No it's not true. Use of automation to it's fullest extent is strongly encouraged. It just does a smoother job of flying the aircraft. Jorge does have his flaws, but overall, he does a better job, and he handles single engine approaches fairly well if you are trimmed and coordinated.
The E170/190 series is one of the easiest jets to hand fly because of its PFD symbology. If you remove the AP and AT, the Flight Path Director symbol "tells" you where to set thrust and where to fly and shows airspeed and altitude "trend." More captains need to let their FO's hand fly some visual approaches to "learn" the ship. Alot of the hand flying incorporates the use of "automated" features, such as Flight Path Angle and the "MCDU", the E170/190's "brain," to enhance the handflying. I think the rumor portion you are hearing is the failure to use the "magic" the airplane has and to augment that into the handflying. And...hey, we are hiring a lot of low time, inexperienced FOs, some who see kave never seen more than two tenths of IMC and have never flown a pressurized airframe in their lives until the E170.
On the other hand, I've seen two Captain candidates fail a line check by botching a visual approach by hand flying the ship and just plain being careless and sloppy about holding altitude and glide slope.
As for autoland, it requires the aircraft to be certified for the Catagory type of landing. The Republic E170/175 fleet meets at least up to CAT II approach certification and from what I've read, CAT III. But, CAT II/III also require crew training and currency. If my memory serves me, CAT II/III authorization requires crew currency, i.e, CAT II every 6 months, CAT III, every 30 days...but, I'd have to look up the FAR to be sure.
T8
