Quite a fascinating thread.
Caveats.
I have some experience in a number of sandpits but not the level of flying experience represented by many of our PPRuNe colleagues. As well, I came into the flying game when a more rigorous level of discipline was being established but not then to the extent that we see in recent years.
These days, the legal animal is ever present so any activity must, necessarily, be tempered by thoughts of discussions, challenges, and consequences in a different arena.
One significant factor is that the general starting age of airline folks probably is a little younger and with substantially less aviation experience than it was in years gone by ? By itself this is not a major problem but does require that the operating entity’s control over (new) pilot development is reasonably rigorous. We can see this in the military environment where the increasing level of imposed discipline over recent decades has resulted in a significant reduction in hull losses and fatalities – certainly within the Australian environment.
Many opine that traffic densities and airspace complexities are now such that rigour and procedural prescription are both inevitable and essential – I don’t profess to have the answers to that one although I posit that there have always been busy locations with which one had to contend ?
My thoughts, just for whatever they may be worth ..
I think the main philosophical catchcry need be something along the lines of “horses for courses”. I recall when I transitioned to the B733, the then boss was a wise chap (and one of those natural “born with the stick in his hand” types – was I envious ? of course I was) who, after a period of Type introduction, took the view that we were free to emphasise either the manual and/or the automatic, but need know and be competent with both, while taking care not to embarrass ourselves (or him, either, I guess).
While I have always inclined to the manual flying practice attitude, it didn’t take me long to realise (the -300 being my first somewhat automatic machine) that one could, quite easily, get out of one’s depth, particularly when significantly fatigued for whatever reason – horses for courses, again ?
Some of us would definitely emphasise the automatics, others would hand fly sectors, raw data, no auto throttle, essentially single pilot, the other guy watching with an appropriate level of interest, from takeoff to landing, to hone the hand tool skills. Did this greatly increase the workload on the monitoring pilot ? With an appropriate discussion at the start, it didn’t appear to do so. One thing did ensue, that being that we gained a high level of feel for what the aircraft would do while being reasonably conservative in one’s personal discipline.
Some for instances,
(a) check flight – severe blue day, 50 odd miles to run straight in. modest traffic. Checkie turned all the gadgets off (including aids) on my side so it was a real do-it-yourself visual approach from 20-odd thousand feet. Difficult ? Not really, certainly interesting (and totally unannounced), but one had to keep the brain thinking all the way in … (722 on that occasion).
(b) line flight, training captain asked did I have any idea of how steep a sensible approach could be conducted from the mid-twenties ? No ? Try dirty one in a mile. Worked out fine, gear, then flaps at 20. Again, had to keep the wits about me.
(c) DRW to CNS, severe blue day, howling westerly so CNS was going to be more than a tad rough in the lower levels. Over the upwind end at around 12000-13000 ft, steep descending circuit over the water and land into the north. Not a problem at all.
And so one could continue to recite relevant anecdotes from years gone by.
Would we have done these sorts of interesting things on a dirty night at the end of a long duty period ? Of course not – horses for courses.
Did we learn a bit about the capabilities of our steed ? Sure did.
What should be the approach ? Probably not for me to pontificate other than to observe – horses for courses.