I think there is some muddying of the waters going on here by failing to differentiate between various pilot skills.
There is manual flying skill (making the heli go where you want it to by use of pedals, stick and collective.
Then there is use of automation, making the heli go where you want it to be pressing buttons, turning knobs etc
Then there is monitoring - keeping a constant awareness of what is happening to the flight path when its being flown by the autopilot or the other pilot.
Then there is situational awareness - keeping track of the bigger picture, where you are in the instrument pattern, how the fuel is doing, what's the weather doing etc etc.
To fail to differentiate between all these skills is to totally miss the point. If this accident is as we suspect, it was use of automation and monitoring that were deficient. It most certainly nothing to do with manual flying skills because they were not trying to fly it manually. Well, unless you include a need to pull the lever up a bit. But I would say the recovery action when the airspeed started to decay would better have been to press IAS and beep it up a bit.
Last edited by HeliComparator; 10th Sep 2013 at 10:45.