Hand flying

It all depends on the situation, the weather, and my motivation/fatigue level for the flight but I usually try and hand fly to cruise and for the last few minutes of an arrival.
 
DE727UPS said:
Yeah, I guess on the MD11, you never leave the auto throttle on with the autopilot off. Guess it does weird stuff. On my (our) airplane it's an acceptable practice in the book and it's pretty rare to see a guy kick them off much above 100 feet. They do such a nice job of keeping you on speed and it's nice to know you can just hit the TOGA switch and the automation will still do it's thing if you have to go around. I have no problem overriding the autothrottle if it's gusty or it's not doing what I want. I'd rather keep it engaged and just do what I want need to with the thrust levers for a momentary deviation.

On a reject below 80 knots, we are supposed to kill the autothrottle. I always forget in the sim but I have my hand on the thrust levers and make them do what I want. I like the way Boeing designed the plane that it has great automation but it's easy for the pilot to override as well.
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The Douglas (now Boeing) rec on the MD-11 is to leave the A/T on, regardless of autopilot status (and override them as required at any time without disengaging them). Actually, Boeing did not recommend landing with them on for any of the "Boeing North" airplanes until the 777, and now the 787. The rec is determined by the pitch changes with power change. On the -11, the #2 balances out the 1 and 3 pitch up, on the FBW airplanes the FBW compensates.

That said, there are valid reasons for turning them off, primarily because it tunes the pilot into using the power as primary for vertical path control in the landing environment, while A/T can lead to bad habits where pilots might try to save a landing with pitch first -- a very dangerous habit pattern to get into in any swept wing aircraft.

As for hand flying, my company has changed quite a bit on recommendations. Although it was never required, now it is recommended to hand fly more. I usually hand fly up to about FL 250 (at least before RVSM) and then turn it all off sometime in the approach environment, depending on workload. Usually before the FAF, though.
 
During my first 100hrs or so on the Saab, the only time the AP was off was the first 500 and last 500 feet of the flight. Now that I'm more comfortable, I'll hand fly to cruise and usually hand fly the last 5-10 minutes of the flight. I like to warm up.
 
Let's all be realistic here...

"hand flying" a bigger airplane isn't exactly a huge feat of stick and rudder skills.
 
ryan1234 said:
Let's all be realistic here...

"hand flying" a bigger airplane isn't exactly a huge feat of stick and rudder skills.
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I REALLY hate it when people say "I can fly your Learjet no problem. I've got 2,500 hours of heavy jet time".

Hey idiot...Part 25 says your flight controls can't be any heavier than mine. It's not like you're wrestling an elephant to fly that thing.

Matter of fact, our Duke (7,000 lbs) is a HELLUVA lot harder to fly than our Challenger (44,600 lbs). Not just because the Duke is a turboprop hot rod (yes, it's converted), but because it literally takes nearly all your might to pull the yoke back to the stop.
 
TFaudree_ERAU said:
I REALLY hate it when people say "I can fly your Learjet no problem. I've got 2,500 hours of heavy jet time".

Hey idiot...Part 25 says your flight controls can't be any heavier than mine. It's not like you're wrestling an elephant to fly that thing.

Matter of fact, our Duke (7,000 lbs) is a HELLUVA lot harder to fly than our Challenger (44,600 lbs). Not just because the Duke is a turboprop hot rod (yes, it's converted), but because it literally takes nearly all your might to pull the yoke back to the stop.
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More for Mike, but how does it compare to the metro? That thing is like driving a semi.
 
ATN_Pilot said:
Ugh. I think I just had a flashback to flying with crotchety old Memphis captains. :)

"That's not how we did it on the Saab! Have I ever told you about the Saab? The Saab was a mighty machine! A joy to fly. Not like this new-fangled electronical crap that you kids want to fly. Hey, pass me that empty cup. I need a spit cup." :bang:
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Things haven't chaged.
 
TFaudree_ERAU said:
I REALLY hate it when people say "I can fly your Learjet no problem. I've got 2,500 hours of heavy jet time".

Hey idiot...Part 25 says your flight controls can't be any heavier than mine. It's not like you're wrestling an elephant to fly that thing..
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Well, two things. First, obviously anyone that thinks that their heavy time would make it easy for them to fly a Lear is an idiot. The Lear is very much more responsive, more like flying a fighter by comparison. In fact, I would venture that the transition from a fighter to a Lear would be easier than a heavy jet.

