When do you fly manually?

[andrej]

Good point. Though, even hand flying at cruise altitude is harder with the A/T engaged. Minor pitch changes have significant effects on the throttle movement with the A/T engaged. Taking the A/T out of the picture when hand-flying at cruise makes it much easier.

How far do you usually hand-fly? Or does it most likely varies on several factors? (e.g. departure/arrival airport, fatigue level, etc.)

On departure it is nice for me to get up to the initial cruise level (A/T off as well) and on arrival I try to hand-fly around 10,000 (FL100). I have sometimes hard time to maintain desired speed (+/- 10 kts and it varies, usually not stable due to poor chairman-ship), but it is a nice challenge. This is only on PSX.

Cheers,



Edit by HH: Thread split from http://aerowinx.com/board/index.php?topic=5005.0

[cagarini]

I usually hand-vly it from takeoff to the initially assigned altitude, A/T on, and then from the FAF down to land, A/T off, then A/P off... Well, this when not having ATC enabled, but I'll find a way around that by moving the RCP to my second monitor :-)

It works like a charm :-)

I should be a 744 captain... Have been telling that to my Guardian Angel for years!

[emerydc8]

On the climb-out, I normally leave the A/T on and engage the A/P between 10,000 and 18,000. Sometimes if it's a short leg where we only get to say 17,000, I'll hand-fly the whole thing. In that case, when I get to cruise, I'll disengage the A/T -- It's easier to handle maintaining altitude without constantly fighting the throttle movement.

On descent, I'll usually click off both A/T and A/P as soon as we're given vectors for the approach, unless I'm doing a VNAV approach, in which case I'll usually leave both engaged until approaching minimums.

Does anybody know whether they actually talk at the low level required to anticipate and counteract box-induced oscillation?

I don't know if they do, but the A/T does a really good job of handling the smooth thrust reduction on an early ALT capture after takeoff. You can be climbing out at 5000 FPM and several thousand feet prior to the level off, it will capture ALT (VNAV ALT for the 744) and the A/T does a fine job of making the level off easy to hand-fly.

[Britjet]

I must be lazy. I used to engage the Autopilot once the flaps were up at the very latest, and sometimes at 250ft.
This style was pretty standard on my airline.
On the approach the autopilot would typically remain engaged until 1000ft. (It was being flown by the other pilot anyway up to that point - strange method we had!).
If someone wished to hand-fly outside of that it was considered etiquette to ask or at least mention it to the other pilot.
Hand-flying with passengers on board tended to be more uncomfortable than with autopilot, whatever the pilot skills, so I think this was one reason it was avoided.
Peter.

[cavaricooper]

Peter-

As a Training Captain in the days of "THR REF VNAV SPD, Left Autopilot to Command" did you notice any difference in general capacity in high workload situations? Every time I revisit "Children of Magenta" I wonder about twenty years hence, after this next generation of non military trained pilots enters the workforce en mass? Whilst economy of scale training necessarily emphasizes impeccable procedural flow and interjection of as much automation as possible, does it tend to gloss over the "uneconomic uncomfortable hand flying bits".

Compared to your 707 days, did you see a much more comfortably cohesive CRM environment, whilst noticing somewhat less capacity without reliance on automation? Things as simple as high energy mid-climb level offs, cruise level offs, and 180 course reversals without automatics reveal my shortcomings in rapid order. I for one, tend to get sloppy fairly quickly and have settled into a forced LHR-CWL-LHR hand flown session each month, after which I am much more precise during "normal ops" for a week or three. By week four I tend to see the wisdom in my enforced strategy once more

Just curious- Ta!

C

[Britjet]

Hi Carl,

Wow! quite a question(s)!
This topic will always be subjective if course. You have to bear in mind that commercial flying has become extremely complicated compared to 30 or 40 years ago. The flight path accuracy required these days doesn't sit well with hand-flying. There are too many distractions for a manually-flown two-crew aircraft these days, in my view.
For example, you aren't even allowed to fly manually in RVSM airspace, I think? And I wouldn't want to be in a holding stack with everyone hand-flying. TCAS would have a field day!

Regarding flying ability, I personally don't hold with the concept that military pilots are necessarily better handlers of aircraft. Single-seat flying can mask a lot of shortcomings, it seems to me. One of the worst handlers of an aircraft I ever saw was one of the most experienced test-pilots in the world. Conversely, one of the best was a retired senior RAF man-who-trains-the-trainers.

It's also easy to pretend just because one has 20,000 hours and flew when Pontius was the Co-Pilate, that somehow they are a great handler of aircraft. It doesn't follow, in my view - it's just misplaced arrogance. I personally think that great instrument pilots are just born that way, and a pity about the rest..I don't think I've ever got any better!

