How much automation do y’all use during phases such as takeoff or approach and landing? Do you guys prefer to use as much A/P as possible, or to fly manually all the way? I personally like manually flying SID’s up to 10,000ft MSL, and fly entire ILS/GPS/visual approaches by hand. I haven’t found a duplicate topic, but if it happens to be then feel free to lock it.
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Hand flying! You won’t learn the real charm of the aircraft you fly!
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I do sids/star manually flying, but once i am out of the airport airspace i enable AP and let it do the rest, and when i am near my destination airport, about 30-40 NM out, i will take over and fly manually and land it manually, more satisfaction if you ask me
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Yeah I also use hand flying :)
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I usually fly entire SIDs up to fl200 and then take over again on final. Feel like approaches are more critical so I let precision of AP do the with until intersecting the localizer and glide slope
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I Engage A/P after takeoff at about 7000 feet. I disengage A/P at about 1500 feet on approach and hand fly down that beauty.
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I engage autopilot at around maybe 3,000 to 5,000 feet. It depends whether I feel lazy or feeling fit to fly. But I always take over at about 1500 feet on approach.
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I usually like to take her up all the way to altitude unless I need to use the autopilot. Example would be during the FlyBe flyout recently at Manchester, as everyone was departing in a clear pattern in Dash 8s, I departed West towards Barbados, and I ended up buzzing everyone about 1000ft above them letting them know what wake from an A340 feels like. I really didn’t want to come too close to them, so I used the autopilot. I usually disengage once I’m on the long final or I’m close to the airport, at about 3000ft-4000ft. Autothrust comes off usually at around 2000ft.
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I generally engage the A/P after take off around 6000 feet. And I disengage it at about 4000-5000 feet.
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Takeoff: It depends. In places like Queenstown and Innsbruck, I fly manually until around 6000ft AGL, most cases, I’ll just switch on AP at 3000ft.
Landing: Manual flying from <3000ft AGL.
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Depends on the traffic and weather situation. Given a chance I try and hand fly as much as ai can when below 10K, however if the airspace is busy, especially on a FNF or similar, the the AP comes on as will need to spend more time on traffic avoidance, Nav and coms. Remember Aviate, navigate, communicate.
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I hand fly, usually until cruising altitude. I’m a very smooth boi on the controls. With landing, for extra precision, I use A/P until I enter the pattern or even a little before that.
I know how to fly a plane not operate a computer. 😉
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I will typically hand fly the plane until I start to pick up the SID and then monitor it while climbing to cruise. I will adjust the VS and speed along the way. Inbound I will use AP but will set the altitude and use the “banana” on the radar so I can be at a certain altitude by a certain waypoint per the chart. I find this to be more rewarding than just setting -2500 150 miles out and calling it a day.
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If I’m flying a GA aircraft like the TBM or C172 or even C208, unless it’s a very long flight, I hand fly all the way. Even in IMC.
I’m a pilot not a button pusher :) A tru aviator.
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Hand fly almost all the time. I fly F-22 rather than airliners so not many long cruises and there’s plenty to keep me busy.
If I am flying between two points without much to do I usually turn on AP, but sometimes I turn it off. Manually maintaining a constant speed, altitude and heading can be fairly challenging.
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I engage autopilot after i pass 5000 feet on takeoff, and on landing i disengage autopilot when i intercept the localiser for landing.
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I land manually, only when I’m busy (I’m doing things and I can’t land “by myself”) I use the auto land…
In takeoff, usually I activate the auto pilot 30 seconds after retract the landing gear
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