"
He who does not truly master hand flying skills cannot truly master automated flying skills"
Do you guys agree or disagree with the above statement?
Hi!
I do agree with the statement.
The reason is that if you haven't hand flown enough (so that you haven't had time to master hand flying) it is easy for you to think of flight as a relation between APFD and ATHR modes on the one hand and performance on the other, while totally forgetting about pitch and thrust.
Even the relation with performance is not well understood by many. I have seen low houred pilots and not so low houred getting confused because the airplane refused to meet a performance which was physically impossible to attain no matter what targets you may introduce in FCU, MCDU.
When you master hand flying you will spot malfunctions or (more usually an more importantly) own mistakes quickly when using automation. For the fully automated pilot that is more difficult because he tends to skip the relation between control and performance instruments.
In some circunstances, when complexity of a system plus subtle failures lead to a confusing and dangerous situation, the hand flyer has considerably more chances to get out of danger.