Several posts relate the FD issue to ‘Children of the magenta’ … which concludes ‘Click, Click’, requiring disconnecting / switching automation off.
The assumption is that the crew will be able to identify the need for change (switch off) and have confidence in deviating from the norm; yet in the same instance they were unable to avoid or mitigate the approach to an ‘upset’ situation.
There is a similar assumption in the belief that ‘back to basics’ will provide preventative or recovery measures. Some pilots may be able to manage, but they are probably not the ones being ‘upset’.
The industry increasingly relies on automation, aircraft are built with that aim, many operations and thus training depend on it. Changing back to basics - training, has a high cost, thus few if any operators are willing to change - it’s not required by regulation.
We have to accept what already exists and work around that. Modern designs are adapted for automation - FD bars are automatically removed. The residual problem is with those aircraft types where the systems were designed in a different era, with different assumptions about pilot capability and training effectiveness. The reality is that this ‘old world’ is the minority, and those operators and aircraft types have to accommodate regulations based on modern assumptions - catch 22.
There are no simple answers; teach ‘click-click’, but don’t depend on it. Teach look-through, but pilots will be distracted.
A generalised approach might require avoidance of the situation, but how is that taught. Or require pilots to manage startle and surprise, how; easy to require, impossible to be sure of success.
Oh well, let’s just jump through the hoop; …
/ close cynical thoughts / open optimistic mode / - view the human as an asset, capable of much more than we might credit.