There's an old story about an expert consultant who comes to a factory that is not operating. No one there can sort out why. Consultant gives the place a look and quotes to the factory manager:
"I can fix your problem for $50,000."
"Good Heavens, Man! We're losing that every two hours the factory sits idle! Do what you must!"
Consultant walks to a control panel, throws a switch and the factory comes to life, returns to the factory manager to say:
"That will be $50,000, please."
"My Dear Fellow, you merely threw a switch. Surely that can't be worth more than a dollar or two!"
"You're correct, of course. Allow me to present you with an itemized invoice."
Fee for actuating toggle switch: $1
Knowing which switch to throw: $49,999
Grand Total Services Rendered: $50,000
My employer doesn't pay me to throw switches, and I shudder at any aviation company that does. Any fool with a checklist can do that. My first employer (which was the government) trained me and compensated me to learn how to make decisions. In return, I provided them with a number of years of my professional life and learned to make (and later made) those decisions, returning every aircraft for which I signed in reusable condition.
When I chose to prepare myself for a career in the civil world, the less than $1000 that I spent for licensing up to ATP was not all I had invested (yes, the FAA system has its advantages). I had dozens of flight checks and thousands of hours over many years.
Every good (and bad) decision a pilot makes over a career influences that pilot as a captain. The bean-counters forget that at their peril. So do the flying public, fixated on cheap fares.
From a safety standpoint, in our view one of the things that we do in the basic design is the pilot always has the ultimate authority of control. There’s no computer on the airplane that he cannot override or turn off if the ultimate comes. In terms of any of our features, we don’t inhibit that totally. We make it difficult, but if something in the box should behave inappropriately, the pilot can say ‘This is wrong’ and he can override it. That’s a fundamental difference in philosophy that we have versus some of the competition.
-- John Cashman, Chief Test Pilot Boeing 777.
Anyone can do the job when things are going right. In this business we play for keeps.
-- Ernest K. Gann