Isn't the real story here that airlines / manufacturers want to fully automate flight
And plenty of posters on here seem to agree e.g. adding technology to solve every problem?
The Airbus system comes with a manual of how to use it, makes it sound so easy ... however if something goes wrong it is unclear how to resolve the situation because the system's many secrets are not made available and in an emergency you have seconds to understand what's going on under the hood
I would disagree with the underlined statements:
A: I do not believe it "unclear" how to resolve situations, but people have either failed to follow the manual / their training, or they have done something completely unpredictable.
B: It is not essential, IMO, to (completely) "understand" what is going on under the hood. Not even what law the aircraft is in. Yes - a level of knowledge is required, and will help in exceptional circumstances. But if you fly the aircraft sensibly, remember it is still an aircraft and not a computer, and apply basic flying skills, then the finer points of FBW are (as designed) usually invisible to you.
Automation seems the trajectory of the economy ... unless something changes. And we are now in an intermediate phase were there is an inevitable dishonesty about what is occurring, because automation is being phased in semi-covertly.
I do agree with the basics of this - initially the benefits of FBW showed up as "protections" prevented some accidents (albeit there was also a learning curve), but there was still basic airmanship and flying skills about.
Now we have a new influx of pilots, who only know FBW, rarely handle the aircraft, the industry relies on the automation. When the automation lets them down, they have nothing to fall back on. Even the older generation pilots have been "deskilled" as well.