On Jun 4, 4:22*pm, a wrote:
A recent post regarding technology made me curious about something

The question for other pilots: on a 3 or 5 hour XC, do you let the
transistors do the work, or do you mostly fly the airplane from
"Clear" up to idle cut off?

. I'm guessing that 80% of the time I'm doing a cross country I
carefully trim the airplane and hand fly it -- bits of pushing and
pulling, twisting and turning, to keep the airplane from meandering
too far off course. the autopilot actually flies better than I do -- I
suspect that's true for most of us, I'm guessing the RMS error of the
a/p's course error is a degree or so and it mostly keeps the needles
centered on an ILS: it pays better attention than I do. Never the
less, I like manual controlling the airplane *and mostly do that..

What do YOU do?

My personal method on long x countries was to trim out for the power
setting then fly the airplane on the long stretches using rudder and
the pitch trim referencing the altimeter.
On some vintage fighters like the P51, I'd do as above then rest my
left hand on the elevator trim wheel and make gentle and subtle
corrections while holding the stick with my legs.
These techniques worked like a charm for me.
DH