I think the next generation are being trained correctly, if a little cheated on general handling, but I don't think that is a big deal. There is no longer a need to prove that one can fly to within a knot, or a steep turn without changing altitude. As a handling exercise a simple circuit is excellent practice - but few airlines train this thoroughly these days - what's the point if you are never going to fly a manual circuit? Better perhaps to train in unusual situations with the automatics perhaps...
In that respect I don't think the new style trainees are missing much.

While we have the present legacy generation and new generation mix, if I may call it that, we will always have two kinds of pilots - those that take the automatics out in an unusual situation, and those that do not. The former tend to be strongly discouraged these days.

As a trainer sat behind both types in sim and in the line, I would personally be strongly in favour of using the automatics always. As soon as that autopilot is disengaged, the workload soars - for everybody..

Peter

[emerydc8]

As a trainer sat behind both types in sim and in the line, I would personally be strongly in favour of using the automatics always. As soon as that autopilot is disengaged, the workload soars - for everybody..

Not to hammer a dead horse, but I think the last five minutes of that Children of Magenta video, which my company makes every new captain watch, is even more relevant today than it was 21 years ago. https://youtu.be/pN41LvuSz10?t=1158

It's also easy to pretend just because one has 20,000 hours and flew when Pontius was the Co-Pilate, that somehow they are a great handler of aircraft.

That's a good one, Peter. Maybe I'll have to use that one next time instead of my standard, "I have more time at the hold-short line than you have total" cliche. Or, as a friend of mine says, he has more time in the lav than some of these younger guys have in the seat.

[Britjet]

I have to say I'm not a fan of that video. The implication is that autopilot out is often better than autopilot in. Unless there is a direct malfunction I don't agree with that. I would agree that we can get too far into the automation as to let the aircraft get off the flight path - perhaps by over-reliance on LNAV or VNAV, but it seems to me that if this occurs the best action is to revert to basic modes, which mimic hand-flying accurately without the concentration and distraction required. By all means hit VS, or ALT HOLD, OR HDG HOLD, or whatever, and then rebuild a more automated flight path after that, but taking the autopilot out, perhaps in IMC, with all the distraction and task management issues that brings - I would say no.

The autopilot does a bloody good job in manual modes. The other stuff is a luxury which I agree we might need to throw out occasionally.

We have a windshear module for a severe event just after take-off in the sim. If you hand-fly it you often  crash - but the autopilot does a great job. I think go-arounds are another example   - I would engage the autopilot on a GA at 250ft - it's easy after that!

Horses for courses, I guess..

Peter.

[skelsey]

I have to say I'm not a fan of that video.

I'm glad it's not just me!

Having said that, I must also say I am slightly in two minds -- on the one hand I am firmly of the belief that the automatics are there as a tool to make the flight smoother, more efficient and safer by relieving workload (provided modes are selected appropriately to the situation). One of the major areas of concern remains runway excursions on landing and features such as autothrust (particularly on the FBW types where it can be used in manual flight) undoubtedly assist in more accurate speed control on approach.

On the other hand, however, we have also seen a number of accidents where crews faced with manual flight in IMC following an instrument failure of some description failed to adequately fly the aeroplane. These incidents are unusual outliers, without doubt, but there is something there to be said for the value of maintaining basic instrument flying skills.

At the end of the day - I think a lot of it has to do with more effective monitoring of the automatics and general situational and mode awareness, something which actually Vanderburgh put a fair amount of emphasis on (but which often gets glossed over in favour of "click click"). Ultimately as long as the crew remain, to the best extent possible, actively engaged in monitoring and controlling the flight path -- whether the actual pushing and pulling has been delegated to the machine or otherwise -- the likelihood of ending up in a 'what's it doing now' situation are small.

[cavaricooper]

Peter and Jon, my Oracles at Delphi- I remain obliged.  I try and learn as much as I can about the pointy end, whilst sipping Hendricks & Tonic in the rear with the gear, and hoping at least one of the pilots has the fish for dinner

There are SO MANY variables that I quite see the wisdom in workload reduction. With that said, there remains an argument for getting as much hand flying in as possible during "normal procedures". With CMD on at 1000' and off again (fully stabilized) at 1000' it would seem the average long haul line pilot would "fly" for only minutes each month. Obviously systems management, flight path economics and escape routing planning are of enormous importance and cannot be minimized, but when "it hits the fan" basic skills cannot be overemphasized. What I am learning (especially in my case with only one idiot behind the yoke) is that in most cases reverting to Bulfer's "tactical MCP" automatic flight is the preferred course of action. The sum total is what counts.

