This note is from Aero-New-Network... I do believe that in some part this does come back to basic flying skills. I the pilot KNOWS what the airplane should be doing, then he will simply know when it isn't doing what it should. I do believe that the reduction in actual flying is eroding the basic stick and rudder skills that are key to really flying the aircraft when the nannies shut down (as they will eventually). While there are examples of excellent flying skills (ie. Sully, a sailplane pilot, in the Hudson) there are also examples like AF447 that show the opposite side of what happens when those baisc skills aren't present (think bus driver and systems manager rather than a real pilot) .
The same thing happened with Colgan Air 3407. Granted in their case I don't think they received much training period, and were also extremely over-worked. I agree with the article though. It's scary to think about honestly.
in automated control of an aircraft, it is flying by a particular instruction set within a limited data base, while a pilot has the use of unlimited intelligence and it's permutations gained through their training and experience...best example is that drones still need someone to supervise control over their missions although essentially they are controlled by a computer... as a practical matter hand flying is out of date, as the enviornments that aircraft fly in are better suited to automated control... a pilot is better suited to a supervisory role, but still needs to possess a well honed ability to take over control regardless of how primitive the skills are...
Are we headed from Google's driverless cars to pilotless passenger aircraft? It WILL happen eventually; we're well on the way.
Sometimes the inevitable needs to be called out... [ame]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xoa25BjRP-I&feature=related[/ame]
