If the Channel Islands radar is anything like the Ronaldsway one, it goes right down to sea level (the primary radar at Ronaldsway can see the ferry, and things like the wind farm at Morcambe have to be filtered out even though it’s about 40-odd miles away).
I think it’s also not unusual that a non-IR pilot has not used the autopilot in the plane they are flying: here’s an AOPA case study –
– into a Cirrus that crashed in Illinois, and that Cirrus had a perfectly good working autopilot that could have really helped that pilot get out of trouble.
I would not depart on any significant trip with an INOP autopilot. While I have flown all the way from Corfu to Santorini and back to the UK by hand, it is just unnecessary hard work, with everything (sorting out maps (I was officially VFR outside the UK then), approach plates, taking photos, taking a pee, etc) being more difficult. But lots of GA has INOP kit, especially autopilots for which the “fixing expertise” is in a dire shortage in Europe. I don’t think the UK has a single avionics shop that knows that field well enough to debug anything other than by swapping things around, and I doubt Spain or France are much better.
BTW am I right the plane moved out of Spain c. 2015, when that BBC movie with DH was made? In it he says he brought it from Spain “a few weeks ago”.
Peter wrote:
BTW am I right the plane moved out of Spain c. 2015, when that BBC movie with DH was made? In it he says he brought it from Spain “a few weeks ago”.
That’s what Michael said earlier, he said he knows the aircraft
Not sure if some might say that is a little extreme. Of course with lots of caveats about conditions being good VFR I think long trips are entirely fine without an A/P, as you have clearly demonstrated. However, for anything else, as soon as the visual references arent good it becomes tiring and easy to have an upset with the addition of a distraction or two. I guess that there can be a temptation to rely on the A/P too much as well, so the hand flying skills are not current, and which you may regret, when the A/P inevitably fails as it will at some point in time.
Peter wrote:
I would not depart on any significant trip with an INOP autopilot.
Completely agreed. Even just a basic one like a “wings level” autopilot reduces workload significantly as the spiral dive mode is the only really unstable one in the planes we fly (of course its period is long, but if you leave the roll axis untouched the spiral mode will develop eventually).
You could do without the autopilot if it “must” be, but it’s just a so much more pleasant and enjoyable cruise if you have one.
I can’t understand pilots who have A/Ps to their disposal but don’t use them.
Very similar to lots of pilots who fly planes with a GNS430 installed and the only thing they know to do is switch the COM freq… Come on man, you have a great resource there, learn how to use it and take advantage of it!
Peter wrote:
I would not depart on any significant trip with an INOP autopilot.
We don’t all have the choice!
Our TB10 doesn’t have an autopilot. For me hand flying is the norm, all the time. If I want to do something else with my hands :wink then I either have to trim very well and hope for the best or ask my right-seat passenger to fly for a bit.
Longest flight to date is 3.5hrs from EGLM to LFBU.
I have a couple of times flown a club Archer that had an autopilot. I didn’t go beyond HDG and ALT modes because I knew I wouldn’t be flying it much. If I had been doing more, I’d have read the book :-)
Without doubt a good autoflight system enhances safety but in the airline business evidence is starting to emerge that pilots are becoming over dependent on autoflight systems.
A resent airline addition training session in the Sim focused on autoflight and FMC failure giving some pilots a bit of a shock when they had to go back to hand flying and conventional navigation………. the luddites like me treated as a bit of fun.
“I have a couple of times flown a club Archer that had an autopilot. I didn’t go beyond HDG and ALT modes because I knew I wouldn’t be flying it much.”
I don’t think that one is designed to do more than that, irrespective of what the book claims, I found it funny how it holds in circles along the localizer in a clear sky windy day ;)
But yes, a wing leveler AP or Pax is all what you need to take a break of the flying stick and hold another stick for long trips :)
Sure one can hand fly, and some are very good at it, but would you choose to do the accident flight (night, probable IMC, a clearly nervous passenger, a passenger whose estate will crush your estate in the courts if something goes wrong) in a plane which (hypothetically) cannot for whatever reason be flown on autopilot?
I say “hypothetically” but it does seem plausible in this case.
OTOH the pilot must have asked for a descent for some reason and I reckon it was probably icing, or at least concern over icing (IMC and -5C would have got me seriously concerned unless I had a de-iced plane).
The lack of an FR24 track is a huge mystery. FR24 is not all that accurate in azimuth (and they “software-smooth” the altitude to nice round numbers) but you can see if the plane is likely hand flown. For example this is my flight a few days ago, just messing about and testing the TKS (the system was partially drained to change the fluid level sender) and testing the TAS (antenna relocated)
and if I told you some of it was on autopilot it is obvious which bits they were.
Landing and take off :) ? Yes on F24 traces the AP segments tend to be really obvious
More than 30 min with no visual clues and hand flying is a receipt of disaster, of course most of us were good at it with an examiner sitting around…
