Originally Posted by
groovinaviator
Second... to address what this thread has digressed to. There seems to be a lot of discussion about using the flight director or not. I personally never use it when the autopilot is off. It doesn't matter if it is VMC or IMC. If I have chosen to have the autopilot off I am controlling my destiny... not the flight director. Here's why. Several month back I flew with a captain who never used the FD. I was intrigued and decided to try. I was disgusted by how sloppy of a pilot I had become. I decided from that day on I would fly without the flight director. The first few days were pretty sloppy, but like anything else you re-learn pretty quickly. I love to fly. I hate all the airline BS, but i love to fly. There is no reason that any one of us can not fly a raw data approach and although I never really do that in IMC I still want to know that I can! I know a lot of you think that this is irresponsible and dangerous with people's lives in the back, but you people need to get a life. It's an airplane... you're a pilot... cowboy up!
-groovinaviator-
By the way Saab2000 said you handled the situation, I would have guessed you knew how to fly the plane well...like a Pilot that was intimately familiar with his airplane...
So I've come to grips with the fact that I'm probably far different than most folks here - maybe I'm just a dying breed...But I didn't come into this Job for the money, big-shiny Jets, Flight Attendants, or glory. Really, deep-down inside somewhere, I'm just a guy that Loves to fly Airplanes. Which is really the only good reason I put up with all the crud of the 121-world - because they let me fly an Airplane for up to 8 hours a day (and sometimes more - legal to start, legal to finish!).
Honestly, it saddens me when I fly with guys that treat their Profession as a science - and a sloppy one at that. Flying an Airplane is nothing short of an art and should be treated as such. Just like a standard-shift car can be driven more smoothly than the best of automatics, we should all strive to fly the aircraft better than any Autopilot. One Captain I flew with many months ago said it best - "the day I can't smoothly fly this airplane [sans FD], is the day that I quit."
Again, groovinaviator and Saab2000 - Job well done.