Originally Posted by
Organfreak
Speaking as an informed passenger, try to see my POV: If there is something wrong with the airplane you're riding, wouldn't you want the very best piloting skills possible sitting up there in the pointy end??? I sure would! I am shocked that there's so much sentiment against "Just fly the damned plane!"
However, if the aircraft’s response to a single failure reduces the ability of any piloting skills to recover the aircraft, then discussing the quality of flying become irrelevant.
The assumed use of electric trim depends on understanding the nature of the failure - no direct warning alert. MCAS trim surpasses elect trim - 10 sec to 5 sec, then there is a point where elect trim becomes ineffective, it should be inhibited before then, there is a (coincident) point where manual wheel trim is ineffective (physically impossible to move), so that the residual control force and / or manoeuvre cannot be flown.
If speed of awareness and trim action are important, then the aircraft systems must support these; you cannot expect to cure a poor design by ‘improving’ every pilot, and expecting that enhanced performance every day in every situation.
Water pilot,
We cannot forget that two planes from two different respectable airlines with legally qualified pilots crashed in short order, which is not something that happens very often. There is so far no reason to believe that those pilots were any more or less skilled than the thousands of their brethren so if this was just the sad fact that pilots don't know how to fly anymore, we should expect to see major airplane crashes every six months or so. We do not, which is why the plane was grounded despite Boeing's and the FAA's objections.
