Hi flyer
I'll give you another example - at a recent meeting with a certain gentleman from the CAA, he explained that someone wanted to do some research on manual flying skills in the fixed-wing operators - it might have been as part of a CAA research project. A mainstream fixed-wing operator volunteered to take part, but rapidly realised that they were going to be embarrassed, and pulled out once it became apparent that their pilots could not maintain altitude within 100' without the automation.
But I say "So What if they can't maintain altitude within 100'!". That is a redundant skill. They fly using automation, which has considerable redundancy. If the automation completely fails once in a blue moon and they can't maintain alt within 100' does it matter? For en-route flying, normally separation is 1000' so if they go up or down a few hundred, so what? It only perhaps matters for MDA.
Times change, skills need to change otherwise we don't progress. There is too much of a culture of "real men fly manually, automation is for girls" (no offence to female readers intended - its just a turn of phrase), coming from all levels - JAA, EASA, CAA downwards. You only have to look at the LST/LPC proformas to see how much interest there is in the skill of managing the automation from the Authorities (though it is getting slightly better).
HC