Watchdog: FAA failing to ensure pilots are trained to fly manually

They're too busy fighting tooth and nail against letting people who are on drugs like Lexapro fly without a long and expensive fight. Why yes, I am bitter.

And forcing student pilots to get background checks (by the TSA, what could possibly go wrong) before flying solo.

Is this requirement only applies to international students or to everyone?

It currently applies to international students, but will apply to everyone starting on April 1, 2016.

Air France 447 is another example of when an unexpected transition to manual controls caused a crash. There's a good story on autopilot and automation more generally at: http://www.npr.org/sections/money/2015/07/29/427467598/episo...

There are pros to automation - even if the transition to manual causes problems, overall autopilot can be safer than manual.

Interesting you should mention that, as today I just watched Gerald Jay Sussman's NYCLisp talk, in which he discusses it starting at 29:00.

https://vimeo.com/151465912

Url changed from http://gizmodo.com/u-s-pilots-forget-how-to-fly-manually-say..., which points to this.