Originally Posted by
757Driver
Sorry DT,
On approach into MCO and cleared for the visual to 35R from the North late at night. The F/O used the autopilot all the way down to 100 feet using heading select and V/S. I did not say one word, (so you can retract your sky-king Fritz like reference), and the approach and landing were somewhat south of steller.
After arriving at the gate I asked him why he did not hand fly the aircraft sooner, (notice the word "asked"). His was reply was that he did not feel comfortable "flying" the aircraft at an earlier point.
That's pretty scary. His answer just doesn't make sense to me. I think he's just lazy. If he's gotten to a major airline, flying an aircraft of that size and doesn't feel comfortable flying it off autopilot, why is he even in the seat? I'd rather get stabilized 10 miles out by hand than trying to fly an approach with heading/VS A/P functions, clicking it off at 100 feet. I can see if it was a coupled approach down to mins and you wanted to reduce some workload, but I'm one that flies the departure to about 2,000 feet before level off and from FL180 down to the ground. Granted, in the -135, we've got an archaic A/P. It will fly an approach, but we never use it. And besides, it's more fun to have your hands on the yoke.