That said, just because you can fly a Lear, also does not translate to a much larger aircraft. While those skills will get you through most of the flying (in either direction), the kinematic issues in either could kill you if you do not understand them. The Lear is a (relatively) small airplane, without much sweep (relatively) and does not have the issues that a much larger airplane would have. Same is true in the reverse direction.

And, yes, I have flown both.
 
All it comes down to is respecting and knowing your machine, whatever it is. And not automatically assuming anything will be a walk in the park.
 
seagull said:
Well, two things. First, obviously anyone that thinks that their heavy time would make it easy for them to fly a Lear is an idiot. The Lear is very much more responsive, more like flying a fighter by comparison. In fact, I would venture that the transition from a fighter to a Lear would be easier than a heavy jet.

That said, just because you can fly a Lear, also does not translate to a much larger aircraft. While those skills will get you through most of the flying (in either direction), the kinematic issues in either could kill you if you do not understand them. The Lear is a (relatively) small airplane, without much sweep (relatively) and does not have the issues that a much larger airplane would have. Same is true in the reverse direction.

And, yes, I have flown both.
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I will be the first to admit that this bit me transitioning between two jets... and their max weights are only about 20,000lbs. apart. I grossly underestimated the handling differences between the two. Differences include:

- Bypass ratios (spool up time is faster/more responsive on my new plane)
- Wing sweep
- Roll rate (much, much slower on the new ride)
- No trend vector: I had become incredibly reliant on the trend vector for airspeed.

I would never say one is harder to fly than the other, but I certainly didn't expect two aircraft of nearly the same size to behave so differently. As for TFaudree's comments about someone claiming to be able to fly their Lear due to other experience: the red flags would be going up left and right with a statement like that. I look at the HS-125's we have and get intimidated. Just because I fly something bigger certainly doesn't make me better. Unfortunately, I'm not surprised that someone said such things.
 
Some of the Capt's I fly with shouldn't be allowed to turn off the autopilot.....lol some scary stuff!
 
Sisson2011 said:
Yea maybe. But, how is a pilot suppose to iron his flying if he always turns the a/p on?
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What exactly is he trying to "iron out?" If you can't safety hand-fly an airplane by the time you get to the airlines, then you shouldn't be at the airlines in the first place. As mentioned previously, I hardly ever hand-fly, but I still have no problems clicking off the autopilot and hand-flying a visual approach when it's necessary. The idea that you need to hand-fly so many hours a month to maintain proficiency is just bizarre to me. We're not doing steep-turns and VMC demos out here, so none of this is really that tough for someone with thousands of hours.

Also, I think it is important to hand fly at least a little from time to time. The AP and FD does fail.
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I'm pretty sure we can't even MEL our FD. Airplane can't be dispatched without at least one of them working. The AP can be deferred, but I doubt the company would ever actually dispatch it that way with people on board. I've never even seen the autothrottles deferred.
 
TFaudree_ERAU said:
I REALLY hate it when people say "I can fly your Learjet no problem. I've got 2,500 hours of heavy jet time".

Hey idiot...Part 25 says your flight controls can't be any heavier than mine. It's not like you're wrestling an elephant to fly that thing.

Matter of fact, our Duke (7,000 lbs) is a HELLUVA lot harder to fly than our Challenger (44,600 lbs). Not just because the Duke is a turboprop hot rod (yes, it's converted), but because it literally takes nearly all your might to pull the yoke back to the stop.
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Yup, in fact, you can knock your flight attendants over with the roll rate in a 767... Little known fact. :D
 
No real policy for us, I usually hand fly to cruise then kick on the autopilot. On the way down, where I kick the A/P off really depends on how long into the day we are, I'll usually leave it on til pretty close to minimums if it's been a 20+ hour day......other than that it all depends on how much of a slam dunk we are getting.
 
jhugz said:
More for Mike, but how does it compare to the metro? That thing is like driving a semi.
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Better roll rate than the metro and about as pitch sensitive because they both have a very aft CG.
The Challenger is the closest thing to flying the metro I've come across. Big difference being the rudder on the Challenger is about 4 times too big.
 
Giggity said:
Some of the Capt's I fly with shouldn't be allowed to turn off the autopilot.....lol some scary stuff!
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My favorite is hand flying on departure. Then when they are 300ft from level off call "autopilot on."

One one hand, good for you not doing something you aren't comfortable with.

On the other hand:

PANSY!
 
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