Comment Re:This is silly (Score 1) 720
. For example, FedEx and UPS could not handle the volumes of packages that each handles per day without automation. FedEx employees about 100K persons due entirely to the technology of automation. The same is true of airlines. The automation of pilot responsibilities and tasks has made flying much safer and easier (at least before the TSA).
UPS and FedEx are poor examples, actually. USPS is far better - in one day, USPS handles more mail than FedEx in a year. For UPS, it takes under a week. (Yes, everyone loves to rag on the post office, but given the volumes involved, UPS and FedEx won't be much better if they could scale up).
The post office realized it needed to automate way back in the 19th century because it knew the current methods were not scalable anymore. Indeed, the modern post office is actually VERY automated - including reading the address labels and deciphering them (handwritten too). Sure it's a bit of constrained input, but it's still automated. FedEx and UPS don't auto-read labels - the addresses are entered in manually or by the sender at time of sending, so a human always reads the address.
For airlines - pilots have increasing automation, but it's also lead to decreasing flying skills - many accidents have occurred because pilots needed to do manual flying to which they simply haven't done in ages so their skills have rotted.
There's a backlash going on in that while US carriers suck, at least in general a lot of pilots there do their own flying where all the automation simply doesn't exist or in very limited forms, so they do have to keep those skills up, so pilots from countries with a strong GA fleet will be better equipped to handle oddball landings when the automation can't, or won't.
Other places where pilots have never had to fly a little Cessna under VFR and land without assistance other than that provided by a Mk. 1 Eyeball generally have pilots rely on automation a bit too much, and when that automation encounters situations it can't handle or where it can only partially handle, they do a poorer job.
Things like ILS - smaller airports may have only one end of one runway equipped to take you to minimums, while using the other end the ILS will get you close, but you need to go and manually hand-fly it to use the other end (or another runway). It's interesting how many pilots feel very uncomfortable with that (it's a basic VFR maneuver, and as long as you can do VFR, you can do it. However, a lot of those pilots have never done VFR since flight training).