PJ2:
Excellent analyses. In aviation, technology grows in leaps and bounds, but as far as the good old human interface is concerned,we are forever reinventing the old wheel. Favourite long time quote-"Man has oft more need to be reminded than informed". Thus history just keeps on repeating itself when we read the Human Factors/CRM/(aka Airmanship) aspects of these accident reports.
Re:Manual flying: This subject has been covered ad nauseam in previous threads. But the current thread has brought the issue back into the spotlight. Well, another old favourite (courtesy of Andy Capp)-"The older I get, the better I was".Our skills inevitably degrade with age and lack of practice. But putting macho aspects aside, the fact is-todays aircraft are designed to be flown/managed with the automatics. Todays ATC/RVSM/RNP environment has no place for inserting (rusty) manual flying, (no matter what 411A thinks!) and the proof lies in the FDAP program that many airlines practice (quite rightly) to trap the unwary, the rusty, the cowboys.
Quite rightly so; I don't know about you,but when I am riding down the back, I don't want to be subjected to some wild ride while the guy up front tries to polish up his manual flying skills (not) , while the PM is working like a one-armed paper hangar doing config changes & RT/MCP/MCDU work, as well as frequency changes, at the same time as trying to monitor the Ace's not-so-hot flying on a dark night on a typical European or elsewhere RNAV SID or STAR.Don't laugh;I have seen it on quite a few occasions while sitting on the jumpseat as augmenting Captain.
Where I do agree with you 100 per cent is the failure to address these issues in the simulator. We should be doing far more raw data manual flying in the sim on recurrent training (maybe not on base checks;jeopardy involved here); if you can't hack it, serious questions need to be asked; and yet, as you say, this is not happening! Apparently, on the 777, some operators do the V1 cut in the sim b/checks with the TAC (Thrust Assymetry Compensator) on! Don't even have to think too hard about which rudder to push! Where is the sense in that? A big wakeup call is needed. Automation works most of the time,but you better be ready when the gremlins strike.