Originally Posted by
BOAC
Mr Idle B - your plea appears to have gone un-noticed.
Maybe not, but I can't provide the reassurance asked for. I raised similar concerns myself back
here and triggered a well written response from PJ2
here
Yes, there are many of us who understand the arrows and hooks and keeping 'rubber side down'. The problem we are facing here is that a particular system of flight (NB no names) appears to engender in some the chance to forget all this and become reliant on the system to look after them.
Could be a lot of reasons for that. PJ2's comments referenced above; increased auto-everything; SPOs and regulation (RVSM) that all but prohibit hand flying; and Glass.
That last one's a huge difference for the non-pilot looking in (and maybe for the trainee starting out...). Look in at the old style hundreds of steam gauges and row after row of switches and be awed, and fearful - you better learn and understand every one of those, this is complicated. Look instead these days at three computer screens a handful of switches and (maybe) a joystick - well, how hard can it be ?
Yet the fundamentals of flight haven't changed, the machine underneath is as complex as ever, if not more so, and the margin for error doing a few hundred knots in an aluminium can at 30k ft is still just as small...