DC-ATE;
I KNOW that!...LOL. Were you feeling left out?
The fact is, autoflight and its interventions is here to stay. Our aircraft are far safer for it - that is a fact, not an opinion, but there are warts on it, just like there are on all airplane designs including our beloved "cable-and-pulleyed elevators" DC8.
If we're going to alter the trend that automation and software interventions
may be causing...I say, "may"..., then we have to
know, and not just offer opinions which are just so much talk-no-action. You can disagree all you wish, but relevancy and the ability to effect change then becomes an issue and the goal is awareness and change, not winning the debate, whether such is perceived as A vs B or whatever.
There is a problem. We are still crashing airplanes. Why? It is hopelessly irrelevant to claim that it is "automation" that is doing it, first because such a claim is merely the mirror we are gazing into when we talk, for are we not all pilots first?
The case for "automation taking control away from pilots" is specious and, in itself, unworthy of serious discussion. But the effects of autoflight upon those who fly is a serious discussion which ought not to be clouded with ignorance.
I know, DC-ATE...Don Quixote all over again.
But the key is, a pilot is a pilot is a pilot, period; do your job and stop excusing ourselves or confusing competence with lack of operational authority.
The present autoflight solutions do not take that away such authority and to think it does is a very important misunderstanding in the discussion.
Our collective informed input into the design process is critical, for if we don't do so, we hand over even more of our pilot heritage to the software designers.
That is the entire point here.
PJ2