Originally Posted by
BraceBrace
And that's the topic here: does APFD use decrease our situational awareness? No, it should increase. If not, maybe you need some training on the proper use of APFD systems. Otherwise it sounds like you are throwing away the baby with the bathwater.
That is a key question, but it's not as simple as presented. In general, of course safety is increased by SA, therefore anything that increases SA also increases safety. But there are two scopes to evaluate APFD's effect on this: on a flight-by-flight individual basis, and overall over many flights.
Flight by flight: obviously, automation increases SA by offloading tasks from the mind, leaving the remaining capacity for SA. Great. If this was the only concern, then the clear right answer would be full automation full time. Anything less would decrease safety, and should not be allowed.
But!
Overall: If the handflying task is offloaded
every time, then there's no chance to practice it to where its share of the mental capacity is reduced, like every practiced activity does. So, any time performed, (including when suddenly forced to under unfavorable circumstances) it continues taking its large share of mental capacity, leaving little for SA;
and this picture never changes. So, over this scale, APFD reduces SA.
The individual flight vs. overall safety concerns are necessarily contradictory. Automation overuse increases individual flight safety, but decreases overall safety. Conversely, hand flying practice decreases individual flight safety, but increases overall safety. Some system or philosophy has to account for both of them, and operate at a kind of balance point. Unfortunately the overall concern is too abstract and always easy to dismiss, fobbing it off to some [i]other[i] time we can address it. While for the individual flight, concretely we can point to the safety advantage of turning the AP on. But when the individual flight becomes
all the individual flights together, the overall concern falls by the wayside.
(It's like unhealthy food, this next Bacon McStuffer won't make any difference. But this is the rationalization for every meal, and the fruits and veggies day never comes in reality.)