I think you are being too sensitive and even unfair
A37575,
My intent is not to be unfair but I do seem to notice quite often on PPrune comments very similar to yours of
because those were the days of real airmen rather than the flight deck automation managers of today
Which implies to me that a number of posters consider the airmen and women of today as being mere automation managers.
I would maintain that while flight deck automation is seductive that a good aviator strives to find a healthy balance. I notice a certain strain that seems to repetitively arise of the "my copilot (read these youngsters of today) cannot fly without a flight director etc." I would certainly agree that any pilot that does not have basic enough flying skills to fly without a flight director should not be in line operations. That goes without saying and may indeed reflect dependency on technology that needs to be adressed. (under fair disclosure I did not see one until I had already logged over 3000 hours so I find them interesting with their quirks.)
Yet my point is that never within the context of these sometimes didactically patronizing remarks (and I did not find yours in the category btw
) a COMPLETE lack of the idea of mentoring. We were all young aviatiors once and even after 22 years at hacking at this game I marvel at how much more there is to learn and practice and try to hone. Yet I look back and am grateful for those who took the time to mentor and teach and discuss and ask questions (for as we know the best teachers ask questions first to determine what you know and what experiences you have had) and try to make ourselves better than we were yesterday.
If these young aviators are such a callow corps of crapulous layabouts when it comes to the rigour of actually manipulating the controls then why not mentor? Why do posters repair to this forum to tell breathlessly relate how a copilot could not do this or that?
No matter how good a training department is (and believe me I bemoan with you the frightening pressures that the financial situation of airlines puts on adequate training), a product of this process is a newly die cut product that will really start to learn when once on the line.
All these words to say that if we have flight deck automation dependent wonders, then perhaps we did not do our job to mentor those who are following in how to be a well rounded aviator.
JMHO