Ray Andraka writes:

I have to disagree with you here. If you rely on autopilot all the
time, the day will come when the autopilot goes on strike in the soup.

If you don't use the autopilot, why have it? Everything fails sooner or
later; that doesn't mean that you shouldn't use anything.

Good luck keeping the shiny side up, staying ahead of the airplane, and
keeping your situational awareness if you aren't proficient at
hand-flying on instruments.

Or, more specifically, if you aren't proficient at reading instruments and
flying by hand.

There's no way to maintain that proficiency
without doing it. There are many pilots who've perished when George
went on strike in the soup and the pilot wasn't proficient with
hand-flying in the soup.

How much practice do you need? Are you just going to let the autopilot gather
dust because you're afraid it might fail someday?

I use the auto-pilot to reduce my workload when I am attending to other
tasks, and for that it is a gread load reducer.

And this is all the more true if you are IFR.

In a cross country
flight, there is a lot of time spent when you are not particularly busy,
and that is a good time to pull the plug on George and get some good old
hand flying time in.

That's a matter of personal preference.

Mxmanic, do you have an instrument rating? Your posts regarding user
fees make it sound to me like you don't even have a PPL.

Correct. I only fly in simulation.

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