Hand flying.

[Eric Janson]

I started my career flying aircraft that had no autopilot - all I did for the first 4000 hours of my career was hand flying.

Didn't see a properly functioning autopilot until I started flying jets. In the days before RVSM I even hand flew a 737-300 on 2 4.5 hour sectors. No big deal - just needs the right technique.

I've hand flown an A320 at FL390 in order to keep airframe vibrations due to the rudder down to minimum. Autopilot would trim the rudder and the resulting vibration was enough to spill coffee in the aft galley. No autopilot and centering the rudder trim was the solution. Took a while to fix this issue which I wasn't too happy about.

I don't do much manual flying at present as most of my flights are 11 hours + through the night and the autopilot helps a lot when you're struggling to stay awake - just the last 1000 feet.

Autopilot is an aid - unfortunately it is increasingly becoming a crutch imho.

[Colonel]

My supervising AME would smile and say,

"First you learn the trade, then you learn the tricks of the trade"

I think we can see in this small, informal survey that really good pilots spend years
developing fundamental skills before they start using the tricks.

While this may be seen as old-fashioned, when all that fancy shit stops working,
you need to have something to fall back on.

Pilots don't seem to think any more, that they need to be able to do this. But it
is probably the most important part of their job - to play goalie. When they don't,
everyone dies.

It's not just about hand-flying. It's when the airplane breaks. The most minor
example would be AF477 - the pitot tube froze over in straight and level flight,
and that was more than those four bars could handle.

Another great example was Al Haynes, who hand-flew without flight controls,
like the DHL 300 over Iraq that was hit by a shoulder-fired SAM.

It's nice when you can hand-fly a perfectly functional airplane. But can you
hand-fly a broken one? That's what you get paid to do, after all.

[Nark]

I see a direct correlation to those who have a diverse experience to those who went the 172->Seminole->jet route.
Down here in the States there isn’t a whole lot of cutting your teeth in the bush.
On my current trip, my FO has a 182, and barely 100 hour in the Airbus. He fly’s the bus better than some FO’s with 1000’s of hours in it. Why? Because he has the ability to use his brain and think ahead of the aircraft, because flying a clapped out 182 also requires him to (it’s not really clapped out, but it doesn’t have the bells and whistles le Bus has, which makes pilots lazy).

[Colonel]

I know this is heresy, but ...

All aircraft have wings that push air down, and engines that push air back.

If you spend some time to learn some fundamental skills, and some systems
knowledge about the production of lift and thrust, you can fly anything.

That's exactly what I told the Chief Test Pilot of the National Research Council in Ottawa -
they are all highly experienced retired military test pilots - when he asked me how I was
able to fly such a bizarrely wide range of types - often in one day. Nice guy. I gave him
advanced spin training.

Two words:

Bobby Younkin

That's all you ever need to be, as a pilot. He could fly a biplane, a piston twin, or a business
jet better than anyone else. Surface acro? Sure, all three in one day. He blew my mind, the
first time I saw him at OSH (maybe 1990?) flying surface acro in a Beech 18. Bought an old
Lear 23, jumped into it, and started doing an airshow surface acro routine in it. I wish he
would have been able to afford an old 707. He could have done a marvellous airshow routine
in it!

I've posted this here before, but this crusty old guy knows how to fly:



Ask some four-bar clown with 30,000 hours of watching an autopilot to do that.

This guy used to laugh at multi-engine pilots in the mess, and tell them,

"You don't have 10,000 hours. You have 1,000 hours, 10 times over"

[Liquid_Charlie]

I can remeber the company I worked for required us to attend a TC seminar given by their safety officer. After some real of real boring stuff it got rather interesting because he said it's not safe to jump from one category type to another, meaning if you were flying at a 727 you should not be flying a small aircraft on floats - I was helping a guy out flying his beaver at the time - needless to day he was challenged and basically called a fucking idiot. Some how the whole idea of TC Canada doing this kind of stuff was a total failure. He complained that we were p pretty tough on him. Maybe his first clue was when told him to return to the flight school.

[Nark]

Hand flew to 3-9-0 today. Hand flew the arrival.
(Dodging storms, it way easier to hand fly an lazily dodge the buildups.)

I am a god amongst mere mortals.

[Colonel]

I am a god amongst mere mortals.

If you had done rolls over the Cb's, looking up at the tops of them
underneath you, I would agree.

Eric and I had to make our own clouds today. Blue sky, day after day.

https://purewhitesmokeoil.com

Awesome stuff. I request approval for smoke on takeoff from Tower,
I spin my finger vertically and Eric and I get 2000 RPM and the smoke
on. We sit there for a bit then my head goes forward for brake release.

If I do it right, the aircraft on final has to overshoot to stay VFR.

[Colonel]

he said it's not safe to jump from one category type to another

Hold on a second there. What he's telling you is that he is a weak pilot, and
he can't do it, so you shouldn't do it, because aviation is an expression of
egalitarianism in the 21st Century.

I have the same kind of people telling me it's "dangerous" for me to 1/2 roll
inverted at 80 mph on takeoff, accelerate in inverted ground effect, then
push to a 1/2 outside cuban 8 at the end of a 4000 foot runway.



No, it's not dangerous for me. It might be dangerous for you.

It's important not to confuse a competent pilot and an incompetent pilot,
even if both have ATP's.

I have been flying since 1973, doing some very unusual things in some very
strange airplanes ... WITH A PERFECT LIFETIME SAFETY RECORD.

Regardless of whether or not someone likes my politics or has their feelings
hurt by things I say, the Convergence of the Central Limit Theorem says
that I have a clue.

[Chuck Ellsworth]

I can remeber the company I worked for required us to attend a TC seminar given by their safety officer. After some real of real boring stuff it got rather interesting because he said it's not safe to jump from one category type to another, meaning if you were flying at a 727 you should not be flying a small aircraft on floats

Obviously it would not be safe for him.

However for someone who actually knows how to fly going from one type to another is a non event.

It is interesting how T.C. seems to attract that level of competence, and then gives them the authority to make judgement on another persons competence.

One of the best flying jobs I ever had was in Windsor Ont. where I was chief pilot for a charter / flying school operation that had a real nice selection of flying machines that included a Fleet Canuck a couple of Cessna 150's and 172's a Beech Debonaire, a Apache, a Beech 18 and two Hughes 300''s.

I flew them randomly day after day and it made the job interesting because of the variety of flying involved.

[Eric Janson]

Hand flew to 3-9-0 today. Hand flew the arrival.
(Dodging storms, it way easier to hand fly an lazily dodge the buildups.)

I am a god amongst mere mortals.

You do need to be careful - RVSM requires the autopilot. This sort of thing may trigger an event.