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by samtho 830 days ago
Sorry but this a bit ill-informed.

First off, you cannot just put an alarm on everything. The sonic experience inside a cockpit is very carefully designed to give pilots the correct information at the correct time. False alarms are not only not appreciated, they are actively dangerous. If a flight experiencing an emergency situation, a blaring alarm that is incorrectly going off can prevent pilots from getting timely information.

Airbus have side-sticks (like a game controller), not yokes and you really shouldn’t be inputting on them unless you’re hand flying for whatever reason.

In all two-pilot aircraft (all commercial jet aircraft), there are two separate roles that each one assumes: Pilot Monitoring (PM) and Pilot Flying (PF). The PM’s job is usually to run checklists, communicate/operate the radio, check various indicators, and support the PF to fly the aircraft. The captain and first officer swap between these roles en route. The PM should NOT be inputting controls unless there is a good reason to do so, but for safety/redundancy, one side’s controls are never disabled unless a lockout/override is active.

Most airlines have a policy to cruise with the autopilot on, which keeps the aircraft on its plotted course at it’s cleared altitude. The time where “flying” comes into play most often is during takeoff and using various levels of ILS from just indications of glide slope to a full autoland.

While not fantastic, a cruising airbus will keep its current course and stay airborne if the pilots snooze off.

1 comments

Charlie Victor Romeo was a very interesting watch for that cockpit fly-on-a-wall experience