Originally Posted by
Centaurus
I have often wondered that if you have been drilled right from the start of your airline career as a 200 hour cadet pilot, to make full use of the automatics in the Airbus/737 et al, does that necessarily mean you are brain-washed by default into automation addiction or dependence?
I fear there is a good chance that is the case.
Not necessarily! This will probably be greeted with derision by many, but the standard of use of PicMA (monitored approach) procedures actually could help a lot with this issue. I write as a one-time "200 hour cadet" who was in the RHS of what was then the most automated aircraft available and where auto use was the basic SOP.
Bear in mind that (1) this was pre CRM-training days, but also (2) we flew ALL sectors as Pilot-in-charge Monitored Approaches. Many of the Captains I flew with back then took the view that just about the ONLY important thing they could rely on us doing properly was fly instrument approaches to DH and go around, which they knew because we had an Instrument Rating that proved it.
So they were happy to get us to hand fly in better weather, either with Flight Directors or raw data, and encouraged us to go as far down as possible on instruments, because they knew that they'd be taking control back anyway to do the landing, and would simply do so earlier if we screwed it up. I think we actually got pretty sharp at it, as well as the auto stuff, because obviously we were pretty keen! And once they were happy to give us takeoffs and landings, the Captains would similarly practice hand-flying if they wanted to, on the F/O legs where we were "in charge" and doing the takeoff and landing.
A big issue in my mind is that almost everyone sees it as "all or nothing". Hand-flying can easily demand more (or a different type of) concentration than using automatics and it does generally raise workload. So managements inevitably will see it as a significant reduction in safety margins during traditional PF/PM operations, where the person with the high workload is also responsible for the overall safety of the flight (tactical decision-making etc).
But if you split the tasks so the tactical decisions are NOT going to be made by the pilot flying, there is much less impact on safety margins, especially if you're doing it in conditions when there aren't any significant threats. That way, if managements provide suitable guidance and limitations, they can let Captains use some discretion and judgement on the day, which will improve long term safety (over years) without lowering short-term (individual flight) safety.