The problem with the off-the-shelf ratings is they are designed with optimistic assumptions about a candidates ability, resulting in a minimalist course to stay competitive with other providers in a race to the bottom. Unless they have a particularly good training Captain and an enlightened flight department, the line-training simply reinforces using automatics exclusively. In the future, the good training Captains will retire and be replaced with iCadets resulting in a kind of "Plesantville" training department – and in the case of Air France – giving the world a couple of pilots that can't fly a basic power and attitude to stay upright while the computers have a hiccup.
F/A top post mate, mores the pity it's not a fairy tale!
So what's going to happen when all the holes line up and the aircraft sails past the quadruple redundacies on the automatics and the Captain looks across at the First Officer and says.."What are we going to do now??"
How many crashes causal to the loss of the automatics are acceptable before anyone admits that we may have a problem?
