Are older experienced pilots, who don't trust the fly by wire computer, more dangerous than

[Savannahmann]

17. I know, I just answered, but....

I think there is another facet to the problem that deserved it's own reply. Stick time.

In the old days, Pilots spent the entire flight with their hands on the controls, their feet on the pedals. There was no automatic pilot. So when a pilot said he had five thousand hours in that type of plane, that was five thousand hours with hands and feet on the controls getting a feel of the aircraft, and experience in all sorts of weather and conditions.

Today the Pilot says s/he has 5,000 hours in that kind of aircraft, we forget that for 4,960 of those hours, the auto pilot was flying the plane, and they were sitting and monitoring the computer. In other words, when things go wrong, the pilots are desperate for the computer to take over again, because that is what they have done for almost ever minute of their long years of experience flying the plane.

I think that best describes the autopilot disconnect accidents. The pilots have hundreds, and often even thousands of hours of time, watching a computer do something.

I work with very heavy equipment. When I train someone I start by getting them used to hitting the emergency stop button. I tell them when something goes wrong, hit the damned button. If someone yells stop on the radio, don't waste a second trying to figure out why, just hit the button. While you are trying to figure out why someone yelled stop, people could be dying.

If the computer control is acting up, hit the damned button. If you see that things are not going as you expect, stop and take time to figure it out. But we aren't flying, and the time you take trying to figure out what is going on are the most precious seconds you will ever have.

The time a pilot has flying used to be very important. However today those high hour counts don't impress me as much. Because all but a handful of those hours are spent in the chair watching the computer fly the plane. Many planes have an autoland setting, and the F-18 has an auto launch system that the pilot is required to use when launching from a carrier. Again, the computers make it possible to do some amazing things with the aircraft. But they also go from being a crutch to hold someone up, to an escalator that carries them all the way to their destination.