MountainBear
I still think you may be a victim of bias. I recognize it sometimes because I am too often carrying it myself. "Introducing" human factors into any pursuit means defining a "modality". The exact same thing is true when discussing Computerized control. I don't wish to help derail this accident discussion; The first consideration when defining a way to harvest the "best" of dual modality flight is to start with an inventory. "What does each do best"? The Computer doesn't flirt, The pilot (pray) doesn't have non abstract "thinking" (only). Both are sampling "data", sensing a dynamic flight envelope, and coming up with solutions to a challenging problem that itself wants a thorough definition.
"Error"? Each approach is a limitless challenge here, notwithstanding the attempt to merge the two on a mechanical flight deck, whose own idiosyncratic profile is a new and constantly progressing domain.
I stopped flying commercially at 48 yoa. I am 64 yoa this very day. I stopped because in my own punishing self assessment, I had lost the "edge". And it wasn't the kind of fun I had grown to love. As that chapter fades, I gain huge understandings (at a distance, and especially here), of current "approaches".
A cliche, but Karl, my FAA examiner when acquiring the first certificate (and the one to which all progress is appended), says, "The certificate is a "License to Learn".
Consider me a student here.
Last edited by bearfoil; 1st Sep 2010 at 15:22.