Originally Posted by
Ver5pen
I do genuinely wonder where this is coming from
perhaps there’s an argument that because hour building isn’t a thing in Europe anymore and you can be in the RHS with 200-300hrs the capacity of many of those individuals is low across the board and the natural reaction to this will be to ‘rely’ on automation slightly more
however I’m yet to notice any translation of this on the line and I’m consistently impressed by the flying skills of all of the captains fly with when they are required to demonstrate them in the more dynamic situations
The other we had an issue with the ATHR and had to fly the entire day with manual thrust with no issues
Many of the criticisms against a degradation in manual flying skills is more likely to be a criticism of the low hour model and in fact many are chopped at below 500 hours but does that mean the average crew with 1000s of hours between them are less capable than a similarly experienced crew 20/30 years ago? I’d struggle to believe so with all of the non-tech training we go through now and how much more we fly in terms of hours a year
I’d agree with your points. I’d add that for me, automation helps me manage my energy levels which is a crucial skill when doing deep late night duties/ very long days/ back to back brutally early starts on min rest. I don’t think this was the norm 20 years ago. This is not to say we can’t fly the thing when we need/want to.