HC you make some vary valuable points but lose half your audience with the Mil versus Civvy debate.
There is a very clear difference between Mil and Civvy pilots. Mil pilots ALL survived not only a rigorous formal selection process but the intense scrutiny of a military flying course. Civvies do not suffer anything like this.
Of course, some Civvies may well have the aptitude and resolve to pass a military course but as such ALL of them remain un proven in that regard.
For those of us who did a military course we are quite justifiably proud of what we achieved and that does, whether you like it or not, set us apart from our Civvy colleagues.
I never flew in combat but many of the later generation of mil boys have or certainly been close to it. Flying in such conditions must surely add depth and breadth to those pilots.
Modern helicopters, as you point out, have such redundancy of systems that the result is we retain all capability until the last redundant system fails and then we end up degraded. In some instances, severely. In the 225 this is manifested by there being no failure that leaves you in ATT mode!
AP out (no stab) is so far down the line should we even go there much. I don't know the answer to this one but sure it may be different based on the type being flown.
I note with alarm the number of events arising from poor auto techniques especially in twins. Have we gone too far in assuming we should not practise this regularly and also in the real aircraft?
These debates are really important in the right context, with the right spirit, without tearing each other apart of waving our Willies in the wind.
Automation is appropriate where it adds value. That value is almost always increased capacity for the crew provided the automation is fully understood and does not in itself sap capacity!
In my view, poor core flying skills (manual flight path control) both when everything is working or not, can never truly be masked by automation. The FW boys are learning this regularly and so should we.
Automation does not and should not change the fundamental requirement to fly the aircraft. In HIGHLY regulated and controlled environments like O&G our opportunity to practise and maintain these skills are minimal compared to a Mil pilot spending lots of time doing general handling.
The challenges we face are to find the right balance of core skills recurrent training and checking with advanced skills such as automation.
Geoffersincornwall has alluded to this in his frequent posts.
So HC try to keep your blood pressure down and keep the positive stuff coming.