757/767 can go with 1,2, or 3 A/P MEL'd. 1 or 2 it's a Cat C fix and with all 3 out its a Cat B fix. Does it ever happen in real life that all 3 A/Ps would be broken, I doubt it. As far as second guessing his decision, no. His choice. His refusal should have been Wx based IMO however.

As to another post, the FL410 lear was prior to RVSM. It does end at 410 though.

 

The guy was the captain and exercised his final authority. Thats it and thats all. No more 300hr wonder nonsense for freight dogs or Lakers do it everyday. He knew his limitations and stood by them. Accept it.

 

Where were you ten pages ago?

 

All the people on this thread puffing up their chests saying how easy it is to hand fly the acft,how many of you hand fly your yearly PC's through the whole check while handling emergencies?Providing the highest level of safety is our job.Late at night,wx,long duty days added to "what if something goes wrong" seems to prove this was a good decision by this capt.

 

Guys, I mean...................he is saying he is not qualified to do a routine flight without the AutoPilot...........

Its our job, I am not sure I would want to fly with a CA who was not confident enough to handfly in that situation

That being said I RESPECTS HIS DECISION, and don;t think he should have been punished, I just question the CA's ability o FLY an airplane, if anything he should have let the F/O fly?????? Are we not capable?

Not saying this guy can't but it really is alarming how poorly a lot of CA's hand fly airplanes............

 

When I was at AWAC, I had a captain (DCA LEC Chairman at the time) refuse an airplane that didn't have an autopilot OR either flight director. We were going to keep the airplane for 3 legs, all about 1.5 in length, all up and down the east coast (DCA-CHS-DCA-PWM, if I recall correctly).

Captain refused the airplane based on safety, saying he didn't think it was safe or prudent to fly an airplane in that congested airspace. As much as AWAC harped on use of automation even then, we both though it was a pilot deviation waiting to happen.

CP got on the horn and told him the MEL was legal and a true professional pilot shouldn't have any problem doing it. The CA told the Chief Pilot if it was so safe then he could bring himself down from Appleton and fly the plane his damn self.

They changed the MELs on the plane so we got the copilot FD back...so I got to hand-fly all 3 legs, all flown at FL270/280.

It wasn't hard, but it wasn't easy and was definitely fatiguing due to the increased concentration involved beyond normal ops with a working AP. I don't think I was ever as tired as I was when we blocked in for the RON that day.

 

Not entirely true. Discipline related to flight operations (ie violated SOP, FARs, ec) does go into PRIA.

I think things like late for work, insubordination, shoes not shined, etc are excluded. But I think the FAA is trying to include ALL discipline events after colgan (not related to colgan, just part of the backlash against all of us incompetent, lazy, overpaid pilots).

 

What if he had just returned to the line from 3 months of FMLA due to a new baby? Or a few months medical leave?

And, knowing that, the first trip back was an extremely long duty day in weather with no breaks etc.

So, there can be some other circumstances that would easily make accepting the airplane almost considered wreckless!

On your second point, I agree 100%. Some people really need to click it off earlier and often because I doubt they can even hand fly an ILS to minimums without a flight director and even then they'd be chasing speed GS and LOC the whole way down back and forth.

 

You're right...those CRJ's...boy are they scary. Guess larger RJ's have AP's so that all the AirWillies out there can feel safely behind-the-curve.

Attacking the problem here, not the person.

 

I notice that they expected a non-precision approach at destination. Some, not all, major carriers require all non-precision approaches to be flown on autopilot if the weather is below VMC. If the autopilot fails enroute, and only a non-precision approach was available at destination, you would have to divert to a field that had an ILS or VMC conditions, or use your emergency authority and make the safest decision. Note: For something like this, you may be using the emergency authority, but there is no reason to declare an emergency with ATC.

Joe