Hello Centaurus;
Davies* should be required reading for all airline pilots and especially those joining our ranks today.
Automation should not alter anything, but we have permitted it to do so and blamed automation for our own shortcomings. There is certainly no mystery or trick to flying the Airbus, (or the Boeings, Lockheeds or Douglases).
I see very little of a true, deep enthusiasm which you so aptly describe from Davies. The laments we hear here and elsewhere have become a culture of complaint with regard for tools of navigation and performance that, in the sixties, eventies & eighties, we would have died for..., oh, wait...
It is a mystery to me why knowledge, experience and keenness are dismissed and questions are not asked incessantly until one's practise is as close to perfect as one's capabilities will allow.
I loved the automation, particularly the Airbus - it was a dream to handfly, in all conditions, within the AOM's usual limitations. I understood it and taught it on the A320. The candidate was always made to hand-fly, no autothrust, no flight directors during line indoc. While flying the line I offered to turn/pull/push the knobs while the F/O flew for fun and found almost no takers, particularly with autothrust off.
I thought it was a shameful to admit one didn't understand one's airplane well enough to fly it. Such refusal is an indictment not of the airplane, the designers or the fabulous nav & performance tools now available, but of the pilot him/herself.
That is why the character and nature of accidents has changed over the last decade.
*Handling the Big Jets, D. P. Davies, Air Registration Board 1967, CAA 1975
Google the title for availability - there are some still available from various online booksellers.
Last edited by FDMII; 4th Jan 2016 at 16:00.