Hand flying

[rotorspeed]

To the airline guys out there
Does the company allow you to and fly the plane in? Such as an ils approach to minimums. On videos I hardly ever see the pilot fly it in mostly always letting the auto pilot do the work. Doesn't that get you rusty

[fish4life]

Most companies encourage hand flying during low workload approaches, practices the hand flying an ILS while it's a nice day or just straight up do an old school visual approach. When the weather is crap using the autopilot is encouraged if not mandatory at most 705 operators.

[justwork]

To the airline guys out there
Does the company allow you to and fly the plane in? Such as an ils approach to minimums. On videos I hardly ever see the pilot fly it in mostly always letting the auto pilot do the work. Doesn't that get you rusty

The airline I work at encourages hand flying. Also in recurrent sim training, and even on check rides, there is a lot of hand flying, no FD, no auto throttle.

[confusedalot]

To the airline guys out there
Does the company allow you to and fly the plane in? Such as an ils approach to minimums. On videos I hardly ever see the pilot fly it in mostly always letting the auto pilot do the work. Doesn't that get you rusty

The airline I work at encourages hand flying. Also in recurrent sim training, and even on check rides, there is a lot of hand flying, no FD, no auto throttle.

I always had the itch to do hand flying. The problem though, is company procedures, nobody accepts just handbombing an approach with the flight directors and autotrottle off........too bad.

So what typically happens is that, on a manual maneuver, you have to keep all of this stuff ''on'', and then instruct the PNF to ''set this, gimme that'' on the MCP.

It actually creates more work than just doing it yourself. So sadly, many just say @#$! it, it's no fun anymore.............

[rotorspeed]

It seems like you would get rusty if you didn't shoot some approaches in IMC.also if you look at some of the airline crashes there have been some where pilots just stalled the plane. I'm wondering if this is do to lack of real flying

[Black_Tusk]

Jazz encourages hand flying as much as you can. I try to do it at least once per pairing up through 10,000 and then from 10,000 down.

[skypirate88]

I will quite often hand fly up to 10000, unless departing YYZ. With all the step climbs given on the SID I don't like making the PNF run the flight guidance panel as well as handle the radio. I will hand fly the approach if visual below about 3000 feet. I find it is easier a lot of the time to just do that, instead of playing around with the AP. If the approach is completed in IMC, I will seldom take the autopilot off before I am visual.

[Canoehead]

To the airline guys out there
Does the company allow you to and fly the plane in? Such as an ils approach to minimums. On videos I hardly ever see the pilot fly it in mostly always letting the auto pilot do the work. Doesn't that get you rusty

On HGS equipped airplanes that don't have autoland capability, Category 2 or 3 ILS approaches are hand flown. The Jazz CRJ and Q400 fleets are examples.

[Cat Driver]

I always thought that hand flying in IMC conditions below three thousand feet was just to dangerous to attempt.

[BTD]

I also hand fly on a regular basis. No F/D and no auto throttle.

The wording of our manuals is such that it is recommended to use the appropriate level of automation for the circumstances, generally meaning all that you have available. However it also says, the pilot is required to maintain competency in manual flying. As others have stated when there are a lot of guidance panel changes it does increase workload for the PM. Except on departure I prefer hand flying without the F/D.

I will often hand fly the last 5 min or so into ORD, when they slam dunk you in above glide slope holding some ridiculous speed. It is easier than screwing with the automation, and one of those circumstances where the appropriate level of automation is only the auto throttle for me.

[Black_Tusk]

I always thought that hand flying in IMC conditions below three thousand feet was just to dangerous to attempt.

Oh the sarcasm sure drips off your tongue nicely.

[Rockie]

I always thought that hand flying in IMC conditions below three thousand feet was just to dangerous to attempt.

No, but there's a time and a place. Going into Chicago, in weather, 2 miles behind preceding traffic would be a foolish time to increase both pilots workload when you don't have to.

[PostmasterGeneral]

I hand bomb it as much as I absolutely can. Out of Pearson with 16 level offs? No. The other guy will quickly become task saturated and overloaded. Climbing out of YYC on a beautiful summer evening? Shit yes I'm going to be hand bombing.

I find often times guys I fly with will spend so much time with their heads down pushing buttons in the FMS and fiddling with MCP modes, etc all the while they are 90 seconds behind the airplane and blowing through a localizer... on a VMC day. For christs sake, look out the window, grab the yoke, and line yourself up. Don't worry about how the approach is sequencing in the FMS...

[Cat Driver]

Oh the sarcasm sure drips off your tongue nicely.

You noticed?

[rotorspeed]

If you're in full imc all the way to minimums you are allowed to hand fly then

[Rockie]

If you're in full imc all the way to minimums you are allowed to hand fly then

I'm not sure if that's a question or a statement. Weather is just one of the variables determining whether disconnecting the autopilot is appropriate or not. It's the workload and a whole bunch of other factors. Hand flying an ILS in Saskatoon to minimums when there's nobody else around at noon on your first sector of the day might be perfectly acceptable, whereas doing the same in turbulence, icing, out of gas and at 2 in the morning might not be. Safety is the name of the game when you've got passengers onboard and that comes before everything else.

If you yearn to prove your mettle as a hands on pilot disregarding all other responsibilities there's a place for that too.

[complexintentions]

On videos I hardly ever see the pilot fly it in mostly always letting the auto pilot do the work.

Hmmm. You do realize the pilot is still "flying it in" even when the autopilot is engaged, right?

Yes, I do understand you're referring to manual manipulation of the controls, I'm not trying to give you a hard time. But this idea that the autopilot is "doing the work" is precisely why so many guys are getting into trouble - it's like they forget that all an autopilot does is hold the controls for you, it isn't actually "flying". It certainly isn't thinking.

