Originally Posted by
Asturias56
Increased automation has lowered the accident rate - I know it's not popular but its true
Look back at the days when most piloting was done by hand.... scarey
IMHO that only works out when you group most of the warning equipment added since the 1970s under "automation". (E)GPWS and wind shear warning systems as well as Alpha protection certainly have their share as well, plus more reliable systems have reduced the number of occasions superior skills are required.
As long as there is no certification requirement for AP/FD being available all the time regardless of hydraulics/electrics failure, pilots should be able to fly without it and IMHO that can only be achieved by regularly flying raw data under appropriate conditions. Flying raw data all the time is not the answer, it's being able to choose the correct level of automation for the circumstances. This is not a binary thing either. You can use the autopilot and still botch raw data navigation because you're no longer used to or never have had to make a plan which navaids to tune and intercept in which sequence and/or fail to intercept the next course because you're still struggling to track / trying to intercept the current.
We have a policy that requires all FD/AP and navaid switching to be done by the PM during hand-flying. This can be justified statistically as the chance of the other pilot and the autopilot going belly-up at the same time is minuscule. Should you end up at the wrong end of statistics it might nevertheless be helpful if you can do it. So why not train this and other stuff deemed to dangerous for line ops on the sim with the understanding that it is to be used in case of emergency only. Negative training? Overtraining? I don't think so. I don't think sim session coddling (one malfunction at a time only, etc.) makes for better pilots than having very hard sim sessions where you walk away with a "phew, we just made it" but are pretty sure that you will be able to hand (almost) anything life might throw at you while airborne.
Gliding experience won't help but flying more visual approaches will give you a better "eye" to judge whether you're high or low.