Licensing hours split into Automated + Manual?
Recent incidents are following a worrying trend. Has automation incidiously outgrown the the current licensing framework to the point of impacting safety?
Simplying counting the hours whilst PIC in the front seat is too crude a measure of experience when it comes to the fundamental skill of manual flying e.g. a flight can take 11 hours and only require 2 mins of hands on.
What's the solution?
If logged hours were split between manual hours and automated hours then appropriate licensing baselines could be establish to guarantee the pilots routinely practice their most fundamental flying skills. This can only be implemented across the board if imposed by the licensing authority. Currently it is mostly left to airline policy to influence the amount of manual flying hours. This is not adequate for such a fundamental skill. This minor change would not cost much more to implement and I would expect it to get the backing of Unions/Pilots afterall don't most pilots want to actually fly?
Automation improves safety but so does having pilots experienced at manual flying, so lets have both.