I do as much hand-flying as possible, when reasonable. But I also fly the automation as if I were manually flying. Airspeed, pitch, power - whether I'm directing it with my hands on the flight controls or on the automation controls I want the same outcome. I cringe when I see guys mindlessly selecting MCP modes without even considering basic pitch/power relationships, assuming the automation will sort it out. Or blindly following the FD and pitching up when it goes into early ALT capture on a climb and the speed is rapidly decaying. Or mismanaging the descent profile and energy so now they panic and click off the automatics and panic-dive onto the G/S or overbank onto the LOC. If you can't recover it with the autopilot on, you've screwed it up somewhere earlier and failed to plan properly. (Or ATC has, but you haven't been proactive enough with them.) Have to disagree with a previous statement though, sequencing the approach in the FMC is pretty important if you go missed.

Point is, I'm "flying the aircraft" whether the autopilot is on or off. With the autopilot on I have the advantage of freeing more mental capacity for planning and decision-making, which the aircraft kind of sucks at. And then in certain situations flying it manually with the autopilot off is certainly the best way to go, i.e. large gusts and crosswinds on approach and landing. And for that, yes, I like to practice. But the automation is simply a layer, not another pilot.

As to the crashes where they simply stalled the aircraft or other really basic handling failures, I would contend that it may not have been a case of getting "rusty", the skills may simply never have been there. In more and more operations now, automation is used nearly totally from day 1 and as such basic skills and principles are hardly taught. THAT's the problem. A stall recovery or crosswind correction can be flown a bit clumsily by someone who's done it a thousand times before without any ill effects. But from what I read or observe sometimes it's like there's not even a clue what the PF was trying to achieve by their actions...

If you're in full imc all the way to minimums you are allowed to hand fly then

Unless you're conducting an autoland, yes. Whether or not it's a good decision (are you going to fly the possible missed approach manually too? etc) is a different question, but yes, it's allowed.

[rotorspeed]

Thanks for the replies first of all. COMPLEXINTENTIONS, I guess thats my point so much automation can some of these pilots fly anymore as in the stalls. Ive heard some are afraid to do a visual approach. Just wondering if i ever get to the airline will I still get to "fly"

[confusedalot]

Thanks for the replies first of all. COMPLEXINTENTIONS, I guess thats my point so much automation can some of these pilots fly anymore as in the stalls. Ive heard some are afraid to do a visual approach. Just wondering if i ever get to the airline will I still get to "fly"

You are correct in what you heard....some are afraid of visual approaches. For those who have a few years doing them, no big deal at all, it's like riding a bicycle, for others, huge issue.

You'll get visuals in KLGA, and elsewhere, lots of times. Keep that in mind.

[ZBBYLW]

I fly the bus out of YYZ. My airline on paper encourages us to hand fly when practical. Most guys will hand fly the departure until above 10,000. On decent it depends on the approach being flown. If IMC the only one I don't regularly hand fly would be a vertically selected approach where we are using FPA as it can be a bit busy around the faf but i will take over after we are esablished on descent. Otherwise i try and fly as much as possible. If it's quiet (ie not YYZ when busy) or i am doing a visual approach I'll even really scare the other guy by going raw data (no FDs) with the AP and A/THR off. It's my opinion that not enough guys practice this frequently enough.

[Black_Tusk]

You'll get visuals in KLGA, and elsewhere, lots of times. Keep that in mind.

Always fun to hand bomb the river visual in DCA. On of my favorite approaches aside from the expressway vis in LGA.

[vcollazo]

At NWA back in the 90s we were encouraged to keep up our hand flying proficiency, but a lot of guys would put on the AP at 200 feet and not turn it back off till 200' at the destination. I loved hand flying the A320. With that auto trim it was so easy. My previous Air Force experience in the F111D had taught me that the magic was most likely to fail on the proverbial dark/stormy night. About every third or fourth flight, I would hand fly it to level off, then kick off the AP, FD, and auto throttles at the start of descent from cruise and fly it like the DC9. That forced me to know the power settings and pitch attitudes for all regimes of flight (turned out the power settings were about 5% less N1 than those for the 9), as well as manually calculating the TOD and descent rate to make altitude restrictions. The A320 was definitely the easiest airplane I've ever flown to consistently get greased on landings, but you had to stay proficient at hand flying. As an aside, NWA Airbus 330s had several of the frozen pitot tube events that led to the demise of the Air France flight, but our crews simply turned off the magic and flew attitude and power until the ice melted.

[Dockjock]

Airbus Captain, YYZ. I hand fly all the time. I'm a pilot right? Pilots fly. The airline wants you- essentially- to not screw up. The guidance in the SOP is there to, if you look at it cynically, protect their butts if you screw up. "Hey we said use all appropriate automation, what else can we do?!" Brief what you're doing, use the automation when required. If you find yourself nervous to fly without automation, your gut is telling you that you need practice. Don't fall down the decade-long hole that some have of hand flying less and less each year until yeah, you're nervous without it! Terrible. So while every SOP almost seems to discourage manual flying (implicitly, by encouraging use of automation), it is your responsibility as an ATPL to make sure your skills are there when you need them. And we never know when that may be.
So there are competing interests in this whole discussion; the airline, which owns the aircraft, wants maximum efficiency, safety, and minimal liability. And the pilot, who is required to adhere to the SOP as a condition of employment, but who also has a sort of duty of care to the public, insofar as making sure he or she is personally proficient and capable of handling 'anything' that might happen, inside the SOP and out.

[complexintentions]

Meh. Or just fly somewhere where typhoon season mandates hand-flying pretty every much every approach for several months every year. No choice then and nothing to defend or explain. Do it yourself, or it doesn't get done.

Automation is a valuable tool, but it has its limits.