Where does a modern pilot learn and develop the visual flying skill?
Visual approaches in Europe are becoming rarer and rarer,
1. By doing it.
2. They are still there, and with traffic space available they are allowed if requested.
Chicken & egg.
The only option I can see is to routinely un-improve your aircraft to gain or retain the skill,
I don't follow that. If by 'un-improving' your a/c means switching off the A/T, FD and ignoring the computer, then I can't agree. Those tools were not added to make a visual circuit more possible. They were included for very different reasons. To fly a visual circuit with manual control, manual thrust & Mk.1 eyeball is in no way degrading the a/c. By flying only full IFR arrivals via the automatics & computer you are un-improving and degrading the pilot in command.
And that's where we are. It's a function of improved aids and improved aircraft.
Indeed it is where we are, but is it where we want to be or where we should be? Improved aids allows operation in worse weather and easier operations into tight airports. The a/c is not improved, expect for performance; and it is the equipment installed on the ground and in the flightdeck that has improved. There is nothing in a modern jet that has changed the technique for a visual approach from that used in a DC-3. It's power, pitch, configuration and visual judgement.
What has changed is that airlines don't encourage it after base training and often don't allow it. That is where the erosion of skills starts. We hear from prune pilots on this topic that they do practice these techniques regularly and are encouraged to do so by their airline. Within their network they are necessary. Without those skills many of their destinations would be off-limits. They do not reside in the "and that's where we are" world. It is the airlines who operate with the opposite philosophy: no non-FD flying; no visual approaches without FMC back-up; no short finals; full use of automatics: it is they who have placed their pilots on the skills erosion slippery slope.
But not all operators do so. The lament is from the pilots of those who do. It might be in the majority, but it has by no means taken over the industry in total. There are those who resist the tide of mediocrity creeping into their ranks.
it's the heavily punitive nature of airline managers in the event of things not going perfectly.
Indeed and very sad. I've seen Flt OPs departments whose response to a screw up by one crew is, rather than discover why it went wrong and train the correct solution, is to ban the whole manoeuvre from the whole pilot force. So those who've been doing it fine for years and maintaining their skills and demonstrating that technique are now banned form doing it because the common standard has been dumbed down to the lowest common denominator. The SOP training manual has become 'Airline flying for Dummies.' That might sound a bit strong, and as I said is not applicable to all.
I do understand that there are this long-haul operators who routinely fly into huge airports and do what ATC tells them, both speed and altitude. No discretion.(It's worse than being married.) And they do it only 8 times per month. But they could choose to do it manually, if not too knackered. And then you have to land at St.Maarten, or the old Kai Tak, even TFN. or some other testing runways in the network. Some modern operators think Lanzarote is scary and devise special procedures; whereas it used to be 'just another airfield'. Is it that those are now left to only the sky-gods? I hope not.
"And that's where we are"; a major operator in a perfectly fine a/c in a perfectly fine airport on a perfectly fine day making a perfectly executed screw up. There are a/c going in & out of Nice every day, some in challenging wind conditions. They do it fine. Let's find out how so and then other operators can adopt their philosophies. Let's find out the true root cause of such incidents and fix it at root cause rather than adding more layers of sponge & safety netting in the wrong place.
I also add that this debate has been doing the rounds for years now. The circle seems to keep turning. Nothing seems to change and so things stay the same, and it all goes quiet for a while. Then another such incident pops up and the debate starts up all over again. We are beating our gums and talking to deaf ears.