Quote:
Originally Posted by Porsche-O-Phile
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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Personally, I am one of the guys who basically always hand flies approaches, for a number of reasons (I like to do it and it keeps my skills sharp). However, let it be clear that I have all of the confidence in the world for the autopilot in the jet I fly. It can do the job more precisely than any pilot could dream of. It is highly capable in turbulence, btw. In fact, at high altitude, a pilot would be a fool to click it off in heavy turbulence because he stand a greater chance of a high altitude upset by hand flying it - such is the nature of high altitude flight and the capabilities of sophisticated transport category autopilots.
As for icing conditions, defined "severe" icing (or the suspicion of it) requires that the autopilot be turned off, for the reasons you stated. However, in light icing, there is no requirement to turn off the autopilot.