agree! my school didn't allow AP except for enough to know how it worked and how it could get you in trouble (wrong setting like VOR vs. GPS or not catching an altitude). the 3 examiners the school used didn't allow any AP at all for the check flight. personally the greatest benefit to me was the 60-80 hours I did in the tailwheels, no AP and learned what a rudder was.
That's interesting, I have been "instructed" that my examiner will require me to demonstrate all functions of the AP during my check ride. I was told that when I get given a diversion to a different airport, to activate the AP while I pull my chart get ATIS, set up the radios etc..I guess every test is different
I think the question of AP in an emergency comes down to a trade off between relative safety benefits of a pseudo "two-person" cockpit (one making operational/navigation decisions and one being an AP flying) versus a "single-person" cockpit (one person having to do everything). First, you certainly want to be ABLE to do everything, and train for that to develop maximum proficiency. But even if you are able to do everything, would it not be still safer to give simple operational issues (like best glide slope) to the AP, while you start worrying about altitude, heading, glide distance, airspeed, localizer frequencies and headings, ATC comm, selecting approach procedures, and so on, if crap is starting to happen? If the AP is suspected to be in a path of a failure chain or failure mode, then you need to fall back on yourself; but if the AP is not implicated in that, then using it frees up margin and capacity for other things that may be more important at that time. I could certainly see a revision that says "determine if the AP can be relied upon", "if so, then set AP to best glide slope, etc".
I agree they should check that you understand basic AP functions. I was taught when given a diversion to immediately start hand flying it in general new heading and then you can configure AP.
No actually a MU2...and a helicopter. But the Baron would have been a good choice too. One of the finest light airplanes around. I managed to get the only two with a SFAR
