Geriaviator,
Much food for thought in the Times article you quote. It is interesting to learn that the hippocampus is responsible for long-term memory; what I want to know is: what part carries the can for short-term memory (mine seems to have gone AWOL some time ago).
So you were able to grab the twig again after a 24-year interval - congratulations ! Seriously, tell us all about it. I'd always heard that: "it's like riding a bike - you never forget", but there's precious little chance of my riding a bike now, never mind waving "chocks away" after 60 years ! Still, I think I'd get on all right once I got into the cockpit, it's just the small problems of getting there and getting in that would present insuperable difficulties. Eheu, fugaces !
And, like you, I hark back to the primitive days when we were content with stick, rudder and throttle. Nowadays things are different. I remember, some time ago, a Thread about the most recent batch of FJ graduates from Valley (all four of them !) Included was a shot of an AVM in a Hawk II (simulator ?) cockpit. Looking over his left shoulder, I peered at the panel as a hog might stare at a piano. Nothing was familiar except a dial which might have been an Artificial Horizon - that was all.
I've been following the sad Air Asia Indonesian story on the "Rumours and News" Forum and am appalled by the complexity and the extent to which on board computers and automatic systems seem almost to have edged the pilots out of the control loop. I know that they are designed to stop even the most stupid of humans from endangering the aircraft, but a computer cannot think "outside the box" (and there are times when someone must). And the parallels with the AF447 case are all too striking.
In our day, we had a rudder bar, a rudder and two pieces of string between (and the same for the other two control surfaces). Now I've just read somewhere that the B737 (the DC-3 of the 21st Century) has no rudder control once hydraulic power to the activator has failed. Not even our bits of string. This can't be true, surely ? What they're saying is: "This aircraft cannot be flown manually if all systems fail". Hope I'm wrong.
Now, books v. Kindle. Chacun à son gôut ! But there comes a time when your bookshelves are full, all available flat surfaces are covered with piles of books, and you have to start on the floor !
With that sobering thought,
Cheers, Danny.