Originally Posted by
galaxy flyer
All I can say is that I am very happy to have 1400 hours of fighter (no A/P installed) and several hundred of hours doing single pilot IFR without A/P before getting into the world of FMS and A/P and A/THR. There is NO substitute to handling a single pilot jet at maximum performance at both high and low levels, doing stall recoveries, hand flown IFR, pilotage nav at low level and in poor weather.
True, but the Birgenair 757 Captain was also an ex-Turkish Air Force jockey, and he was thrown by the situation he was presented with, despite both his F/O's calling out "ADI" (referring to the nose-up attitude) and "Stalling". He'd got it into his head that all speed information was bad (when in fact the F/O and Standby instruments were working correctly) and seems to have just "maxed out" psychologically. When the investigation tried the same scenario with very experienced pilots, almost all of them suffered the same reaction.
IMO sufficient stick-and-rudder skills are something that definitely needs to be improved, but that's only part of the problem. There's the whole issue of what happens when you lose pitot/static information over water at night (as NOD posted on the other thread, low circadian times), and the psychological "shock" of having what should be a routine operation turn against you within a few seconds.