This is one time where I can't fault the media. They interviewed real pilots who made some stupid remarks.
50 Secrets Your Pilot Won't Tell You | Work & Career | Reader's Digest
“People don’t understand why they can’t use their cell phones. Well, what can happen is 12 people will decide to call someone just before landing, and I can get a false reading on my instruments saying that we are higher than we really are.” -Jim Tilmon
Oh, really, explain how cellphones cause interference with a pitot/static system. He could have said "if someone receives or sends a call on a cellphone it can interfere with the magnets in our headsets giving off an annoying hum that could make us miss an important radio call."
Who's Really Flying Your Plane? - AOL Travel News
And while problems with autopilot are rare, things do fail from time to time, according to Hiatt. "PA systems have problems, call buttons stick, computers can fail to a non-active mode," he says. And that, says Hiatt, is when those cornerstone "stick and rudder skills" come into play.
Yeah when a PA system fails, that's when you need good stick and rudder skills. This guy has not flown an Embraer. I think you could be drunk and track a localizer better than the ERJ's autopilot.
"During the overwhelming majority of takeoffs, you have to hand fly the aircraft,"
I'd like to see the underwhelming minority of takeoffs that are done with the autopilot.