Scenario - Aircraft happily rolling down the ILS (maybe in A/P or maybe hand-flown) - passes 100ft (?) and auto knocked off, pilot continues landing, shutting the power as the aircraft flares and touches down, spoilers (manually) deployed and thrust levers lifted up into reverse and brakes applied.
Can somebody please tell me what was wrong with this story (minor details maybe as it was years ago for me)
Now it appears that almost everything above is carried out by The Computer (okay -lesson the Boeing, but still some of it). Is it hard to remember "flare, power off, spoilers, reverse, brakes" (sharing some of those with your colleague)? So why hand over the control of the aircraft to The Computer?
This scenario happens to this day, except perhaps for the auto ground spoilers bit. Auto brakes and auto spoilers have been around for an awful long time and were integral to the hands on aircraft people seem to yearn after. I'm not aware of any current aircraft with auto thrust reverse. Ground spoilers can be manually deployed if the auto system(s) fail.
Auto brakes are a great benefit, both in reducing maintenance cost but also increase safety. It doesn't make sense to manually brake AND have to be using the rudders to control the aircraft during rollout. Auto everytime.
No one forces pilots to auto-land all the time.
AFAIK most landings (and ALL takeoffs) are manual, of only in the last 500 feet. An A320 is very pleasant to hand fly as it happens (at least that is what I have found flying the simulator, not being a pilot).
FADEC gives the pilot care-free engine operation. It is found on some quite elderly aircraft, not just Airbuses. In the "good old days" rough handling of the engine might result in a catastrophic failure. Even pre-FADEC some engine manufacturers (e.g. RR) had limiters on everything so over-boosting simply was not possible. I can't think of a single good reason why FADEC could be a "bad thing".
The automatics are there to help the pilot and improve safety. There aren't too many instances where they have caused accidents, and even then it is usually because the "operator", (aka the pilot), misread indications or was over reliant on auto modes when the situation demanded otherwise. They can reduce situational awareness I suppose, but good training should take care of that.