Squawking PAX,
I'll give you my pence worth. Reliance on automatics has been around for years, this is the way modern airliners are flown.
I think,maybe, too much fuss is made about it. To be honest there are alot of occasions where you don't want to hand fly anyway - departing LHR ? far too much happening, above 10000 - company doesn't allow it . Descending into XXX after 8 hr flight - too knackered now. Ok , departing xxx - er, no high terrain, and dodgy ATC.....To be honest I don't need a large proportion of my capacity taken up with raw data/hand flying, I have other things to do, even moreso from LHS. We must face the facts that we are not really 'pilots' in the conventional sense anymore.Wanna hand fly ,go hire an extra at the weekend.
Now that's not to say I don't want to stay current in hand flying, but that's mainly for my own reassurance - I've found when people don't do it for a while they become fearful of cocking up. Not really for the 'what ifs' because to be honest, the boeing I fly has 3 autopilots and not once have I been in the boat of having none serviceable in 9 years on type.That's not to say it would never happen but into the realms of low probability I think.
Slightly off track, but IIRC the MEL says you can dispatch with no A/Ps, but with my (last) company ban on hand flying above 10k it ain't gonna happen is it ?