OK465
RF4, have you ever flown tapes?
No, i have not.
And note my comments please, i dont think they are harder to fly, but they are easier to overlook due to their size, their design to display numbers, and their location. And training seems not to emphasize the importance of the speed and the trends of speed anymore. Speed is a given, and the management of speed as well. It is no longer a task of the pilot, but a task of the machine.
Remember few posts before where it was stated that the problem of Asiana was not to go around when 4 red papis showed? Tat was the first error. Speed was the problem. Next sentence was pressing Toga would have been suficient. That was the second error. The autothrottle was disengaged and would not have delivered the power necessary. Two basic mistakes in analyzing the cause of an accident and the way to prevent it. Nearly the same habit with wich the Asiana crew managed to crash short of the runway. There seem to be more "Asiana" crews out there than on their rooster.
Concerning AF447: it would have been easier to observe pointers jiggling around on a big round display on a prominent location like those old analogue gauges than observing some glibberish on this tiny dislocated speed display. And when the failure was over some ten seconds later, it would have been obvious too.
My point is, the importance of the speed indication has vanished in the mindset of some crews and that might be due to the change in size and location of the speed display and the asociated training.