BOAC:
No, I still back my call (elsewhere) for properly trained and capable pilots who have the innate ability to sift the wheat from the chaff and an FCS that they can understand and use . In my opinion, 'automation' has still way to go.
BOAC, I'm with you 100%. I still think that the best way to avoid accidents is to have properly trained and capable pilots in the cockpit flying an ("honest") aircraft easy to understand and very straightforward to handle. Maybe you're right to have a feminine word for airplane... Like women, they seem to have their days...
(in our lexicon we have a male word for airplane).