Originally Posted by
Sucram
Thats a pretty unfair and sweeping statement
Actually it's a factual statement in the sense that the vast majority of newer commercial pilots have very little hand flying experience in a line environment. SOP for just about every airline globally involves positive rate, gear up, AP on as quickly as possible. As a general rule AP disconnect on landing also occurs very late in the process. The result is that most pilots with no experience prior to the "glass cockpit" era have significantly underdeveloped intuitive capabilities.
Ebbatson (2009) found that pilots who had significant experience flying traditional, non-glass cockpit aircraft, developed robust mental models of performance characteristics during different phases of flight. These heuristics allowed experienced pilots to quickly and accurately predict and anticipate exactly how the aircraft would perform, thus reducing the high processing demands imposed by closed-loop processing. These pilots developed their own schema for the operation of the aircraft based upon experience with power settings, descent profiles, and rules of thumb. They no longer had to perform 14 complex mathematical calculations to determine when to begin a descent; rather they could simply apply the heuristic model for that situation. Less experienced pilots, lack these heuristics and quickly become saturated, resulting in poor aircraft control and planning. Over-dependence on automated systems exacerbates this issue and further inhibits the ability to develop the required mental models for manual flight.
https://scholarworks.sjsu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?referer=https://www.google.com/&httpsredir=1&article=5108&context=etd_theses
The simple truth is that while the planes themselves are infinitely safer the pilots are not. Obviously that is a harsh blanket statement but the truth is that if you can't practice your craft you won't maintain proficiency.