On autopilot: 'Pilots are losing their basic flying skills,' some fear after Boe

[OldGuy]

https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/2019/05/25/boeing-737-max-8-autopilot-automation-pilots-skills-flying-hours-safety/1219147001/

"We've been talking about this in the industry for years. Pilots are losing their basic flying skills and there's an overreliance on automation," said Les Westbrooks, an associate professor at Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University, after the latest 737 Max crash, an Ethiopian Airlines flight in March.

[etodd]

How much leeway do airline pilots have to fly manually? If WX is vfr do they have to always take off and fly the approaches with autopilot, or do they have the option to fly manually often to keep their skills up?

[PHall]

Depends on the company. Some let you hand fly it all the way up to cruise altitude and some want you to engage the autopilot as soon as you get the gear and flaps up to give the passengers a better ride. But you still get a couple of days in the simulator twice a year or so to practice and be evaluated on emergency procedures and such.

[OldGuy]

But Cox says there's more to the Ethiopian Airlines crash than just an automation issue. The pilots were confronted with a load of warnings in the cockpit, more than anyone could be reasonably expected handle, he said.

"You hit a point called task saturation. You are taking in more information than you can process," Cox said. And with all those distractions, a person's cognitive ability to deal with them can drop by half.

The irony is that the 737 is one of the LEAST automated of the 'modern' aircraft in commercial service. It is a 50 year old design with some updated avionics, but - for example - the pilots have to grab the aircraft three ring manuals for emergency checklists, not having the voice automation of almost all of the other more modern craft.

[OldGuy]

See https://qz.com/1580078/the-boeing-737-max-crisis-wont-stop-airline-automation/