Stilton, we may have had the best of times as captains! However, in my view, if young pilots are reading this forum, perhaps it is time to speak frankly regarding loss of skills and becoming a "drone".
Being a drone is a choice, not a mandate. Relinquishing skills and standards is a choice, not a result or a necessary outcome of automation. Awareness of one's skill level is a personal responsibility. It takes conscious effort and continual awareness; that is the price of professionalism.
We are a very, very long way still, from pilotless commercial transports. So, one becomes an "automation dependent drone" only if one permits oneself to be so.
I flew Airbus (320/333/343/345) for fifteen years, and all other manufacturer's types the previous twenty years. They were all ordinary airplanes with their own characteristics. The response to the question "What's it doing now?" was just to disconnect everything, sort it out or fly it a while then reconnect everything when happy. Like many of my colleagues, I hand-flew these airplanes from takeoff to cruise altitude and top-of-descent to landing, often with manual thrust. Did that into LHR, HKG, FRA, SYD for example...not every time as it's busier for the other pilot (who does the heading & altitude selecting on the mode-control panel, etc.).
It makes a difference, even if one is only required to make tiny adjustments to the flight path and thrust. It re-connects one to the airplane, (and to one's profession).
The requirement and the responsibility of a pilot is, still, to know one's airplane. Sometimes that means being aggressive in seeking knowledge and skill. That means not waiting around to be spoon-fed but hitting the books and practising one's profession just like doctors, lawyers and engineers must. One must look in the mirror for who to blame for being afraid to disconnect the autoflight systems.
If one feels, or sees oneself as a "designed-out", unwelcome appendage in the cockpit, one has taken up the wrong profession.
I completely understand RVSM requirements and complex SIDS & STARS which require unfailing accuracy in speed & track. However, where appropriate, one can disconnect everything and still hand-fly to FL290, and one can descend out of 290 and fly the airplane to touchdown.
Why roll over and let loss of skills and thinking happen? Take back the profession and put it where it belongs, in the cockpit, not at someone's desk or in some risk-free office. It's a choice. Even as many airlines require engagement of the autoflight systems as matter of SOPs and there is a risk of getting in trouble with management for disconnecting, one must fight for the opportunity to hand-fly. I've seen that fight take place and changes were made at one carrier including an "automation" policy which permitted/encouraged hand-flying when appropriate.
Even the manufacturers are now seeing the necessity of manual flight. It's still a choice.
Last edited by FDMII; 3rd Jan 2016 at 19:54.