Surely both are equally important. It goes without saying that one should be able to land manually on raw data where appropriate, but SOPs are there for a reason.
Absolutely. GOOD SOP's are very important but...
SOP's are made for the blind obedience by fools, and as guidelines for wise men!
To me that means that I will follow the SOP's as long as there is no good reason not to, but if necessary and safe, I will deviate from them!
Isn't that the reason why airliners are still being flown by humans and not by computers! (No, even A320's are not captained by computers
)
Best regards,
Sabenaboy