HarryMann;
how is the handing back of an aircraft to manual flight in what may inevitably be a 'less than trained for' state - condoned as acceptable - in the larger scheme of things.
I hope others who have perhaps left the thread but visit it to see what's changed, might offer their views on this subtle but important question.
The intoxication with automation largely through the substantial crew-cost-reductions have moved the industry thinking a very long way away from "focus on skills" since I joined in the early '70's. The focus is on "managing" the airplane, not flying it. The philosophy works almost all the time because automation is very good at "normal" and is, in my view, a tremendous safety enhancement. But like designing wings, engines and other bits, any "improvement" always comes with a cost, a compromise which is almost always obvious and economically acceptable in the trade. In my view, it is "the intoxication" that has blinded the usual awareness of those costs when the discussion turns to automation. I remember very well the introduction of the 767 with just two pilots. Like the Douglas Company's DC8, the "new" 767 cockpit design would have long seat rails so the First Officer could "travel" back to the panel and manage the fuel and whatever else was back there. In the case of the DC8 I guess the regulator (wisely in my view) didn't go for a two-pilot, four-engine airliner in the 60's but the 767 arrived with an Observer Seat and not a Second Officer seat.
When the 320 was introduced, veteran pilots raised on cables and pulleys saw the automation compromise instantly and began cautioning against loss of situational awareness, loss of the third set of eyes and something new that they called "mode confusion". I have many articles from AW&ST on this phenomena as I think it was an historical moment in aviation that would have consequences - it wasn't that it was hard to see - it was because of the wholesale, unquestioning adoption of automation as a panacea to cost, the arrival of which came during yet another mini-recession and "trouble at the airlines". It also came during the implementation of de-regulation in the US, where "cost-advantage" drove many agendas. "Intoxication" is not too light a term when looking back.
At the time, nobody knew anything about the airplane and the instructors were literally 24hrs ahead of the students. I think the introduction was successful in large part because of the flying and thinking skills of the pilots at the time. When the 320 began doing something we didn't understand, we simply disconnected and hand flew it until we sorted it out - not a big deal.
I don't think the same circumstances would be quite as possible today. Too many pilots are afraid to disconnect the autoflight/autothrust systems and fly just for the fun of it and managements are fearful of this very fact and my experience has been that instead of training, after an all-weather approach or other handling incident they tighten the reins and prohibit manual-flying even more. The philosophy has a logical outcome and that is a loss of skill accompanied of course by the subtle loss of confidence in one's ability to take over.
Given the propensity these days for many, and certainly the media, to instantly come to extreme conclusions more out of habit than thinking, I must caution that these are very black-and-white pictures that are being painted in this and other posts of mine; - the reality is far, far more subtle than is being stated. But these posts, already too long, would be a book and a very dry one at that, which no one would ever read. The industry is NOT falling apart at the seams but instead is coming to terms with the same kinds of changes pilots and managements did when the piston era yielded to the jet era beginning around 1954 or so, a phenomena that most pilots saw and commented about from 1988 on. These are observations made by many in the industry at the time, and today. "Listening" however, is a lost art. "I'll see it when I believe it" is the outcome.
The question you ask is, "Is the industry concerned about Loss of Control, (LoC)?" and I would submit, "no, not yet" as a tentative response. But it should be on their radar, given the four, likely five recent stalling accidents by crews ranging from veteran to relatively inexperienced.
My own response would be somewhat "actuarial" as opposed to ideological. "The loss of skill is condoned" by airline managements by virtue of the changed focus of initial and recurrent training regimes towards "managing the cockpit" instead of flying the airplane, and by virtue of the strong, overwhelming success of automation's introduction and presence.
As always, an informed, (through the heavy use of collected flight data, LOSA programs and crew reports) and measured response is indicated, "a bow towards manual flight with a view to re-familiarization and re-building", not a wholesale revising of priorities, would be something to consider as a viable response. It is as much attitude as it is foundational skills that has changed.