Originally Posted by
Blueskies21
I'm not sure exactly what the deal is with the Minneapolis FSDO except apparently they worship at the altar of automation, basically their viewpoint is that you should operate at the highest level of automation available at all times. Or so I'm told, I didn't ever go to the FSDO to ask them.
xjcaptain; I know you CAN handfly at XJ, I was just observing that most don't. I found that odd based on my previous airline experience. Also I know that the RNAV departure autopilot requirement is an XJ op spec, previously I hand flew RNAV departures with the FD. None of that is an indictment of XJ, I love it. Just pointing out my experience.
No indictment assumed.
I for one encourage the FO's I fly with to hand fly as much as they like. I've had several less than enjoyable experiences when some were in a position where they had to hand fly, and had great difficulty with it. With practice, the passengers shouldn't be able to tell if the AP is on or off. (And anyone who has flown the CRJ can attest to how smoothly the AP will track a localizer). Nearly any instrument student should be able to do it more accurately and smoothly than this AP can if there is more than about 3 knots of crosswind for it to figure out!
On an aside, I believe the reason our FSDO used to be so hardcore about automation usage was their concern for the level of experience of many (not all) of our new hires when we hired so much a couple of years back. Now that hiring has stopped, and the lower time pilots have had some time to gain experience (sometimes at our passengers expense) they have loosened the guidance, to allow more hand-flying.