As a plank driver, all these discussions of automation modes, and various axes are giving me a bit of a headache.
Can somebody give me a link to an idiot's guide to Helicopter Autoflight?
V/S mode on fixed wing can be a killer as again it will maintain selected vertical speed and ignore IAS up to the point of stalling an aircraft in the climb (for example).
"Semi-automated" is a big no-no on the older Boeings - and indeed probably caused the Asiana crash. They firmly recommend either full manual flight or full automation, rather than a halfway house to avoid precisely this sort of problem.