newt , old bean, notwithstanding the training the military was once able to provide and the fact that many airlines now frown on their 'children of the magenta' from flying manually, never forget the wise words of Frank Borman:
A superior pilot uses his superior judgment to avoid situations which require the use of his superior skill.
By which definition, whoever made that abysmal approach and landing at Paris was clearly NOT a superior pilot.
Back when you were hooliganing about in your Lightning
, novice BOAC VC10 pilots had to fly something like 40 landings during type training, with a lot of manual flying. Whereas today, the beancounters deem manual flying generally superfluous, to the extent that many an airline copilot would find something as simple (to you and me) as a visual circuit extremely challenging.
But whose fault is that?