3 ms·

"Getting rid of the pilots" has already mostly happened. You know this. Autopilot on at 400-1000' and off at MDA/200'/DH to rollout. In between they are system

"Getting rid of the pilots" has already mostly happened. You know this. Autopilot on at 400-1000' and off at MDA/200'/DH to rollout. In between they are system administrators. Heck, even I can and often do fly my much smaller planes this way. And, as you also probably know, autopilot is required to be flying the plane above 28,000' (Google RVSM for interested readers). I am sometimes glad I have access to Cubs, Decathlons, and other simple planes to keep me an honest pilot. :)

privateSFacct 8y ago
So true, and overseas actually a bigger issue I think because they don't always have the recreational / GA flying world going on. Some pilots in airlines trying to develop local skills are going basically straight onto an Airbus flight deck. Not saying it's bad, but they don't seem as comfortable with manual flying. And frankly manual flying is more complicated on these planes - the number of autopilot and throttle modes etc etc - a cessna - pitch, power... I do wonder if adding a basic safe flight pitch power button (ignores everything and just goes to a safe pitch power setting smack in middle of power curve) might help. Literally ignore AoA, ignore speed, ignore everything. Just trim to middle and set power. Air france? This flight? These planes are flying fine otherwise. You don't 100% need all the automation (though the MAX did introduce some weird instability near stall which is annoying in a big way). My own view - make a naturally stable plane (MAX moved away from this), and have a way to fall back to a basic setting that takes advantage of that.