Here is an excellent training video made by American Airlines for it's pilots, re. "Automation Dependency". This was made back in 1997, not long after an American 757 flew into a mountain top in South America, because the pilots were too dependent on the automation, just like the Koreans are today.

There is some technical jargon of course, but I think most of you guys are smart enough to understand what he's saying. It is titled, "Children of the Magenta" because the map line that we see on our display is magenta in color. When you get locked on to the magenta line, you are missing a lot of other clues out the window:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h3kREPMzMLk


The two technical terms he uses most are:

FMC = Flight Management Computer. There are two, one for each pilot, normally, one pilot will type the routing into the FMC while the other watches, double checks his work, and checks to see that the airplane is doing what it's supposed to do.

STAR = Standard Terminal Arrival Route, there are several STARS into every major airport, but Air Traffic Control (he uses ATC in the video) will often change you from one to the other, depending on the amount of inbound trafic.


The point he's making when he talks about both pilot going "Heads Down" (typing a new STAR into the FMC) in the arrival/approach phase of flight, when they should be looking outside (on a clear day) for the airport, traffic, runway, etc. is that they need to REDUCE the amount of automation at that point. The Asians don't know how to reduce the automation and revert back to manual flying, because they have never been trained on how to manually fly.