So with all this reliance on automation in the piloted flight deck...
Why then is the Autopilot and the Autothrottle INCLUDED in the dispatch deviation guide. We are allowed to dispatch an aircraft (B737 NG), although with some limitations, without these systems which many, now days, find to be such critical systems. Maybe the way things are going, We won't be able to dispatch without these systems.
When the time comes when one has to dispatch without said systems, is that the time to be having to 'relearn' such skills again at such short notice. Or would it be better to keep honing such skills for when they are needed.
Nobody is saying hand fly the departure out of Sydney or the missed approach out of Macau. Yes, they are complicated procedures, and the use of automation is warranted.. Common sense one would hope would mean that one would pick the best time and place to practice such skills, not during the thick of it.
A captain once said to me "The public pays for LNAV/VNAV with an autocoupled ILS..."
My response to that is "That the public pays for a competent pilot"
And I think that one thing a competent pilot has is manual flying skills that can be called upon when required and bring them [the public] down safely when the worse case scenairo happens.