Failure Modes
Thanks for the update, 212. The thought behind my question, which your response somewhat reinforced, was whether this sort of training would force the discussion as to what was really in the control system, how it was possible to misbehave, and get pilots feeling comfortable and confident that, no matter the failure, they could take over manually, fly the basic machine, and THEN address the AFCS/Autopilot issue.
In a bit of now ancient history, the introduction of the UH-60 posed a particular dilemma as to how to train up the AFCS/Stabilator system so as to instill confidence, as opposed to fear. Sidebar for a moment: upon assignment to the Aviation Test Board out of flight school, I had the opportunity to get checked out in everything they owned, and one was a CH-34C ( I'd gone thru the H-19 in school ). The IP I had for the 34 was afraid to turn the AFCS on, and imparted a horror story re the " Hardovers can kill you ".
All of the initial IP's were UH-1 guys, thus without any SAS etc experience. To confront that situation, I asked SA Engr to make us a version of the hardover box that was portable and could be passed from machine to machine with a robust but simple cabling setup. That was done and all of that initial group was trained, in flight, at max weight, max speed etc, in all of the failure modes. That was a redundant SAS, single AFCS type system, dual electronics and dual actuator for the stabilator, so there was a good list of things to do on those flights, and it worked out pretty well. As I've mentioned previously, however, that level of training did not endure. It did force a lot of conversation and shall I say, expanded ground school type on the wing instruction.