Removing the ability/encouragement to hand fly the airplane in real life - as some Asian/ME carriers have done either through punitive QAR (Quick Access Recorde

Removing the ability/encouragement to hand fly the airplane in real life - as some Asian/ME carriers have done either through punitive QAR (Quick Access Recorder, like the Flight Data Recorder) and FOQA (Flight Operations Quality Assurance aka spy on the pilot) regimes that track when a pilot blows an approach or other parameter - will only make pilots MORE dependent on automation and unable to cope when automation fails, ala Air France 447. [1] That's also partially why we had Asiana 214 - if the pilot at the controls was more skilled at hand flying the aircraft he would not have been so dependent on the autothrottle functionality to manage the speed of the airplane. I worry deeply about creeping automation not only on the flight deck but in our cars. Although automation is far more responsive and adds greatly to safety in both cases, dependence on automation will breed a new generation of the "Children of the Magenta" [2] who blindly allow the computer to follow the magenta line on the display, either into the ground in an airplane, or into oncoming traffic in a car as they ask themselves "what's it doing now??!" [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Air_France_Flight_447 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Air_France_Flight_447 [2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pN41LvuSz10 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pN41LvuSz10