Primary training in a Hi Perf complex acft

Robert M. Gary writes:

What?? I've never flown a 747 but I teach TAA (technically advanced
aircraft). It is **WAY** more difficult to fly the plane on automation
than to just hand fly it.

No, it is not. It's pushing buttons and turning dials; that's it.

Flying the aircraft (or any aircraft) by hand is an acquired skill, like
riding a motorcycle, skiing, or painting. But running the automated systems
is just a series of procedures. Once you have the procedures memorized,
there's not much to it.

This is why the actual skill requiremens for airline pilots are diminishing.
FBW systems that try to second-guess the pilot and restrict his actions even
when he is flying by hand reduce the required skill even further. The
unstated objective is to make it possible for relatively unskilled technicians
to fly planes safely. One day that goal will probably be achieved; we are far
from it today, but far closer to it than we were even a few decades ago.

The biggest problem we have is pilots
shutting off the system and just hand flying all the time. If I found
myself in the cockpit of a 747 I certainly wouldn't try to learn all
the automation in 5 minutes, I'd probably shut most of it off (maybe
just use heading and altitude hold).

That might be your fatal mistake. It's a lot easier to follow simple
instructions over the radio and set the automation to fly to your destination
and land than it is to try to learn to hand-fly the aircraft in the heat of
the moment. It's not a Cessna, and it's not close enough to one to permit a
smooth transition in ten minutes under extreme duress.

This is one reason why I think a small-aircraft pilot might not be the best
choice as an emergency pilot for a large airliner. He would be too tempted to
try to fly the plane by hand, and he'd end up impacting a mountainside at high
speed, simply because flying by hand is the _last_ thing he should be doing in
that aircraft.

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