Accidents tend to get much more (immediate) attention than they ever did and similarly the resulting lesson is propagated in rapid succession. The sign departing the local airfield was never truer- "Buckle up, you are now leaving the SAFETY of flying!"

You both are reasons I adore this bit of (cyber)space.

C

[emerydc8]

We have a windshear module for a severe event just after take-off in the sim. If you hand-fly it you often  crash - but the autopilot does a great job.

That's funny you mention windshear. The last PC I did in the United sim the instructor gave me the DFW windshear on final going into DEN and I disconnected. He stopped the sim and admonished that I should leave the automatics hooked up and let it recover after hitting TOGA. He wanted to show me the automatics could do it. We tried it. The sim crashed. The instructor was pissed. He mumbled something about that wasn't supposed to happen. I think if I was going to fly into the ground, I would want to be the one flying at that point.

One of the major areas of concern remains runway excursions on landing and features such as autothrust (particularly on the FBW types where it can be used in manual flight) undoubtedly assist in more accurate speed control on approach.

I'm sorry, but I haven't flown an airplane yet where the A/T could control the speed on approach better than me. Maybe the few times I've actually let it try, it just wasn't up to factory specs.  I vividly remember going into EDDP one day where the A/T allowed the speed to get over 10 knots low before it decided to do something. That could have been a tail strike if it had happened in the flare.

With CMD on at 1000' and off again (fully stabilized) at 1000' it would seem the average long haul line pilot would "fly" for only minutes each month.

You are absolutely right. And it shows when these guys try to hand-fly in any other phase, other than clicking the A/P off when perfectly lined up with the runway and on speed at 1000'. Most of the time they struggle just to keep it together before they touch down. What happens when they get a 26-knot crosswind and can't rely on (King) George to do it for them? Then they have to do something they're not used to doing (actually fly) and do it close to the operational limits of the airplane.

Like Peter said, "Horses for courses." 

[cagarini]

You are absolutely right. And it shows when these guys try to hand-fly in any other phase, other than clicking the A/P off when perfectly lined up with the runway and on speed at 1000'. Most of the time they struggle just to keep it together before they touch down. What happens when they get a 26-knot crosswind and can't rely on (King) George to do it for them? Then they have to do something they're not used to doing (actually fly) and do it close to the operational limits of the airplane.

Like Peter said, "Horses for courses."

Or.. actually try to fly any other aircraft type ...  A good example is that our two two seaters ( gliders ) were broken by Airbus captains in porpoising accidents during landing, while getting their "type conversion"...

[IefCooreman]

Autoflight systems work damn well, but you have to consider the date of development. I don't like the children of the magenta video either... but I'd rather explain why.

Started on 73 classic: living in a country where people love to handfly, that's what I did. Not a bad school.

Went to Crawley, started on the 777, got to check out the BA school of "use automatics" as instructors were BA veterans. Pretty interesting training. But indeed, automatics work pretty damn well, crazy well. See it do a crosswind landing and you'll be like "shiiit... it was so... nice... relax"

On the B777 I had to intervene once in 6 years. As Britjet might know, an autothrottle becomes very aggressive if speed drops below reference speed. It just happened that day some gust dropped passing over the threshold and a fraction of a second later, the engines should have gone into idle. They didn't, autothrottle screamed them back to 80% N1. On a bloody hot day in Dubai, that means you're off for a looooooong flare.

I heard stories from collegues, all from the same "manual flying" school. They disconnected APs and ATs, because they saw problems, problems I never experienced. I would go even further and state disconnects are more related to character than to AP/FD functionality.

Moving on 6 more years, back to the 737 classic. Back on old school automation. I do have to say, it's not the same "automation quality" as on a 777. In gusty wind, I wouldn't call the LOC tracking "comfortable". It just corrects way too much too early out. Seeing it do a flare on a CATIII... not really comforting.

However, I was back in "manual flying" world. On my third flight "released", I had to debrief an "experienced" first officer about the number of speed excursions I had to call, and how close he brought us to a red zone neglecting speed limitations, all because he wanted to hand-fly. Then you go into the simulator. Not sure how many times I have to say: "You know you can use the autopilot". The first year I couldn't stop thinking: "Why do they all want to make life difficult? They like to show up on FDM?" and off goes the speed, and off goes the altitude, and corrections need to be called, and checklists go slow slow slow... The distrust created by momentary glitches that sometimes causes a disconnect, videos like "children of the magenta" kills the proper use of aumation on a day to day basis, with the simple result there are more... fuckups. Pilots make mistakes, pilots get overloads, pilotbrains fart from time to time. More than an autopilot. So why? Why do you make life difficult?

