I've an interesting footnote to the whole issue of 'how flying a 'Bus makes you a computer operator rather than a pilot' and the implied subsequent loss of manual flying skills thereafter.. .. .I've never flowm a 'Bus. I have flown a 737 simulator many times (and I'd have a go of a 'Bus sim if I could find someone who'd let me hire one!) but that's not the point here.. .. .My comment isn't on the ergonmic aspect of the respective aircraft, but on how I was caught out by my reliance on automation in my owm profession.. .. .I'm a radio broadcaster, and in the old days we used to play records on the radio, the mixing desks were great big old things with lots of paddle switches on them and we used to fire the jingles and commercials on 'carts' which are basically glorified audio cassettes (old timers may remeber '8 tracks' - that's what they look like). We also used big professional audio tapes to record callers and competitions, etc.. .. .In those days, everything was done manually, so at the start of a show you would start off with a commercial ad log, a big pile of records and a running order on a sheet of paper. You followed the sheet item by item, playing all the commercials and songs in order until the end of the show.. .. .So as you were on the air you'd constantly be on the go. You had to 'cue' each record individually and be ready to fire it off when the preceding record started to fade out, so as not to allow any gaps of 'dead air'. . .. .Also each commercial (up to 5 in each break, 3 breaks per hour had to be fired manually. You'd stick the cart in the slot and hit 'play', put in the next one and wait for the ending. Sometimes the last few words of the commercial were written on the cart, sometimes not!. .. .Also all the hourly items had to be meticulously timed to make sure that you played all the songs in full (no fading - listeners no like..)and that you got all the commercials away in full, got any competitions in there, callers, travel news, etc etc and finished each hour on the hour so the newsreader could start reading on a clock start. . .. .A four or five hour shift could be pretty exhausting. You'd be concentrating non-stop and there was plenty of fading in and out, button pushing and head-scratching whilst you figured all the sums out.. <img border="0" title="" alt="[Confused]" src="confused.gif" /> . .. .So you can imagine my joy when automation arrived.. .No more records, no more carts! Everything on hard drive, all pretty colours on the screen.. .No more adding up - the computer program did it all for you. If you were over-running it flashed up a big red warning on the screen. You didn't have to do anything anymore. It just followed the running order, firing all the commercials one after another seamlessly, and putting all the songs together with perfect segues every time. . .. .There was no longer any concentration required - simply turn on the mic when it tells you to 'Speak now' then hit the 'Next'button and let it carry on... .. .All this was fab. The workload taken right off my shoulders. Where before I'd be flapping and sweating I was now sipping coffee with my feet up watching the computer doing my show..... .. .Until it went t*ts up last week and crashed. Not just a program error but a major gremlin that sunk the whole system for the best part of three days.. .. .What did we do in these three days?. .. .We played CD's, records, carts and went back to doing it the old way, adding it all up in the old grey matter. . .. .Could I get it right?. .. .Could I hell...After years of having a computer do all the hard work my shows had more gaps in than a Lada assembled by Stevie Wonder.. .. .So if my experience is anything to go by, I'd say that reducing the role from technical operator (which I used to be) to systems monitor (which I am now) can only be a bad thing.. .. .Whether this transgresses from my business to flying aircraft I don't know, and I defer to those who've flown both 737's and 'Buses to say whether they had a similar experiece after going from Boeing to 'Bus and then back again.. .. .(ps. don't think I'm anti-Airbus by the way, I used to fly LHR-DXB regularly with different carriers and in cattle class at least preferred to do it in a A300/310/330/340 anyday than a 767). .. .RU. . . . <small>[ 29 March 2002, 18:28: Message edited by: reverserunlocked ]</small>