There's the mainline mentality! Love it.

Oh boy...

Once you're going more than 5 mph on your motorcycle, you aren't steering the handlebars in the direction you turn. Quite the opposite actually... Look up counter steering, and be prepared for your mind to be blown on the next ride.

If you really want to get the most out of your bike, get a copy of Keith Code's "Twist of the Wrist". Make sure it's Vol I. Vol II wasn't as good.

Glad I could make your day. :D

Many of your examples specified originated from crew error. My thesis is that the presence of highly automated aircraft is inducing a set of undetectable latent traps. More so than traditional cable and pulley. In theory I can detect if someone's left the gust lock engaged. I don't have the ability to detect the code error in line 10,042 of the flight control software that allows spurious spikes from 2 pitot sources, occuring 2 seconds apart to be utilized as correct info by the air data computer. My other concern is that the safety management systems used to flush out errors is indequate. This problem is far deeper than most think.

Yes, that was the point. Crew error is typically the result of accidents, regardless of aircraft type. But cable & pulley aircraft fail us too just like FBW aircraft.

And how many examples support your thesis? Two? Maybe three? Do you have any idea how many Airbus aircraft fly each day world wide? And how many accidents result? The current safety record of FBW aircraft simply debunks your thesis. I just can't buy into it.

I think I've strayed from my original idea. The heart of the matter is more in regards to unexpected automation failures. Who knows what the 1's and 0's are doing behind the scenes and those complex interactions can lead to unexpected events. Loss of SA because the crew has no idea what's going on because the info is not making sense. That info is being generated by the programming. I'm all about airmanship as much as the next person as I cut my teeth in MU-2s running checks. But I'm seeing a lot of software driven glitches happening out there in highly automated aircraft that catch crews by surprise. Is it statistically significant? Time will tell. Although we're not seeing accidents we're seeing a lot of interesting behavior that has the potential to be a link in the chain. And we're seeing a lot of ASRS reports indicating it from operators. I'm just advocating being careful with the automation. Wait till it goes partially belly up on a RTF RNP.1 approach in a biz jet.

Compare the mishap statistics between Boeing and Airbus and you'll find that they're remarkably similar. It's not the automation that's the culprit but crew experience generally.

We've been dealing with that since before the inception of CRM. That's why we practice CRM, to break the chain. I agree one should ALWAYS be careful with automation. It's always been my practice that if the question "What's it doing now?" is being asked, it's time to take over.

WRT to your RTF RNP .1 remark, as you execute approaches with less room for error you increase the levels of human protection by requiring an increased criteria to continue the approach. Heck, we already see that with RNP approaches now. You brief the approach, required equipment, required performance, and what triggers a mandatory missed approach. Tolerances are certainly much lower with RNP approaches.

This debate has been going on for a long time now, ever since the first 767's showed up in 1983. The "old guard" would say, "That's not flying, that's pushing buttons!" and a lot of them avoided bidding the new 'electric jets'. "What are you going to do when all that magic fails??" was the most often heard reason.

The more 'stuff' that is automated, the less we think about having to do it manually. Flying is a manual, eye-hand skill, and like all of those skills, you either use it, or you will lose it. From auto brakes, to auto throttles, to auto speedbrakes, to magenta lines, we expect it will always be there for us, and have not had to use our brains for much more than 'monitoring the automation' since that's what the training guru's want us to do. Use the automation.

OK, so when do we get to practice hand flying?? Once a year in the sim?? Is that enough to stay sharp? If you fly long haul international, you know you are not as sharp as you used to be, when you flew 4 legs a day, 4 days a week, 4 weeks a month. N0 way. I'm getting about 1 landing a month, and I fly a regular line every month. Thank Dog I fly a light airplane on my off days to keep my skills up.

It has been proven that humans are not very good at monitoring automation...we get too board and then our minds start to wander...and when the fit hits the shan, we have to -wake up- and recover the jet. It's all good fun in the simulator, but try doing it late at night, over water in the weather, with warning horns blaring at you, and you've got no idea which instruments are reliable, and which ones are giving you bad info.

Maybe they are all bad. Whatcha gonna do then? At night, no horizon, in the weather.

Have you seen what it takes to recover a heavy jet from a deep stall? We've been doing it in the sim since this incident, and I'll tell you, it will get your attention, and we KNEW it was coming, still, it's hard to convince yourself you have to go 20 degrees nose down and wait...wait...wait...for the airspeed to recover and then fly out of the dive.

Now, take away the airspeed indicator...when are you going to recover the jet? I'll tell you when, too soon, and you'll be in another accelerated stall...all the way to the deck. With no horizon outside, pitch dark, weather obscuring any hope of seeing anything outside, instruments unreliable, it's no wonder these guys died.

The real question here should be, if Airbus KNEW there was a pitot icing problem, and they did, why were they still allowed to fly them, in the weather, with it not having been fixed?

That certainly opens up another can of worms. Just like the engineers at NASA knew there was an O-ring problem. Just like Ford knew there was a problem with the Pinto.