How to jump into a gunner's seat
 

Recently when switch to a gunner's position in a bomber in online play the gunner's automation is turned off, I can control the gun and shoot right away. However, I remember that when I jumped into gunners' positions in the past, the AI automation of the gunner would stay on until I manually turned it off. I preferred it this way, because I could let my AI gunners track bandits and I could see them right away when I jumped into their seats. Now I have to wait a couple of seconds after I turn the automation on for the AI to re-acquire the bandit.

How to I make it so that I can jump into a gunner's seat and have him stay in AI mode right from the beginning?

The default keys are toggle A to switch to AI/Human
And toggle A+Shift to turn off AI completely and back on.

The last settings useful if you are flying an aircraft with gunners in enemy territory and you want to be stealthy,
it disables them from firing completely whilst your in the pilot seat.

That last toggle sounds very useful, but I can't find it in my list of controls. It's in the stock version of the game?

Yes

Toggle Level Auto Pilot = A+Shift

Use it in the gunner seat it turns off the AI gunners completely.

Yes, that worked, thanks!