franzl;
And i fear, the new generation of pilots / system managers does not want anything back from the past and will accept any gadget which releaves some workload and some asociated necessary training.
The dumbing-down of aviation has been going on since the early 80's. Automation in many eyes IS the third pilot and training pilots to push the right buttons and, as
TTex600 says in (
Post #1292), "
Airbus training is focused on the wrong targets when considering aircraft control. One is judged by his/her knowledge of the protections - with little an no emphasis placed on degraded modes.", to which I would add, one is judged largely though not excusively in recurrent training sessions by one's knowledge and operation of the autoflight system when everything is going right, and not by one's ability to skillfully and with knowledge, take over the airplane until the automatics are happy again.
Non-use of the autoflight system in recurrent training and, for the most part, in flight, is discouraged and is taken as a sign that one doesn't know the autoflight system thoroughly enough. The fact that guys refused to disconnect the autothrust when offered (as long ago as 15 years now), was and is a canary-in-the-mine along with other signs as far as I'm concerned and because there are hundreds of ways to fail at doing this but actual failure is minimal, and very few ways to do it all correctly and there are millions of examples that it is done well, warning systems which cater to rare inattention or, less rare, lack of airmanship and a growing surface knowledge of one's profession just kick that can down the road a bit.
I'm taking a rest from this for a while, to think.
Cheers!