Originally Posted by
Capn Bloggs
When we get thrown into a situation which cannot be handled by the automatics, we fail, or should I say almost all situations we fail in are when the autos can't help us. Pilots can no longer fly, It's that simple.
A bit grim there, Capn'! History just might teach us that AF447 was the bellwether. And if it was, have we learned all the lessons of that perplexing series of events? I would argue that we must travel further. Irrespective of what the PF assumed the protections were at any given moment, his own logic ought to have saved him, had he been confident enough to overrule the 'infallible' bus with it. Unreliable indicated airspeed, perceived erroneous stall warnings and multiple levels of degraded auto law environments must be challenging to say the least, but unreliable physics is an entirely different prospect altogether.
Unfortunately it appears his confidence in the bus (or automatics more generally) allowed him to ignore the fundamentals of flight, which is deeply concerning and clearly needs to be more fully understood.
I'm not convinced it's quite as grim as you [jest?] above, but we might be in danger of entering a new era of 'complacency creep', ironically as a result of the very automatics we designed to enhance safety in the first place (which they indubitably have).
Just IMHO.