Originally Posted by
TheWrightBrother&Son
Tourist
Out of curiosity (I think I've missed it because I can not read every pages), are you a pilot?
Cheers.
Yes, I'm a pilot.
I started out military rotary then military fixed wing and traveled through corporate and airline and now fly an aircraft without an autopilot again because I prefer to play with a toy that requires my input to perform.
I too have seen the reduction in information passed to the aircrew.
I can still remember the pressure at an obscure point in the main gearbox that sets off the Emergency lubrication system on the Seaking helicopter.
By contrast, the tech knowledge required for the Airbus CBT is more like "the ladybird book of planes"
The fact that Airbus manage to be incredibly safe under these circumstances make me think that it is deliberate policy and not degradation of standards that has led to this.
The manufacturers believe that knowledge will lead to thinking instead of performing like automatons in the event of abnormal events. (They may well be correct that modern aircraft are just too complex for us to understand enough for us to make good decisions under pressure.)
They would rather you just did what the ECAM says, in effect performing as the avatar for the computer.
Under these circumstances humans are really just error vectors.
Unable to help situations, but able to hinder.
I say remove the vector.