Far too much automation nowadays, IMHO, with far too little “real” pilot training.
Iced up pitot tube providing false data to computer which kicks off stall warning:
A pilot must be able to tell by seat of their pants that they are flying when they ask themselves Alan Bean’s question. I could feel what was going on as a commercial airline passenger - the pilot has to.
Stall must always cause the pilot to stick forward to pick up airspeed. How many of these “pull the stick back” accidents are we going to have before pilots start getting trained better ?
It’s like some of these guys grew up on video games and they have no stick and rudder training, and they’re not very logical - their brain locks up when the “modern” equipment starts barking 18 problems at once at them - “helmet fire”.
Never once to they possibly think that perhaps the systems may not be functioning correctly. I mean, I need to know this concept to diagnose problems with my car today ! I always start logically trying to ascertain whether I lost the gauge, the sending unit or the connection between the two, or the gauge is right and I do have the symptom that it describes.
Here’s an auto story: on the highway in heavy traffic with numerous heavy trucks, my car starts running quite rough, very low power, coming up to a hill. What do I do to ensure that I don’t stall out in that traffic and get splattered ?
Already aware of close traffic.
Turn on right signal light, start a controlled stop on the shoulder in the safest spot possible.
Turn on hazards.
Stay in car, shut it off.
Wait a few seconds.
Attempt to start it up again.
Oh, it started ok, the car’s computer rebooted. It had a misfire on one cylinder and that put the computer into a “limp” mode. The reboot initialized the computer so it attempted a normal start firing on all 6 cylinders and it worked ok. Answer: It was due for new spark plugs. Back in the shop, change the coils and wires along with the plugs.
Can’t freak out when things go wrong. Especially not when piloting jet airplanes.
No. One of the early things a pilot learns in elementary training is that 'the seat of your pants' can easily kill you, because that feel is highly ambiguous when things start to go wrong. For example, it is impossible to tell the difference between a steady climb and level acceleration from the seat of your pants, or between a mild coordinated turn and level flight.