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I find hand flying a jet is rather difficult especially at manoeuvers. and the throttle delay makes it worse. with no need for VFR, how much you hand fly?
Usually about 25-30% of the flight is hand-flown. It just takes LOTS of practice, believe me, lots! Mainly autopilot in my jets is used for cruise climb, cruise, and descent. Takeoff, initial climb, approach and landing is manual for me. I always have the autopilot and autothrottle programmed just in case 😕
I use it only on long hauls when i have to go to the bathroom or take a nap or something else. I always keep it handy though. Practice makes perfect. 😉
Usually only hand fly when landing and take off, and lining up with the runway if the ATC is acting retarded. When I'm cruising I'm usually multi-tasking with many other things.
When I get home from school, i'll set up a flight to SEA or something and put it on autopilot when at cruising altitude and do homework. I only use autopillot for cruise.
i always prefer to handfly, but if im on a particularly long flight, i will cruise with autopilot as makes things easier sometimes!!
Micah 😉
Fire_Emblem_Master wrote:
Usually about 25-30% of the flight is hand-flown. It just takes LOTS of practice, believe me, lots! Mainly autopilot in my jets is used for cruise climb, cruise, and descent. Takeoff, initial climb, approach and landing is manual for me. I always have the autopilot and autothrottle programmed just in case 😕
My hand/manual controlled flights are very much the same as FEM 😉
Fire_Emblem_Master wrote:
Usually about 25-30% of the flight is hand-flown. It just takes LOTS of practice, believe me, lots! Mainly autopilot in my jets is used for cruise climb, cruise, and descent. Takeoff, initial climb, approach and landing is manual for me. I always have the autopilot and autothrottle programmed just in case 😕
Is this how a pilot would do it in real life? Fly manually for maybe the first and last 10 mins of flight?
By the way, why not use autoland if the aircraft and airport support it?
The reason is because it is alot funner to handfly it. I have done a couple flights completely on autopilot for the sake of learning how it works.
I will usually hand fly for a reasonable amount after takeoff and then set the autopilot. Autothrottle gets set a bit sooner so I don't exceed 250 KIAS. Some where between 10 and 20 miles out, I'll resume hand flying.
I also do training flights entirely by hand. for example, my 737 training flight is from KLAX to KPHX or KPHX to KLAX , using nothing but sectional charts and visual landmarks to navigate by.
I hand fly my takeoff and as soon as I take-off I set the AP for cruise and descent and for landing when im about 10nm out i take the controls and perform ver smooth landings 😉
Is this how a pilot would do it in real life? Fly manually for maybe the first and last 10 mins of flight?
By the way, why not use autoland if the aircraft and airport support it?
A lot of times it depends on the pilot's prefrence. I know from experience that I CAN hand-fly 100% of a B757-200 flight, but I have over 1000 hours in on it, no real-world experience though.
It's just my little "thing" that makes it fun for me.
My thing with Autoland is kind of the "old dog/New Trick" saying. I've never used AL, and I cant really say that I needed it real bad. High wind landings suck as far as difficulty, I've botched plenty and needed to go round... 
I like to fly realisticly so for small single prop engines i always hand fly. If it is something like a 737 or something of similar caliber, i like to use autopilot for climb/cruise/descend. I use the FMC all the time in the PMDG model so it takes out alot of work during these stages. I hand fly the bigger aircraft, like many people, during taxi, take-off, initial climb-out, final approach and landing.
I only hand fly my aircrafts during takeoff, climb-out, final approach, and landing. When the visibility is too low I use the autoland system.
I only hand fly my aircrafts during takeoff, climb-out, final approach, and landing. When the visibility is too low I use the autoland system.
That's pretty much the way I do it most of the time...
I fly my jet during takeoff all the way up to cruising altitude and I land the plane no matter what the weather is like.
