Thanks, Stall
A long time ago, with another philosophy in effect, I managed ( earned) to get my fighter assignment from the basic drill. I went to Air Defense Command as a pilot and was from the only training unit that still flew T-33 jets ( Craig AFB)
ADC had such a low opinion of the early "children of the magenta line" that they required 20 or so hours of "instrument" training in the T-33 for all the newbies from the T-38 places Reason was basic instrument flying skills and the T-38 folks had the flight director stuff for TACAN and ILS nav. They also had neat attitude indicators and such, while we had the basic J-8 thingie. So I flew two or three rides and they checked me off. I then flew "target missions" for rest of my "spare" time while going thru F-102 checkout. Loved it, and would fly a Deuce mission and then a target mission later in the day. Along the way I learned a lot about instrument approaches
using the basics that were invented by Doolittle 40 years before.
"Looking thru" to the real world background is easier for some than others, as Stall has implied. I see the biggest problem in that the FD symbology has more precedence on the displys than the actual attitude and airspeed/AoA. In the A-7D, many pilots flew the raw data due to the poor mechanization of the FD box ( loose dampening and no connect with the basic INS/Doppler nav system).
Thanks for helping me understand the concern with following the FD.
Gums sends...