As a young pilot learning the hard way via the GA route something that has astounded me along the way is automation in the bigger machines and stick and visual skills which appear to be non existent. Coming from someone who flies VFR stick and rudder all the way in all sorts of weather, I guess it’s a bit of a shock.
I was watching this video and I’m sort of taken back by the amount of time the eyes are down and not out the window.
Ah, stick and rudder. They are part of a basic skill set that is part of the foundation that other flying is built upon. But, they are of quite limited value in day to day 380 operations. Firstly, the rudders are footrests. They are used for engine failures, correcting crosswind in the flare, and via the nose gear steering for take off and landing roll. Beyond that, they have no use at all. If you watch videos of large aircraft making approaches in gusty weather, you will see lots of rudder activity, but none of that is pilot activated, but rather it’s all either the yaw damper or the FBW.
It is almost impossible to accurately pick attitudes when there is nothing in front of you. Pitch changes of fractions of a degree are the the normal response to deviations during an approach. You can’t see that. On take off we needed a half degree reduction in pitch during gear retraction. Impossible to pick other than on the AI.
Beyond that though, I used to regularly see pilots, who when flying manually would be ‘looking through’ the flight director, instead of following it (or turning it off). Without exception, they were all terrible IF pilots.
Is this just normal behaviour and something I need to prepare myself for in my future years. Doesn’t seem too good for traditional stick skills.
As I said, those traditional skills are just one part of the skillset. Pilots who manually fly on pitch black nights, or in poor weather do nothing beyond increasing the overall risk to the operation. It also loads up the other pilot, who now needs even more attention on just what the other bloke is up to.
I guess the same could be said for flying an approach. You can hear when the AP disconnects when on an Airbus narrowbody if seated up the front and it amazes me that this usually occurs at a few hundred ft/a mile to run. It’s a blue sunny day why wouldn’t you fly it right down Final?
If I was going to manually land the aircraft, I normally disconnected at 1,000’. If I went below that it was almost invariably for an automatic landing. Why would I fly it down finals? It’s not as if I haven’t done it before. Remember too, that almost all landings of large aircraft are at the end of long flights. We just want the flight to be safely over.
Or is it just and Airbus thing. Or a cadet thing.
The Airbus has a much more capable autopilot than the Boeing, but I flew them both more or less the same way. 1,000’. On departure, I normally waited until it was clean before engaging the autopilot.
I never flew with the zero hour cadets as FOs. But, yes, I don’t think I’d want them touching it at all!