Originally Posted by John Tullamarine
is it reasonable to expect the modern (ie younger) pilot to be able to maintain the manipulative and situational skills of yesteryear as well as keeping on top of increasingly more convoluted and complex electronic systems ?
Well that's certainly how certifying authorities see it: use all the neat gadgets as they're supposed to be used, but bring the aeroplane safely back to earth when they turn their electronic backs on you. Reasonable? Absolutely! Easy to accomplish? Hell, no! It takes dedication, time and hard work to get to the point where you're comfortable with any level of automation, from maximum to zero but also balancing at that point is not an easy feat. Whoever claimed that airline pilots have an easy life, lied.
As for the unusual attitudes, if nothing else,
ASN database of control loss cases can make me fan of Airbus "it's better to prevent UA than to try to recover from it" approach. Most of them are airframe or flight controls failures and in a few cases where control was lost at the altitude that would allow recovery, it was spatially disoriented crew that brought the ship in UA in the first place and I think that chances of such a crew recovering the aeroplane are very, very close to zero. To set the record straight: my opinion is that FBW Airbus pilots absolutely do need to be trained in unusual attitudes and proficient in manual flying (manual thrust too) because a) protections can fail b) one can stay clear of protection activation area and yet wreck the aeroplane (GF, Armavia).
And if you go practicing unusual attitudes in real aeroplane, don't go in anything that isn't aerobatic and don't go without parachute. The aeroplane I flew on my basic aerobatics course (as part of my CPL ) was recycled into beer cans following wing failure at root. Both instructor and student still fly today, with their logbooks showing number of landings lagging by one behind the number of takeoffs.