complexman:
I am an aircraft engineer with nearly two decades of experience in the industry. I am not a pilot. What I find SHOCKING is that many professional pilots in this thread disagree so strongly on such basic issues as flight dynamics or what a variation of throttle will do to you in level flight. This is really scary. I know quite a lot about airframe design as well as flight control system design having done both for many years. But this thread is proving that as automation proceeds flying IS going to become more and more dangerous. And if that were not enough, they've now started to make airplanes from plastic!
complexman:
We have a saying in my country, that goes like this:
"Presunção e água benta, cada um toma a que quer..."
(Presumption and holy water, each one takes whatever...)
What I find really scary is the way engineers are designing flying machines that are so complex that even made them think that they have created an aircraft
"against pilot's mistakes".
Man/machine interface was relegated to a status of
"get used to it". Adapt yourself to your new role:
flight management.
Fortunately for us, things are not all black and white. Engineers are not perfect, nor are we pilots...
But one thing is for sure, pilots are open to debate, open to new ideas, open to other professional classe's meddling and scrutinizing opinions.
In favor of flight safety, we do need to continue to open ourselves to our own scrutiny and open ourselves to other's opinions. I have learned a lot in this forum. There are a lot of great professionals with whom I love to exchange ideas and comments.
What we don't need is that sort of sleaze and arrogance, especially when coming from someone who should behave as an invited guest and therefore adopt more urban manners.