Are you a cheater?

[Wayne Pierce]

To; All AAV Pilots
From; Training
Subject; Check rides and use of the Autopilot FMS.

Many checkrides have come through the training office. Some Excellent and some not so good. Quite a few times we have to ask if the pilot is flying by hand, as required, or letting the auto-pilot do the work. We know the auto pilot can fly your aircraft, but can you?

The AAV Recorder, which we use to look at your checkrides, will show all phases of your flight, we can tell which parts of the flight are automated or not. Now, some pilots have very good skill at using the flight simulator program. Their flights are very good, and to those few our hats go off to you. Hand flown non-FMC flights can vary from check ride to pilot depending upon if the weather in the Flight Sim is set correctly as instructed.
Many pilots have passed the check ride denying to the training office that the FMC autopilot was not used. We know better. One is only cheating oneself if the autopilot is used to pass the check ride. Your deny yourself learning the skills that are needed in operating the flight simulator like a real aircraft.

Here are a few pictures showing the difference between a flight flown with the autopilot controlled by the FMS and a hand flown flight in a few of the "looked" at areas of the checkride.

The blue line is the aircraft flightpath.
This picture shows the entire flight flown using the Autopilot FMS for the checkride. Notice the very straight lines between the navigation points. The flightpath does not over or under turn at the intersections. Very automated.



This graph shows the FMS linked to the auto throttle for the Ascent, Descent to the hold, hold speed, speed increase after the hold and descent speeds.



Here is the hold which is difficult to manage manually with the winds. You can clearly see the difference between the FMS managed hold and the manually flown one.



Two glide slopes. One using the FMS APP button with Autopilot and one hand flown.



It is easy to use the autopilot. We administer the check rides for you to learn how to perform the aircraft's flight functions without it.

Thank You,

[Michael Blakely]

Good post. I shudder to think how "un-straight" all my checkride lines must be.

[Todd Meek]

I know my flights that I submit are nowhere near perfect. I fly the checkrides myself because I want to learn how to fly. I already know that autopilot can do it. What fun is that? Now I will admit my flights I do non checkrides I do use autopilot during the cruise portion of the flight. I take off and land by hand. That's the reason I joined this VA is the structured training program we have to learn how to fly just like real pilots.

[Theodore Martin]

My sentiments are actually inline with Todds. I joined this VA BECAUSE of the checkrides and the ability to learn how aircraft are flown in the real world and how RW flights are accomplished. In addition, as does Todd, I always hand fly my departures and landings. I rarely utilize the auto-land feature. I'm always trying to get the lowest fpm landing as well as trying to get some consistency. Autopilot takes away that fun!