Who is in Command, is it you or V bar which is the Flight Director of the Auto pilot. This is one of the most common question that must arise because of the tremendous amount of workload being reduced by the Automatic control systems.
The newer and modern systems are very reliable and their performance is highly accurate, but do you think they are 100 % fail proof, no they are not.
Although their reliability is very high but since they are machines and have their own limitations, they do fail at times, or even if hey don’t fail there might be an error due to wrong feeding of the waypoints in the FMS systems. As we know there are thousands of waypoints all over the world and it is but very natural for them to be identical to each other in names causing one to be mistaken for the other. We all know this particular mistake has claimed many lives causing Controlled Flight with perfect working equipments and Crew into the terrain in the last few years.
I am not against the modern technology, in fact I believe it has been tremendously profiting to Aviation in particular, but I just want to remind that are we really bothered about the crosschecking of the critical data and recheck the instrument scan specially when operating at areas of high terrain.
We must always remember that our best friends in the air are the Altitude, Airspeed and Fuel, and your Primary Flight display (At least a conventional Artificial Horizon with a Magnetic Compass) with these four friends on board I’m sure most Pilots would like to make their own decision to divert on their chosen Aerodrome with all the equipments failed any time of the day or night, then to use a fully operational Automatic control System with dangerously low on being any one out of Altitude, Airspeed or Fuel.
Fuel is of course your friend all the time except when you have an engine on fire when the least you want on board is tons of fuel in your wings.
I have heard most of the time that the Flight Director is usually called as Command Bar, since it gives direction to the Pilot to follow the flight path as calculated by the Air Data Computer which issues these signals after taking inputs from various resources.
If the Flight Director Bar is in Command then what is the gentleman on the Left hand seat doing, I think it must be rather called as a Advice bar, which advices the A/c to follow the maneuver according to the values set in the Autopilot controls by the Pilot.
The Pilots should have very high amount of Situational Awareness specially when operating by Automatic Control System, they should always think as to what would happen if the system malfunctions with reference to the required flight path, it has happened before to the flights and because of the Situational Awareness and the efficiency of the Air Crew the incident could not be converted into an Accident.
For people specially flying on charter A/c, It is a good idea to carry a personal GPS with a spare set of fresh batteries, along with a flashlight, and if possible a handheld Communication set with VOR/ILS receiver, that are very easily available in the market these days, and I bet you won’t regret them buying someday.
The charted A/c should always be flown with extreme care and should be thoroughly examined in Pre flight inspection, specially when operating out of the base, since they are usually maintained at various bases with different types of engineers.
I don’t intend to point on any Airlines procedures since I know that the Airlines maintains very strict rules regarding standard call outs and procedures, this chapter is a more of a personal view to my fellow Pilots who are of course very senior to me, since I have never sit in an A/c cockpit with an Autopilot and EFIS on board. This chapter reflects my personal views about the Automatic Control System that has and will guide us through, but not command the A/c. Even when the Auto pilot is “ON” the system follows the Flight Director, only when selected by the PIC, therefore I believe that the ultimate command still lies with the gentlemen on the Left seat.