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.

In short, I do not think that this question can be answered by appeal to
intuition; facts based on data would be good here.

-Sami

Tom Sixkiller wrote:
"vincent p. norris" wrote in message
...

Just curious as to opinions about flying in IMC without an autopilot?

An autopilot is nice; but for years, in military and private a/c, we
didnt have them, and we got along just fine.


And disorientation in IMC lead to a lot of people not "getting along fine",
but rather splattering themselves over the landscape.