http://www.wsj.com/article_email/air...NjE4MjAxMjIzWj
In this speech, the airbus representative makes several radical claims relevant to the discussion here:
1. The exclusive use of automation has led to the degradation of pilot skills where modern pilots increasingly lack the skill to hand fly their aircraft without the "goodies". (= in the context of failure of automation and in the presence of misguided information.) They lack the ability to establish a safe flight path given only very basic information such as pitch, power, and altitude. They tend to cling to (computer generated) flight director bars, even when "hand flying" the air craft
2. While systems are becoming increasingly sophisticated, there is very little training involved in current airline "training". It is most entirely composed of "testing", and there is no upside for the trainee.
3. Some airlines live in fear of their pilots actually touching the controls with real hands, but can't find a solution to re-establish those skills
This is now the second time someone official from Airbus speaks out about the issue (Airbus training captain Jaques Drapier was the first to raise the issue of manual flying skills, at the World Aviation Training Conference in 2012). The comments by professional readers at the end of the article support these points.
It has been reported that HA installed their own local A330 simulator in 2013. (
http://skift.com/2014/04/23/what-its...-into-beijing/). The gist of the press coverage at the time was cost saving and unfortunately little of substance was revealed about the actual training regime A330 pilots go through at HA, how it is different from the state of the industry as it is emerging above. I am hoping someone can comment more here. Hawaiian should have an advantage over other airlines given that many pilots will be older pilots transferring over from B767 with residual manual handling skills from earlier days, but given that the company is growing and competing with LCCs, it is surely being pulled into the same direction as the rest of the industry.