Pretty quickly I got into a training position. We have to give the opportunity to learn. No objection to that. We also teach quickness of reaction: most corrections can be made through mode changes, however, sometimes you need to disconnect. But if you look at FDM results, you can only conclude: they are full of manual flying mishaps, full of raw data mishaps... So as much as people need to learn to "fly a jet", learning the use of automation has become much more important. Yes I still handfly very much, yes I do raw data approaches. To have fun, when time allows.

Children of the magenta is a nice video, you should always question the magenta line. But more than that, your own flying capabilities. If you don't understand the magenta line, I would try to learn to understand it before I would solely rely on my own flying capabilities and throw the system out. And yes, I can land in a 30kts crosswind, I've done it before. Maybe, I can get the job done again. The focus will be there, in that moment, for sure. If I manage it, the result might be pretty, or "by the book", or it might not be... I cannot say honestly. I'll get it done... or I will go-around and divert.

[Martin Baker]

This is a fascinating thread from my non-pilot perspective.

One question: in Peter's first training video where he uses automatics to do a last-minute runway shift, he says that it took him 3 or 4 goes to get it right. Is that a situation where the "click-click, click-click" of the Children of the Magenta video would be the easier and safer solution?

Martin

[emerydc8]

This is a fascinating thread from my non-pilot perspective.

One question: in Peter's first training video where he uses automatics to do a last-minute runway shift, he says that it took him 3 or 4 goes to get it right. Is that a situation where the "click-click, click-click" of the Children of the Magenta video would be the easier and safer solution?

Martin

Absolutely. And the more "automation managers" we create, the uglier the hand-flying is going to be when the time comes to grow a set and step up to the plate. You know the saying, "Use it or lose it." After a while, those skills will disappear. It's not necessarily like riding a bicycle.

[cagarini]

And, I guess those check rides they want you to do every 6 months or so also appeal mostly for automation.. Anyway, even those multi-million $ full flightsims fail miserably to really reproduce the "feel of flying" the real thing so tell me some friends also doing that for a living...


One guy that was a flight operations tec and applied for a job as pilot for TAP, some 10 yrs ago, told me that the first contact with the simulator, A320, was mainly hand-dlying skills, like performing climbing and descending turns, following a "maze" like in one on PSX's SITUs around Seattle, and landing the aircraft under adverse weather scenarios. At least at that step he was being tested for "hand-flying" skills... I guess things changed when he started line flying ...

[IefCooreman]

At the end of the day we are daily doing a very simple job: bringing "pay"-load from A to B.

99% of the problems we face doing that job are not related to automation, on the contrary, automation simplifies the job. In those 99% of all problems, life can be made easier using automation.

In 1% of the problems automation will not be available (or might be the cause of the problem) and we _might_ have to rely on hand flying skills. A hand-flying pilot might make it "beautiful" for the "pay"-load if he has a good day. In general, despite the experience, the "surprise" will not make it beautiful in many cases...

I cannot say my hand flying skills or landing skills have degraded over the years, as said before, I still do manual flying a lot. When time & situation allows. But it certainly isn't the "goal" of my job.

However, this 1% is now used, maybe even abused, as an example for those other 99% to kill the use of automation because of "distrust". To repeat: hand-flying skills are different from "automation monitoring" skills, and are not always the best solution for it. I can honestly say, every time a pilot mentions he will fly "raw data" in IMC with a lot of wind, there is a lot of distrust in my body... more than with automation. Simple experience.

For every time an autopilot did something "strange" (do they? it' usually bad MCP manipulations at the cause honestly...), I can give you 20 examples of manual flying fuckups.

Checkrides and simchecks are there to help us prepare for 100% of those situations, so yes, use of automation in a good way is extremely important. I sincerely hope passengers understand this, and realise this. A 777 does a bloody CATIIIB... on one engine... in crosswind. As far as I know, it never flagged any FDM analyses. Both engines, or single engine.

[emerydc8]

To each his own.

[cagarini]

Well,

and again, PSX is the best we have for it...

I hand fly the Thessaloniki approach ( moderate turbulence ) disconnecting the A/T and the A/P as soon as it starts, and I usually get a smoother ride than the AFDS...  But that "Casablanca" raw data approach under fog is always tricky to hand fly, probably due to the lack of seat of paints too, but tricky!  I'd rather give that one to George :-)

[Martin Baker]

I hand fly the Thessaloniki approach ( moderate turbulence ) disconnecting the A/T and the A/P as soon as it starts, and I usually get a smoother ride than the AFDS... 

Would real pilots ever fly this sort of approach with A/P connected but with manual thrust control?