Maximum - I'm differentiating between the 'normal' emergencies which one trains for as a matter of course - such as depressurisations, system and engine failures (which frankly come as part of the job) - and the much rarer emergencies such as Sioux City, the Gimli Glider and the Aloha 'convertible'. In the latter cases, the lack of sim training for such emergencies means that it is only those with the best flying skills that would be able to get the aircraft down safely ... and, as I'm sure you will agree, much of that
does come from long experience. In those cases, the pilots do indeed make their lifetime's salaries in a matter of minutes - because they are venturing into the unknown and they have nothing, other than their experience and skills, to get the aircraft down.
If anyone other than Al Haynes had been commanding the United DC10, it's highly unlikely that anyone would have survived. After the incident, United replicated it on their simulators - and as I understand it,
no-one was able to get the aircraft down.
Equally, with the Gimli Glider, if Bob Pearson hadn't been a top-ranking glider pilot - and Maurice Quintal hadn't known the location of Gimli - then it's also highly unlikely that the aircraft could have been landed in one piece.
My view is that it's only really those pilots that have had extensive hands on flying experience with both light aircraft and especially the older generations of airliners - the pistons and the early jets - that really have learnt the advanced flying skills that will save their lives along with their fellow crew members and passengers when the chips are down.
The latest generation of FBW aircraft are entirely dependent on computers to keep them in the air - not the pilots. If
all of the computer systems fail, there's not a chance that the aircraft can be brought down safely because - regardless of what the manufacturers claim - you can't fly an aircraft without any control surfaces or power (don't forget that the engines are FADEC controlled). A number of the military aircraft around today - such as the F117A - are inherently areodynamically unstable and again it's thanks to the computers that the aircraft gets from A to B.
Next, I'm still not too sure why some people, such as
Rongotai (to pick someone at random - sorry mate!) - view the description of 'system monitors' as being somehow derogatory. It isn't - it's simply a factual description of what the overwhelming majority of a flight is spent doing.
The reality is that as our skies get more and more crowded, then computer systems will be delegated more control because they can react much faster than humans can. And, at the end of the day, that means that the Captain and First Officer will go the way of the Navigator, Radio Officer and Flight Engineer.
We've already come a trememdous way, when one considers that powered flight is
still less than 100 year old (Kitty Hawk was 1903). If we've come this far in 100 years, imagine how far we can go in the next 100?
And hopefully nothing will go wrong ... go wrong ... go wrong...
