We will never be going to have new generation of planes behaving like the DC3sc, F-27s or B747 classics that we enjoyed years ago. Present airline SOPs, airport architecture and system, ATC, TRACON, PRNAV, arrivals and departures are full of automatics with their inherent concomitant traps. If pilots are not made aware of such traps and only taught to click off everything automatic, we will only have a short term solution.
This may upset those who believe that automation is to be fully trusted but that is the trap.
Reflecting on the sentiments above I think we need to consider a couple of points. Regarding the old types of a/c we used to fly... and therein lies a clue..'fly'.. Sure we had to operate them as well, but we knew how to fly them, often had to fly them e.g. Greek islands, and knew their foibles. They had basic automatics and we knew how to operate and monitor those because we knew more about what the a/c should be doing. Did the automatics do what we would do manually? Yes; then watch it carefully, and even we might learn something at the same time. This idea of 'clicking off everything automatic' means they first have to realise there is a problem and then be able to take over manually. Much debate has been made about the lack of ability of modern pilots in that latter regard. We need to be aware when the automatics start to go AWOL and perhaps correct it via the automatics: then, if that proves unsatisfactory takeover ourselves.
I saw over the past 20 years a generation of pilots who did not know the foibles and the basic envelope and thus didn't realise when things were starting to go awry. Their monitoring skills were 'knowledge and understanding deficient'. They trusted too much and fell into traps. Some they had induced by
mis-management of the FMC/AFDS, some had crept up on them via the FMC having a mind if its own. Sometimes they noticed, sometimes not. Sometimes they knew how to correct it or startedg playing the piano in hope.
I now see a new generation who, by their training, is even more removed from the a/c and therefore the understanding of the dark art. The basic flight school training is so diluted from days gone by it's scary. 150hrs and no aeros. The basic jet TQ syllabus is not orientated to learning how to control the beast manually, but how to operate it. There are lots of boxes to be ticked with systems failures and monkey reading QRH's. There are so many back ups that the QRH will always get you home. Many crashes I've read about were not mis- handling of QRH's, but caused by things which did not fit the index of the QRH, and the crew was found deficient.
If you don't fully understand what the a/c should be doing and how you would control it during various phases of flight, how can you be an effective monitor? You are suckered into the TRUST attitude. The SOP's are written so comprehensively that if you stick rigidly to them you might survive your 40 year career. That is what is being drummed into the cadets at TQ school. But still we see serviceable a/c being pranged. You can't write an SOP or QRH for all scenarios. Mother nature is waiting to bite, and that includes human factors from all links in the chain.
Without the basic knowledge and skills we can not be effective monitors, because we don't realise when it's creeping away from us; and we won't be effective last chance saloon when necessary. Those of us who came up the ladder via those basic a/c an onto the LNAV/VNAV/GPS a/c should not have forgotten the basics of earlier lives. The 150hr cadets going straight onto the new wizz-bang all bells & whistles a/c never had, and likely never will have, those in-depth basics.
I still believe TQ school should teach, in depth, how to fly the a/c, avoid the known traps of manual and automatic flight and afterwards learn how to operate the a/c. Given that guys now can get command after 4 years of trained monkey flying the foundations need to be more solid. Otherwise there will be a 'lot of trusting' going on, and hoping reliability, back-ups & SOP's will avoid any piloting skills being needed. The human factors people keep telling us that we are very bad monitors. We make very weak ones if we don't fully understand what we are monitoring, and yet I see technology & SOP's moving ever greater towards the alter of monitoring pilots. The PF is only a button pusher being PM to the automatics, and PM is the monitor to ensure PF pushes the correct buttons. What a life.