RAT 5, indeed, would that this were true but I don't think it is. But I'd be interested in specifics, not naming an airline of course, but affirmations that one's carrier encourages a balance of fully-manual and fully-automated flight and has in place a reasonable automation policy for their crews' guidance.
Carriers who have experienced screw-ups when the automation has been turned off were, and I think still are quick to tighten up automation policies due expense and liability concerns, regenerating not fixing, the original problem. I watched this occur twenty-five years ago; it became a recursive process, with known, and in my view unfortunate results.
In terms of skill, I think one ought to be able to do a visual approach just by looking out the window. For the bean-counting crowd, it saves a bit of fuel and time, (by the flight data, not a lot of savings though), and it maintains skills such as self-perception as part-of-the-machine, S.A., judgment, timing, energy-management, scan, (outside & in), & hands-&-feet.
PS, seen-in-the-box, I sure liked your post, thank you for taking the time. Very real, and well worth reading for other pilots as it's speaks a lot of truth.
Last edited by FDMII; 9th Jan 2016 at 17:47.