I heard that modern SIDs and STARs are too complex for manual flight, and that means the whole procedure is to be done with the AP in LNAV, but the video shows it differently, maybe for vector SIDs hand flying is ok...??

feverish because he has to do everything himself in a short period of time while you are hand flying. I'm in the situation alot during flights when I'm in the right seat training the new guy in the left seat(I'm a training captain). At least I have the experience and techniques to get it done since it's my job on the line. Never the less even I can get over whelmed when flying with a new guy at times. Plus no one wants to be violated for not complying with instructions. Last thing you want the controller to say is "give me a call at (---) --- ---- after you land". In my profession we call that a career altering event.

Amen to that post.Today my Captain told me that he wanted to fly the departure all manually, without F/D-guidance and without A/T to an altitude of about FL200 or so. Since after departure our sqawk readout to the controller was different somehow from our current values, I was totally overloaded with Setting the MCP up, hammering in the sqawk-code again and again and radio communication.

Baring any company policies, and I doubt any companies are going to have a policy on this, it would be up to the pilot flying whether he wants to hand fly the STAR or engage the autopilot. The captain would always have the final say though. The autopilot will always fly a more accurate and smoother departure while reducing pilot work load. It also allows both pilots to keep their heads up and out of the cockpit looking for traffic conflicts and at the same time monitoring the autopilot for proper navigation performance.Take care,John Floyd

I don't understand why you are upset

I'm not upset at all, it's hard to read the emotion of typed words. I was only shocked by the choice of some of your wordings. If i was upset i would've stopped replying. I'm no expert, I just share what I've experienced. :)

By all means hand fly if you want. I also believe there is a time and place for it. If it's severe clear and you have a lite app/departure, go ahead and get some practice doing that pilot thing. Manually fly approaches down to minimums. When bad weather/traffic rolls in, make it easier on yourself. Use some automation to help you stay ahead of the game. FS2CREW is a very nice program. Only bad thing is that will not handle ATC or tell you when you are doing something wrong or need prompting.

Also simulating vectoring is a bit more difficult

The choice of some of my wordings was to give a humoristic touch. I apologize for the shock it didn't meant to be evilish :)On the subject now, your answers really gave me a clear picture to see what pilots face everyday. Thank you

By all means hand fly if you want. I also believe there is a time and place for it. If it's severe clear and you have a lite app/departure, go ahead and get some practice doing that pilot thing. Manually fly approaches down to minimums. When bad weather/traffic rolls in, make it easier on yourself. Use some automation to help you stay ahead of the game. FS2CREW is a very nice program. Only bad thing is that will not handle ATC or tell you when you are doing something wrong or need prompting.

You do know that it's lonely up there mucking around at F450 or higher. Have to admire you for your patience though, keep well and keep safe :smile:Jay Cargo

Baring any company policies, and I doubt any companies are going to have a policy on this, it would be up to the pilot flying whether he wants to hand fly the STAR or engage the autopilot. The captain would always have the final say though. The autopilot will always fly a more accurate and smoother departure while reducing pilot work load. It also allows both pilots to keep their heads up and out of the cockpit looking for traffic conflicts and at the same time monitoring the autopilot for proper navigation performance.Take care,John Floyd

As far as I know most, if not all, airlines do in fact have a policy on this. At some it's to maxmise the use of autoflight systems (and some might even mandate exactly when they should go on and off). Others (e.g. KLM) mandate a certain amount of hand-flying to maintain pilot skills. There's quite a lot of debate going on in the RW aviation regarding the proper use of automation. Automation is a tool which is there to make your life easier, but you shouldn't become over-reliant on it.Personally I enjoy clicking on VNAV and LNAV prior to take-off and then following the Flight Director to about 10,000' or so. At that point I'll push CMD and let Otto take over. If you have you FMC programmed correctly you won't have to worry about switching frequencies on your nav radios and the like since the route will already be programmed and sent to the Flight Director.

Ryanair pilots fly the approaches manually in most (99 percent) cases, at least those I flew with based in EIDW.

Not true. I jumpseated RYR and the Autopilot was engaged at 400ft after departure and only disengaged when the aircraft was 4nm out on the ILS for 28. Practically no hand flying to be honest.

Well, I jumpseated RYR more than you think, since I was a flight attendant for them between 2007 and 2011 and still in touch with most DUB based flight crews. RYR has a company policy to handly approaches whenever possible. And they do so.