It's very interesting reading the discussion on hand flying on here.

I just talked to an instructor in my glider-club who flies for Lufthansa CityLine as a captain and is also a chief-pilot (I think) on the Canadair Fleet - definatly at least a training captain. I told him that I had spoken to pilots from the US and read on here that they would usually hand fly up until at least 10,000 feet or more. He immedeatly said that he as a captain would not allow a F/O to do so! He said, on rare occasions, OK, but not as a habbit... He said that company procedures where Autopilot ON at 600feet. I asked him why and asked if the hand flying skills didn't get lost. He said that you needed your absolute concentration for radio calls, freq. changes, traffic and monitoring the instruments. He said the "pilot not flying" would have WAY too much work if the PF hand flew the aircraft. Hand flying skills were trained on rare occasions that the do an entire flight "raw data" with a training captain for example.

I have to say, I don't really think he was right - especially how harsch he was! He said that every pilot saying he would always hand fly up to 10,000feet was an idiot... (sorry guys, just quoting! Not my opinion anyway...) But what can I know - I mean, he is a highly experienced airline captain...

What are your thoughts? Would you say this is just a different mentality in Europe? He said, especially around places like Chicago you would have to look out for traffic and couldn't possibly be hand flying...

Whatever, I'd like to do it like you guys - one of the reasons I'm moving back to the States after school...

Best regards,
Jakob