[quote=1900luxuryliner;757056]
Originally Posted by
rickair7777
...But lets say we had a non-precision, non-radar, full approach with a PT and/or a complicated missed in mountainous terrain. I'd take a pass on that...we are just not current on that kind of hand flying...
quote]
Why are you guys not current on this? If your company has the ability to defer the autopilot system, it must occur to you that an autopilot deferal is a very realistic possibility that may pop up in daily line flying. That being the case, part of being a professional, to me, would include having the professional ability to deal with this situation. That would mean staying current on hand flying the aircraft, and even hand flying more complicated approaches. I'm not saying I'm better than RJ pilots, or cooler than RJ pilots, or have more skills than RJ pilots...I'm not, and I don't believe that at all. I'm just not understanding the justification for non-acceptance of this aircraft. I understand that it's the PIC's discretion; but, at the same time, part of our job, as professionals, is to be an effective part of the chain of providing efficient and reliable transportation to our customers. We can't be scared of flying things to mins, unless there is a reasonable justification for believing safety is affected. I'm not seeing the reasonable justification here...unless, like I say, he wasn't comfortable with hand flying the aircraft...which goes back to the whole professionalism thing...In the end, I'm just saying I'm not understanding this situation, perhaps, maybe, because I don't have the full story. No judgements; just questions. On the surface, it doesn't make sense to me. There may be much, much more to the story than what I'm seeing here, which may cause me to actually agree with this CA's decision.
While I can't speak for all airlines out there, as I mentioned earlier, we are prohibited from hand flying while the autopilot is operative, with the exception of visuals. This came as a response to an incident in providence involving an unstabalized approach. While I don't agree with it, and I think we should hand fly approaches in IMC occasionally, our FOM prohibits it. To prohibit hand flying with an operative autopilot, then as soon as the autopilot decides to stop working, say it's now okay to hand fly doesn't make any sense to me.
I can easily see why this captain refused the airplane. I've seen A/C refused for less than that.