gums,
Two thoughts, re "Fly the jet as much as company policy allows you without getting fired. The "engage otto at 300 feet and disengage for last two miles on final" attitude or procedure deeply disturbs me. "...
1) In my experience, which I suspect is not unusual, it is rare not to engage the autopilot right after takeoff, and leave it engaged until about 400' on the approach.
2) Every company flying heavily-automated equipment these days must have an automation policy which clearly states appropriate levels of automation so the carrier's crews know when they can legitimately disconnect and hand-fly.
If an airline is prohibiting or limiting its crews from hand-flying either by direct policy or through inappropriate limitations on hand-flying or is entirely without an "Appropriate Level of Automation Policy", then it is only a matter of time before they will find themselves dealing with an incident in which reduced hand-flying thinking-capability and hand-flying-skills will have played a part. Like not doing flight data analysis, these days that puts an air carrier at risk of liability if anything happens.
We are a very, very long way from absenting such skills in our transports.
Turbine D
Re, "
What kind of personalities did they have in their leadership roles at Airbus? Was Gordon and Bernard really open to changes/criticisms to the FBW systems they promoted, or were they overbearing/dismissive to subordinates with their supposed greater knowledge and experiences?
Airbus Industries indeed pushed the reduction of training costs to airlines, even beyond that of what was happening with two seat cockpits, i.e., elimination of the flight engineer. "
I transitioned to the A320 left seat from the B767 right seat in 1992 - the Airbus had been in service for approximately six years by that time.
While I found the airplane "natural" to fly, (including just pulling the thrust levers out of the CLB detent and using them as one would any other transport), I found the course over-emphasized automation and I found when we met with Airbus personnel who came over by invitation to engage those transitioning to the airplane they were dismissive of our thoughts on aspects of the design and of some of our questions, (no one had ever flown FBW; also, we initially flew the A320 without full VNAV, so used traditional methods for descent). Our instructors were capable but just ahead of the class, but that part was okay because the airplane flew just like an airplane so most were comfortable. The hardest part of the transition was actually going from the right to the left seat as there were commander's duties to ensure as well as getting the airplane under one's belt.
It was the first time in my career that I had done my entire transition to a brand new type entirely on the autopilot - hand-flying was discouraged because they wanted a quick understanding of the automated flight features (that they had paid for, in my view). I thought the airplane was exceptional then and now, but the automation was subtely viewed, in my opinion, as "the third pilot", even as that may not have been the intention they were trying to convey.
It was a long time before Airbus actually began to engage "ordinary line pilots", the airline and their collective comments; - after a few incidents and accidents they began to listen, is how I recall it. Once they understood that the end-users had valuable things to add to their own understanding of their aircraft and its substantially-different (but in my view highly-successful) design, it became a good conversation although in my view very late in the game.
As a result, (and you are correct, in my view), airlines indeed accepted the Airbus "push" regarding reduced training costs and the benefits of automation. Having hand-flown everything I ever trained on, I hand-flew the Airbus too, during line-indoc and every chance I got, while our representatives fought to include in the FCOM a paragraph in the SOPs permitting hand-flying; (the only statement governing this in the FCOM was essentially, "
the autopilot and autothrust will be engaged shortly after takeoff and disengaged during the landing roll-out".) So if one had an incident while hand-flying, one was in trouble...It was many years and after a number of incidents and accidents in the industry, before a proper automation policy was created and adopted. I have materials going back to 1990 (from AW&ST) discussing this problem which was raised by flight crews at the time. I am still astonished that it took twenty years to comprehend the combined problems of automation dependency and a new generation of pilots raised on computers with little real (vice virtual/cadet) experience.