Dan wrote:
No idea… there really are some crazy daredevils out there.
Unlike some RV pilots, I like to use my AP as much as possible. It flies much better than I do, and it allows me to relax, look around, use the travel john, etc. I can hold ± 100ft and 5 degrees of heading for a while, but I sure can’t do it for hours without being exhausted. I guess if I practiced this more I’d get better, but I feel like there are better things to do when flying in a straight line.
Just back from a little trip in the 182T, and the one thing I noticed how nicely it held altitude without particular effort and attention.
Much much more effort in the SR22. Or even the Bonanza.
Antonio wrote:
arj1 wrote: 2.3hrs, landing + food, then 4.3hrs. IFR in either real or simulated IMC. It’s OK, just very tiring. Edit: My bad! -0.5hr each for taxi/takeoff/landing.Which type are you flying?
At that time it was Cessna 172
It’s impressive how stable C172 & C182 for hand flying in clouds versus Archer or Mooney
I’m glad it’s not just me. In the TB20 I really have to work at it to hold an accurate altitude, but in my 182 it seemed to do it all by itself. I hand flew 3+ hours from Toussus to Cannes in my 182 (there was an AP disable switch I didn’t even know about!) and didn’t find it tiring at all.
True, in pitch the 182 requires little trim change as you level off and accelerate from say 90 to 110 KIAS (perhaps in John’s TR more like 125KIAS). Even then it holds altitude easier, but I did find it not so laterally stable (roll) , it needed attention to remain on course.
The PA28 was worse since it needed also attention in pitch but it was not much higher workload than the 182. Perhaps this was because most of the PA28 flight was VFR in Class G (vs IFR in Class A for the 182) and I was not so worried about maintaining the assigned course and altitude so precisely. Too much class A in Spain, but that is a separate matter!)
There are huge difference in IMC hand flying between,
The most difficult form for hand flying on earth is going in bumpy IMC from Fairoaks to Elstree in “IFR C152”, navigating along M25 using SkyDemon on tablet while staying under 2500ft TMA and talking to 10 frequencies or not talking to anyone and staying out of every ATZ, more than 30min you will either get brain stroke or lose your licence after busting airspace 
The longest flight i handflew was a positioning flight from a turbo commander from Belgium to Dubai.
It did have an autopilot so we started on every leg on that but after 40 minutes or so it kicked out without any warning.
It flew very stable because i can’t remember being tired after the flights. Out longest leg was Cyprus-Dubai at 5h30.
And a few days later we flew it all the way back because one of the panes of the windscreen shattered and apparently it was cheaper and easier to ferry the airplane back to Belgium then to get a mechanic and a windscreen to Dubai.
At my previous company on 737 handflying was “encouraged” with a long list of exceptions on when you could do it. One of them being not in a TMA.
At my current company on the 747 they don’t care when you engage or disengage the autopilot. So i’ve seen people fly manually into jfk from 15k feet.
Clearly this problem is very type-dependant. @arj1 ’s and @FlyingAppel ’s success is surely not unrelated to the types flown.
So if flying assigned altitude+hdg for hours is tiring, what about formation flying, especially long legs on military aircraft? I guess it depends on the type, how loose the formation and again whether SP or not, but how do you handle a long x/c for hours in formation flying?
johnh wrote:
TB20 I really have to work at it to hold an accurate altitude
Same here. Pitch axes stability is not the strong point of my TB-20. My AP was never really working well, and now its being repaired, so a 2.5 hours IFR trip becomes a bit tiring. There is simply no way to trim it properly. Somehow it needs to constantly worked on.
It’s no problem to manage with VMC and when no need to study some charts or something for a longer than 10 sec, but in IMC it can be intense.
