Hey, I know I'm just a stupid single seat guy and all, and I bet you could accuse me of doing that weird "hand flying" thing more than what's "normal" in a big airplane...

BUT

At what ######ing point do you just tell the AP to ###### off and hand fly your airplane? I'm serious.

The military perspective: the AP can do many things better than you, like stay on speed on altitude at cruise for 5 hours, but the second it goes batshit crazy, fire George and hand fly the damn thing. I've been through commercial training programs and they are appalled when you try to hand fly. They want you to fix problems with the autopilot by changing modes, etc. It's gear up, flaps up AP on, cross the threshold, AP off, land. They claim it's an insurance cost and pax comfort thing, but I thing there's some Asiana, Air France and Colgan pax who would rather see some hand flying skill building.

Edited June 26, 201411 yr by pintail21

i'll say it again, aim point air speed. Or whatever crosscheck you airframe requires.