chuks:
Generations of young students have been told that "the autopilot can fly the aircraft better than you can,"
Really? If so I'd be surprised and saddened because that's not only an inaccurate thing to teach, but dangerous to boot. What should be taught is that there are
some things that the automation can do better than the average pilot - like the thousands of miniscule changes in pitch to maintain precise altitude hold - precisely because that's the kind of thing computers are good at, because unlike humans they never bore or tire. However unlike a human, a computer cannot know when what it is doing is inappropriate for the situation and it is for that reason that I don't think any sane person would ever design a pilot out of the cockpit completely, despite the media-fuelled fears of some.