Manual or Autopilot?

Just a quick question out of curiosity, do you prefer to fly the flight manually, some manual some autopilot or the whole flight on autopilot?

Also any good suggestions for routes I can do from EGLL?

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EGLL ( London Heathrow) to KJFK (New York) British Airways 777-300er
EGLL ( London Heathrow) to VIDP ( Delhi) Air India a350-900
EGLL ( London Heathrow) to WSSS (Singapore Changi ) Singapore Airlines a380-800
EGLL ( London Heathrow) to KLAX (Los Angeles) British Airways a380-800

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Isn’t the autopilot kind of a must tho, who would want to correct every single movement of the aircraft for several hours straight? 😧

Personally I fly takeoff & landing manually, everything else with autopilot.

For long haul route suggestions, you should fly to South America or Southern&Eastern Africa.

For short haul, anything in Europe. I personally like EFHK (I may or may not be biased), LGAV, the Canary Islands & Madeira, and pretty much anything in the Balkans.

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Me landing with autopilot…

Soon I’ll be testing if I can take off with autopilot, and maybe if I can taxi with it as well.

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Thank you, I recently done EGLL-WSSS-YSSY in a British Airways Boeing 777-300er

I will defo give those routes a go

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Thank you, I agree I couldn’t sit there for hours manually doing it but I do the same taxi take off and landings I do manually as well.

I will give those routes a go, any specific airports you recommend in South America or southern/Eastern Africa?

Exactly the same as me.

Doesn’t that take all the fun out of it for you?

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I prefer to takeoff and land manually,but I can’t hold the yoke the whole flight,for example if it’s very long (like KJFK-EGLL) so I prefer autopilot

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Yeah but also less stressful since you don’t gotta worry about maintaining the perfect glide angle and centerline (however I’m pretty good at doing both)

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Any major airport really. GRU, BSB, BOG, GIG, SCL, EZE, JNB, CPT, DAR, NBO, MRU, RUN are good examples.

Takeoff and landings are hand-flown, otherwise autopilot most of the time.

I takeoff and land manually, and I use AP in between, but I like to fly a bit on manual after takeoff. And sometimes I land on manual and not on ILS, I find it fun!

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VIDP is a nice destination for long haul flights and layovers, shame it isn’t 3D yet.

Honestly I think about 80% of the people takeoff and land manually, then use autopilot while cruising. Then there is the very few who can do it all manually

Yah, I have talked about it and the IFAET had ensure that they are doing their best to release it as fast they can… The only thing we can do is to wait and show some patience 😉

There will be a long queue after the release of 3D Delhi (VIDP) Airport

I pretty much do what’s done in real life, hand-fly below 10,000 feet usually. Sometimes on a nice day with no weather I’ll hand fly all the way up to cruise. Same with landing, but in decent… however it’s more often I’m on autopilot for landing until around 3,000 feet, especially in busier airspaces.

Hand flying requires total concentration so I tend to not hand fly right from cruise till landing, the same with takeoffs. I’m surprised a lot of people do handfly right until cruise or vice versa.

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Honestly it’s almost never people do it from cruise down but sometimes people do it from ground up

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Nobody here flies transatlantic flights by hand.

Routes:

Short-Haul Routes

  1. London to Paris (CDG)
  • Airlines: British Airways, Air France, easyJet
  • Aircraft: Airbus A320, Boeing 737
  1. London to Amsterdam (AMS)
  • Airlines: British Airways, KLM, easyJet
  • Aircraft: Airbus A320, Boeing 737, Embraer E190
  1. London to Dublin (DUB)
  • Airlines: British Airways, Aer Lingus, Ryanair
  • Aircraft: Airbus A320, Boeing 737

Medium-Haul Routes

  1. London to Marrakech (RAK)
  • Airlines: British Airways, easyJet
  • Aircraft: Boeing 737, Airbus A321
  1. London to Cairo (CAI)
  • Airlines: British Airways, EgyptAir
  • Aircraft: Boeing 787, Airbus A320
  1. London to Dubai (DXB)
  • Airlines: British Airways, Emirates
  • Aircraft: Boeing 777, Airbus A380

Long-Haul Routes

  1. London to New York (JFK)
  • Airlines: British Airways, American Airlines, Virgin Atlantic
  • Aircraft: Boeing 777, Boeing 787, Airbus A350
  1. London to Los Angeles (LAX)
  • Airlines: British Airways, Virgin Atlantic
  • Aircraft: Boeing 777, Boeing 787
  1. London to Hong Kong (HKG)
  • Airlines: British Airways, Cathay Pacific
  • Aircraft: Boeing 777, Airbus A350
  1. London to Tokyo (NRT/HND)
  • Airlines: British Airways, All Nippon Airways (ANA), Japan Airlines
  • Aircraft: Boeing 787, Boeing 777
  1. London to Sydney (SYD)
  • Airlines: British Airways, Qantas
  • Aircraft: Boeing 787, Airbus A380