Originally Posted by
FullWings
And the issue is that because of that, the pilots of tomorrow will have much less experience to fall back on, as opposed to those of us who had a decade or two with very limited or no automation, so had to develop the skills needed. There will be much less opportunity to achieve familiarity and competence, such that you could successfully intervene in the event of automation failure, which may be subtle...
Exactly.. this is what I meant when I said I've switched from thinking that pilots need a lot more basic training... (Of course in the short term that probably is still true.)
But in this future scenario we're discussing, the pilot will not have to have a lot of training because total automation should be able to deal with any unusual events automatically.
In an age of total automation, the pilot is essentially the whole frame parachute. They would not have a lot of day-to-day experience. everything they did would be in the simulator, and the only time they would be involved would be after a significant automation failure.. and yes, if that happened to be combined with extreme structural failures or other things this emergency pilot will not be a guru and yeah it might be over.
On the other hand if it's simply the failure of total automation, that emergency pilot should have the training to configure for landing, line up with a long runway and keep the nose pointed at the piano keys.