I still didn't trust the A300 and the 767 spent too much time doing red eyes so took the easy TGU day trips and slept in my own bed most nights. I only know one pilot that couldn't fly without airspeed. I stick with the 99%. The Sim instructor insisted it was 50%. They weren't always our friends and loved to try to make us look bad because they spent their whole life in a sim, we did it every 9 months.
It has been a very long time since we broke a tail off a Boeing but not that long ago our A300 lost it's tail because of a little wake turbulence and copilot rudder action that was conveniently blamed on the incident by Airbus. As has been reported before that Airbus A300 had delamination of the vertical stabilizer coming out of the factory and was patched but Airbus denies that had anything to do with it. My friend in MIA lost control of their A300 with uncontrollable yaw on final and had to go around. They felt they were going to crash. Something with the yaw damper.
My era of pilot friends all knew how to handfly any airplane well. No need for automation at all except to reduce work load during cruise. Most of the time was spent manually flying on climbs and descents and approaches because it was fun. The new Embry Riddle guys aren't taught that way. They have to do it on their own or do it the Airbus way. I got my final commercial pilot sign off at Ambry Riddle but over 90% was at my local airport. I went straight to a crop dusting job in Minnesota so never became automation dependent.
I don't mean to put the magenta line pilots down but what do you do when all the lights go out? We always had a way out. So should the new pilots.