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Dog-faced pony soldier
Join Date: Feb 2004
Location: A Rock Surrounded by a Whole lot of Water
Posts: 34,187
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The signs of an imminent wing stall would also have been much more apparent to a pilot hand-flying the controls. Another reason the autopilot should have never been on, IMHO. Autopilots are nice (if/when they work) but icing and turbulence are two situations that come to mind immediately as to places they should not be used. Ironically the times a person might naively assume they'd be most useful (in relieving crewmember stress/workload) but in those situations, the crew absolutely needs to have DIRECT control of the aircraft (meaning the control surfaces/inputs) and feedback.
If anyone here can provide me with good reason(s) to the contrary, I'd love to hear them. I'm not saying it's impossible they exist, but I'm skeptical. My initial reaction to seeing this is that it was irresponsible to be using the autopilot as a crutch in the way they seemed to be doing.
I wonder if Mr. Hotshot Captain actually had any "hands-on" experience for any of his "600+ hours" in winter/ice flying or whether he'd always used the autopilot for those too and simply gotten lucky up to that point.
I have a real problem with their decision to (mis)use cockpit resources as they apparently did.
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A car, a 911, a motorbike and a few surfboards
Black Cars Matter
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