Originally Posted by
Droopy
Like HC I'm retired now, but most recently was on the 169 with a very similar AFCS. The latest phase upgrade got quite a few people excited, "we can do this, that, offshore landings will become much better managed, etc etc..." But the weakness of all this automation capacity is the amount of training and more importantly currency so we mandated no use of all those esoteric modes as they all required investment which the company/client wouldn't pay for.
This is definitely a valid point. With a highly automated aircraft you need to have the same training and skill in manual flight, but also you need to have a lot of training in the use of the automation. So the overall training “burden” is definitely greater. But then if all that training is done properly, the overall level of safety is a lot better.
I've been out of the game for 10 years now but I wonder if the CAA policy for recurrent training and testing still mostly revolves around manual flying skills, with skills in the use automation being an afterthought? Or has CAA extricated itself from the Stone Age yet?