Old Carthusian,
Let's not fight, read my last sentence.
Many lives have been saved through automation so I am all for it and a bus fan as well, but I dislike the (in my view insufficient hand-fly) training and I dislike even more the reluctance of (some) carriers to allow their pilots to hand fly both in the cruise as well as in the approach in varying circumstances.
Ian W
It's easily checked.... Ask the FO's in your fleet what percentage of captains allows them to hand fly in anything but the smoothest CAVOK weather (better even is a captain who asks his FO to hand fly), although I suspect it varies from airline to airline
(and I am certainly not implying AF have such a policy as I don't know)