Vessbot,
That’s a couple of very cogent posts, dense with some really good observations.
For me, having had a fairly long career in aviation but coming from an engineering/science background, one of the (many) issues that gets me is the user interface that a modern commercial transport presents to its operator. In a word: suboptimal. They are an unholy mix of a century’s worth of ideas and technology, keeping the bad as well as the good for some kind of continuity. IMO many EFIS+FMC presentations are actually worse for SA in some areas than an equivalent steam-driven setup: un-annunciated hidden modes, weird logic and a plethora of known but too-expensive-to-fix bugs in prehistoric firmware/hardware.
As far as manual flying goes, I am mostly with those who say that it’s worthless to just follow the FD as you’re just inserting a monkey between the AFDS and the control surfaces. No need for any kind of instrument scan, just keep those needles crossed in the box (or whatever your aircraft requires) and you’re golden. I’m a little bit of a bully in that respect as if someone asks if they can fly manually, I say sure, but the FDs are going off with the AP! Make ‘em sweat.
The idea of giving airline pilots a few hours every now-and-then in a light aircraft to get the old scan and handling ability up again often comes around and is generally pooh-poohed as being impractical, expensive, etc. Considering the cost of most FFS at £thousands a session and the limited exposure in the real thing to situations where you don’t have to compromise safety and regulations too much (non-RVSM, not at the end of a 12hr sector into bad weather, definitely not 3am on your body after a dodgy curry the night before, etc.) it would actually be more cost effective and 100% of it would be manual flying, IF and/or VFR. An explanation that sort of holds water is that this kind of activity looks suspiciously like “fun” and therefore what right-minded company would encourage such a thing, even if it led to increased safety and reduced wear-and-tear on airframes. Or, even pilots who were confident enough to do a visual circuit instead of an 12-mile ILS, saving £££ and getting there quicker?