d246
There may be (a few) 200 hour pilots in the charter fleet but they are sitting next to a P1 with thousands of hours.
However I suspect you are partly right, but I think it will be a very, very long time before fully automated systems are 100% reliable in all situations, if for no other reason than issues of coping with the unexpected and the complexity of testing.
Fifty years ago Duncan Sandys (Sec of Sate for Defence) predicted that the English Electric Lightning would be the last manned fighter for the RAF and it would be replaced by missiles and unmanned aircraft, even the Lightning was supposed to be controlled remotely from just after take off till firing the “Red Top” missiles.
Then we had the Bloodhound I / Ferranti Scandal and for unconnected reasons the radio guidance packs were removed from the Lightning. Now 50 years later we have Predator type drones (remotely piloted not automatic a/c) becoming armed but everyone is still designing and building manned fighters, all be it unstable platforms with fly-by wire etc.
So what’s the point of these comments? Well I know about Moore’s Law, improving technology etc but reliability in civil aviation will always have to be demonstrated to be many times better than in the military, they have been trying to automate the pilots job on and off for over 50 years and aren’t there yet.
I don’t think anyone is arguing that automated systems are not a major contributor to flight safety, the issue is that a pilot has to be able to cope without some or most of the automated systems, how will they if they don’t practice or worse aren’t fully trained to do so?