Humans are lousy at monitoring automated systems
I can't resist this. Back in 1990 I was flying as a contract pilot for a German 737 operator. Loved the job and a wonderful experience. The F/O's however were quite nervous about hand flying even under the best of weather and the automatics were engaged with seconds after lift off. On the other hand I was well aware of the use it or lose it principle and kept my hand in literally with hand flown SIDs and STARs using basic navaids where applicable (RMI)or the NAV selection of the HSI. Of course, it had to happen and a thoroughly alarmed first officer reported to the chief pilot that this Englishman actually hand flies this German registered 737. Tea and bikkes followed and the kindly chief pilot explained that in this airline the first officers were not trained to monitor raw data hand flying, but only trained to monitor the automatic pilot. His point taken, it was back to button pushing and knob twirling for me.
And now you tell me that humans are lousy at monitoring automatic systems!
