Why is automation dependency encouraged in modern aviation ?

[Vessbot]

Originally Posted by vilas

As I said I don't like to discuss 447 because this topic will hijack the thread again. Since you asked
447 and 8501 although the result is same the situation is different. AF447 they hadn't undergone any training for UAS. In the ungodly hour of midnight over the Atlantic, in IMC, Airspeed gone they were not going to device a procedure. We are not birds so in the air we can act out of our training, learnt habits but if fear washes out the conscious layer there are no instincts to guide a human to safety. The speed was lost only for one minute. But the crew's cognitive ability was gone. They stopped seeing anything, they stopped hearing anything, they stopped feeling anything but just kept doing something with their hand that had nothing to do with present situation. The only chance they had was that they froze and didn't do anything. May be the Aircraft would have descended on its own and in warmer temperatures icing would have gone. If they could see altitude then why not they also feel the stall buffet, also hear the stall warning? There's no point 447 has been beaten to death.

So you’re saying their cognitive ability was gone, and they couldn’t take in the altitude/VSI information, much less process it. Completely agreed, they were overwhelmed past 100% task capacity, and essentially shut down.

Given that, the next question is that if they had an attention/task capacity to process that info, and did so, (i.e., they didn’t shut down) could that have effected the outcome? (This was in my last post, but you didn’t answer it.) This seems pretty obvious, so to save another tedious back and forth, I’m going to assume your answer is yes.

So the next question is, is there a possible way to tailor the situation (via regular habits and practice) so that they might not have been overwhelmed by the situation and been able to see and process the altitude and VSI into what they were doing on the artificial horizon? Or is it a futile proposition, and truth is that no matter what anyone’s level of practice and comfort with hand flying in IMC, they would be just as likely to be overwhelmed and freeze up if called to do so? In other words, there is no effect of regular practice, on how big a portion of your total attention the practised thing takes?

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All this aside, I have to take exception to your characterizing the action to not pull up to 6000fpm from cruise for no reason, as “devising a procedure.”

Dependency is rarely encouraged but use of automation is encouraged.

Notionally true. But, if the areas where it’s not considered “prudent” (tired, marginal weather, there are too many legs per day, there are not enough legs per month, you’re increasing the other pilot’s workload, there is too much traffic, etc.) add up to leave the remaining area as essentially nothing, then dependency is de facto being encouraged. How many times can you not find something to point at? At some point, they stop being valid reasons and start being excuses.