Re: An Eastern Airlines Captain's Comments
Pardon my slow response, but did not get a notice. There is a big problem developing in the airline industry now. It is that of full time auto-pilot use in flight. The bean counters found that operating costs can be trimmed by requiring the pilots to use the AutoPilot for most of the time in flight. They get very little hands on practice any more and are not proficient when the A/P goes out. Airbus designs the new generation planes to be flown by computer and gives it priority over the pilot input. This is dangerous. The pilots of Air France 447 lost control of their plane when the pitot tubes clogged with ice and the A/Ps failed. Wrong input by the pilots caused the aircraft to go into a deep stall and fall into the ocean. More hand flown training is needed. Don't like the use of composites in new A/C construction, with critical flight control surfaces in particular. They tend to snap off as they age...as they did on 3 Airbus planes that I know of.
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