It hardly needs to be said that someone who can use skill and professionalism to do a good job and takes pride in so doing, will be the better for it. Yes automation is here to stay and used sensibly the world is better for it, but the human remains the final backup system – and he/she must be able to fill that slot.
Spot on. Readers will know which camp I sleep in. We have beaten our gums for years on here and not a lot has changed. There is the occasional incident/crash that reignites the debate. XAA's are reluctant to legislate. They believe that their 'mandatory items' every 6 months are adequate, and they trust/believe that airlines are their own best judges of piloting capabilities beyond those minimums. One could argue that there are different groups of pilots. There are the short-haul Greek island charter guys; there are the multi-sector/day basic airfield commuter guys; there are the multi-sector LoCo flying bus to reasonably equipped airfields, some more than others; and there are the single sector long-haul sluggers who only ever see >2500m ILS radar ATC runways 8-10 times/month.
The required skills are very different, yet the recruiting, training, testing of all pilots is the same. The XAA's trust the airlines will fine-tune their crews to their own network.
We all agree that 'the job' has changed more from piloting the a/c to managing the operation. We may not like it, but it has; yet I read recruiting blurb about the characteristics of pilots sought and it hasn't changed as much as the real job has. If I was recruiting for Highlands & Islands I want a different guy than BA or AF. My interviewing filters would be very different.
As devil's advocate about the airline bosses mandating automatic flight and reduced manual flight training; they argue that, in today's reliability and ever improving infrastructure, it is perfectly possible to operate safely & efficiently in automatic mode. The in-depth manual skills are not necessary. Given the failure rates it's difficult to argue against, until that one day.............. If they are going to advocate that philosophy they need to invest in total understanding and confidence in using the automatics to their full potential and design capability. I've observed that is not the case. Students do not 'learn the automatics', they are told (SOP) which part of the automatic system's capability to use and when. That is it: at this time you say this, press that and the a/c will do this. An ideal day, until........
Murphy and his mates throw you a curve ball that means you do not start at GO...so the sequence will not work and needs modification. That's often when the 'Oops' moments start, and it can be the confused pilot make it worse and the descending spiral starts and is difficult to stop and reverse.
We pilots want to be able to pilot and enjoy our skills. We have no qualms that safety will be compromised. We feel we can judge when & what to use; we had been educated, initially and by practice. There are airlines who believe that pilots are not there to enjoy themselves but do a job on their behalf. For them safety & efficiency = automatics. They have proved reliable. Sadly it is difficult to shoot down completely, and this circular oft repeated debate will continue until all the dinosaurs die off; except for the enlightened managers who know that basic skills are still required for their network.