Originally Posted by ExperimentalAB

I know it...guys I fly with give me grief for hand-flying, not realizing how perishable a skill flying really is...but their first hand-flown ILS quickly humbles them.



Don't doubt it...my first gig at Trans States had me flying with some phenomenal pilots -- guys who taught me how to fly an airplane, and I am eternally grateful for the experience. Unfortunately, SkyWest's culture beats into our heads from day one in training that the RJ is not to (and cannot) be hand-flown...and the pilots here just eat that up. Unsurprisingly, the end result of this is that a majority of our pilots can't barely keep even a semblance of airspeed/altitude/course/heading with the FD, much less raw-data. Yes I just said that, and I meant every syllable. This is coming from over three years of my Captains overshooting altitudes by 200 feet while hand-flying with the FD up, and then struggling to keep the airspeed within 20 knots. Of course, there are some good sticks here as well -- they're just in the minority.



Fair enough!! Unless you fly regularly in the mountains (which I do not either), I know it's impossible to remain proficient in a procedure like that...when I go into HLN, for example, I'll fly the DME Arc in my head half-a dozen times before we even begin the descent, and even then I'm shaking off the rust while flying it.