Jim Carter wrote:


It amuses me that so much of what was done 30 years ago, with less
accurate technical toys is today seen as macho and Herculean. Single nav
radio holds? Full ADF approach? Cross country without a moving map or
GPS? Single-engine, night IFR? There are way too many opinions about the
lack of safety of these practices by people who have little or no
experience with them.

I started flying IFR in 1958. I started instructing IFR the next year.

I went with a major airline in early 1964 and continued a lot of light
aircraft flying for the next 12 years.

Prior to 1965, or so, I never flew a light aircraft with an autopilot.
The first really good light aircraft autopilot I used extensively was a
Bendix (or Motorola) M4C in an Aerostar 600.

I mention my air carrier experience because it was an autopilot world at
crusie in my earlier years. The autopilots were not good enough for
climb out or descent (it was easier to hand fly in those phases of
flight). The later generation autoflight systems were excellent for all
phases of flight.

So, my point? When it was a VOR/DME/ILS world it was quite manageable
for a competent pilot to fly a stable light aircraft without an
autopilot. In fact, like the early airline jets the early light
aircraft autopilots were basically wing levelers with some heading
control (sometimes).

But, now we are evolving into a space-based navigation system with the
complexities of nav databases and, in the case of panel mount light
aircraft in particular, difficult (from a total human-factors systems
management standpoint) to input and manage nav data.

During the past 10 years, or so, light aircraft autopilots have improved
greatly. The use of such a current generation autopilot makes the
management of the complex space-based navigation system, especially as
it is implemented in light aircraft, much more manageable and, thus,
much more safe.

In VMC, without the autopilot, the single pilot on an IFR flight plan
using RNAV cannot maintain an adequate traffic watch. In IMC trying to
juggle all the balls is asking for loss of situational awareness.

An autopilot may be on someone's personal list of minimum equipment for
IFR, but that doesn't mean it should be a mandate for all of us.

It should be mandated for single-pilot normal IFR operations in today's
environment. That doesn't mean the pilot should let his hand-flying and
partial panal skills deteriorate. Speaking of partial panel, that did
not apply in jet transport operations and it does not apply to a G-1000
equipped light aircraft.

So, we are in transition in a very fundamental sense.