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I have to say, I don't really think he was right - especially how harsch he was! He said that every pilot saying he would always hand fly up to 10,000feet was an idiot... (sorry guys, just quoting! Not my opinion anyway...) But what can I know - I mean, he is a highly experienced airline captain...
What are your thoughts? Would you say this is just a different mentality in Europe? He said, especially around places like Chicago you would have to look out for traffic and couldn't possibly be hand flying...
I've been flying around the busy European airspace (Frankfurt, Stuttgart, Venice, Brussels, Lisbon etc) for four years now and your instructor (or rather his culture) is nuts. There are times when you have to engage the AP, especially while briefing the approach and landing and completing checklist items. On departure all the tough work should be accomplished on the ground and all you've got to do is fly the SID and listen up for the calls. Originally Posted by Jakob
I just talked to an instructor in my glider-club who flies for Lufthansa CityLine as a captain and is also a chief-pilot (I think) on the Canadair Fleet - definatly at least a training captain. I told him that I had spoken to pilots from the US and read on here that they would usually hand fly up until at least 10,000 feet or more. He immedeatly said that he as a captain would not allow a F/O to do so! He said, on rare occasions, OK, but not as a habbit... He said that company procedures where Autopilot ON at 600feet. I asked him why and asked if the hand flying skills didn't get lost. He said that you needed your absolute concentration for radio calls, freq. changes, traffic and monitoring the instruments. He said the "pilot not flying" would have WAY too much work if the PF hand flew the aircraft. Hand flying skills were trained on rare occasions that the do an entire flight "raw data" with a training captain for example.I have to say, I don't really think he was right - especially how harsch he was! He said that every pilot saying he would always hand fly up to 10,000feet was an idiot... (sorry guys, just quoting! Not my opinion anyway...) But what can I know - I mean, he is a highly experienced airline captain...
What are your thoughts? Would you say this is just a different mentality in Europe? He said, especially around places like Chicago you would have to look out for traffic and couldn't possibly be hand flying...
I typically hand fly to altitude (or some high intermediate level off that I think ATC will stick me at for more than two or three minutes) then give it over to George. On landing, once the approach is briefed and I'm close in to the airport (and not shooting an approach down to minimus) I'll take over around 30 miles before landing or after coming through FL06-100. I prefer hand flying. 1 it is fun, 2 the autopilot can (and has failed), 3 at times it is quicker and less complicated to make the turning descents in the terminal area manually.
If the Captains don't trust the FO's to fly, and call for checklist items, and monitor the instruments, and listen to the radio (you know, all that basic flying stuff that you do by yourself while training in a 172) then I would suspect that there is a deficiency in the training of Lufthansa Cityline pilots.
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