I say it all the time...

[jbassue 181]

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/44324527/ns/business/?GT1=43001 This is sad ( If true)

[Yitzhak 0]

I actually wrote my research paper about that very subject last year.

[Airbus Commander 563]

It's an unfortunate reality for some, Any airline that prohibits or discourages hand flying should be ashamed of themselves. I don't know of any that do off hand but the rumours do crop up in conversations now and then. Never understood it myself, I always find hand-flying and raw-data to be the most rewarding parts of my job. Between the AF crash, Colgan Air [Although I don't fully attribute that to poor hand flying skills], even our own REA/EIN accident down in SNN could have been avoided by more hand-flying and getting to understand the aircraft better, manual pilot skills are declining faster than, well.... a fast thing. Rónán.

[Tigh 6]

manual pilot skills are declining faster than, well.... a fast thing.

And that scares the crap out of me. Additional theory; with the decline in recent years of sponsor schemes airlines are taking on those with the money to fly rather than the aptitude. Or put another way, those who have reached a minimum standard rather than being a gifted pilot.

[Airbus Commander 563]

Well, we have now just launched a cadetship program at my company, it's the likes of RYR, EZY and other airlines that make you pay for ALL your training including your TR and then promote you to captain in under 3 years where the problem lies. It took me 13 years to get my command and even that was considered to be unusually short. Being promoted to captain fast can case a very wide range of problems...

• With your captain only a year or two more senior than you, and you just starting out, your respect for the captain isn't the same, you consider yourself to be more or less equals and don't respect his authority.
• You pay less attention to his/her advice, as you believe that you have experienced the same situations, and for the most part, you have.
• The captain will have less experience, less exposure to different conditions, less of a pool of knowledge to draw from. I'm 22 years in this industry and I still learn something new everyday I go to work, It might not be something big, maybe just a little tip or note for the future, but after 22 years, those tips and tricks build up, that's why I'm the captain and the F/O who's only been flying for 3 years isn't.

Rónán.

[jbassue 181]

I really hope planes aren't flying themselves in the near future, and while that is all flashy and whats not, it can also contributing to the unemployment factor. There are some young sky gazers that can only hope to fly when they grow older.

[Airbus Commander 563]

I really hope planes aren't flying themselves in the near future, and while that is all flashy and whats not, it can also contributing to the unemployment factor. There are some young sky gazers that can only hope to fly when they grow older.

They won't be, even the unmanned drones are piloted remotely by pilots on the ground, the pilots are always needed, for the drones its just unsafe to have them in the plane, but for commercial aircraft, you might just as well have the pilots in the plane itself in case of a comms failure... We aren't leaving anytime soon, besides, the unions wouldn't allow it...

[WotanUK 289]

It's scary, i am already apprehensive about flying. Guess i won't be flying for real for a while! That AF447 report was shocking, nose up at 60 deg, stall warnings, nose up at 15 deg.

[bburkley 0]

Funny, I was just about to post this. My dad just emailed it to me today. Sounds like a blanket statement to me. I think there is still much credibility to their profession. This just goes to show that no matter how much things get automated, there still needs to be a live human being to assess the situation. There are many controls in place for these accidents not to happen - manual calculations to reconcile with the avionics, captain / first officer crosschecking, etc. Pilots often manually fly departures, and almost always hand fly approaches and landings - what's the fun of letting the computer do it for you anyway? I was just watching the Air Canada 777-300 DVD the other night - the old man is still doing pencil math all over the cockpit, the FO flew the departure and approach / landing by hand. I've seen too many of these articles lately, and I guess I'm skeptical. Maybe training needs to be more rigorous for a certain few airlines where these accidents have occurred, but overall, I think we're all still pretty safe in the skies. All the best,

[VBHB 298]

The examples they use which caused the crashes where Pilots causing the crash after the A/P disengaged. If the plane's stalling push the nose down..

[ZachLW 37]

I know couple of airline/Air Force friends that would kill themselves trying to land the CR182/Arrow/J-3. Flying proficiency is a perishable skill... Use it or lose it.

[Check_Airman 3]

At my airline, we are strongly encouraged to use the AP for some procedures, and required to use it for others. Yet, when we're in the simulator (and on the line) we can be dispatched to fly those same procedures with an inoperative AP. As a pilot, you need to find some way to maintain your proficiency, because the airline isn't going to do it for you. Paul

[jbassue 181]

Iyayi, manual control is the background of, the joy of, the connection to flying...

[Chock 17,769]

As a pilot, you need to find some way to maintain your proficiency, because the airline isn't going to do it for you. Paul

I often bump into airline pilots on the flight line when I'm gliding, since you have to queue up and wait for launch cables and such to be sorted out, so it's a real 'hangar chat' type of environment. There are a lot of them who do it so they can be more 'stick and rudder', which is an encouraging thing when you come across such professional pilots who go that extra mile (witness a certain keen glider pilot of that ilk who bellied his Airbus into the Hudson). Although I recall laughing my &@($* off one Sunday morning when I saw a 747 pilot who hadn't flown a glider for a while coming over the fence trying to flare his glider when he was still 75 feet off the deck, from force of habit, which fortunately wasn't a problem since he was flying a glider type that I know doesn't actually drop out of the sky until about 38 knots or less, and he had a lot of speed on the clock at the time. He got a lot of stick for that one in the bar later on that day. Al

[VirginAus737 0]

Rónán, how much manual flying would you do on an average flight?