Until the autopilot goes TU on you... If it is a conventional A/P, it may not
work if you lose instrument vacuum or your AI, for example. Real bad time to be
out of practice hand-flying without and autopilot to back you up.

IMHO, it is very very easy to become complacent with George to do your flying
when the chips are down. I think your chances of getting into an unusual
attitude are much higher with a system failure if you habitually use your
autopilot.

"O. Sami Saydjari" wrote:

Well, it would seem an interesting scientific question as to whether the
introduction of autopilot indeed led to fewer IMC accidents. It seems
that one could appeal to the accident data history and find out.

I feel safer knowing that I have an autopilot, but that does not mean
that I am. For example, I doubt that if I got the plane into a really
unusual attitude (flying manually), that I could just flip my autopilot
on and everything would be OK. On the other hand, one might
successfully argue that if I habitually use my autopilot, the chances of
getting into an unusal attitude are lower.

--
--Ray Andraka, P.E.
President, the Andraka Consulting Group, Inc.
401/884-7930 Fax 401/884-7950
email
http://www.andraka.com

"They that give up essential liberty to obtain a little
temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety."
-Benjamin Franklin, 1759