, no.
 
Trip7 said:
I don't think there's ever been a Autopilot vs Hand flying thread in the history of the Internet that hasn't caused baskets of popcorn to be brought out. What's next for discussion? Airbus vs Boeing?
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My regional is better than yours. :)
 
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