Rare as "the Hudson" event was his book offers, I think, valuable and incisive observations about piloting skills and their erosion in modern airline aviation.
The book "Highest Duty" by the captain of the Hudson River A320 ditching, Chesley "Sully" Sullenberger is worth every cent of it's cost to buy in Australia. He covers not only the tale of his ditching, but brings a depth of flying wisdom that all pilots should aspire to. If "Handling the Big Jets" by D.P Davies the British test pilot, is still considered one of the best flying books written, then Sullenberger's book is well up there, too.
Forgive me if a quote a few extracts from "Sully's" book that I feel is pertinent to this thread on automation. In some instances they are edited for brevity and Pprune space but this does not dilute their valuable sentiments.
Here goes: Quote in part:
"I've come across a number of people over the years who think that modern airplanes, with all their technology and automation, can almost fly themselves. That's simply not true. Automation can lower the workload in some cases. But in other situations, using automation when it is not appropriate can increase one's workload. A pilot has to know how to use a level of automation that is appropriate.....one well known USAF pilot renowned for his work in helping us understand aviation safety made an appearance at a forum in which another speakers topic was "the role of the pilot in the automated cockpit". When it was Dr Wiener's turn to speak (he was the former USAF pilot), he noted, wryly but rightly, that the session should have been called "the role of automation in the piloted cockpit".
How many different levels of technology do you want to place between your brain and the control surfaces? The plane is never going somewhere on its own without you. It's always going where you tell it to go. A computer can only do what it is told what to do. The choice is: Do I tell it to do something by pushing on a control stick with my hand, or do I tell it to do something by using some intervening technology?
Take for instance a last minute runway change. In the old days you could easily tune your radio navigation receiver to the frequency for the approach to a different runway. Now it might take ten or twelve presses of buttons on the computer to arrange for a runway change. Automated airplanes with the highest technologies do not eliminate errors. They change the nature of the errors made. For example, in terms of navigational errors, automation enables pilots to make huge navigation errors very precisely. I am not not anti-technology. But technology is no substitute for experience, skill and judgement..".
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