Use of automation is as much of a skill as hand flying
Well, I'll have to
agree with that. To be good at flying on "automatics" you need to understand what they can and can't do, how to set them up to do what you want, how to recognise that things are not quite right and what to do about it when this happens. That's a comparable skillset to that needed for manual flying - slightly more cerebral, maybe but still comparable.
When you do a type conversion course, you are expected to become proficient in the operation of the aircraft and that generally includes all of the autoflight features. Many SOPs/regulations
require the use of automation for certain phases of flight, e.g. low RNP approaches, RVSM, lo-viz ops. To lack the knowledge or ability to fully utilise these features is not something to be proud of, IMHO.
I'm very much with
Old Smokey on "MANAGEMENT and MONITORING", both in manual and automatic flight. In an emergency it doesn't have to be pretty - just safe. In modern aircraft (FBW Airbus & B777 onwards) there is always some degree of automation engaged, unless you go around pulling CBs and flipping guarded switches, and a good working knowledge of the limitations/modes of these systems would seem to be helpful.
When looking at some of the recent airline incidents/accidents it is tempting to come to the conclusion that a lack of hand flying practice/competency contributed to the outcomes. However, there is also a common thread of mode confusion/perplexity with automatics/lack of system knowledge leading up to where it went wrong...