Someone who spends 99% of the time monitoring an autopilot will almost definitely not have the same hand flying skills/currency as someone who never uses one
There's allot of truth in that statement. Of course actual skill levels vary somewhat among pilots based upon variables like previous experience, recency of experience and just plain old aptitude. It's also true that the industry has determined that much of the physical control manipulation is most appropriately handled by the A/P in routine jet flying. Be that as it may, simple logic dictates that pilots must be proficient using ALL levels of automation from raw data hand flying to maximum use of all resources. To accomplish that objective, pilots must have a sufficient level of recent experience in flight
using various levels of automation. Skills DO atrophy somewhat when seldom used. A few hours in the sim once or twice a year helps, but is not sufficient. Especially since much of the sim training is in using automation at the highest level!
Anyway there's no one size fits all solution to the problem of automation dependency or manual skills degradation. Each organization has it's own policies and SOPs so individual pilots will just have to do the most they can within those constraints. It IS important that they do all they can.
westhawk