How did the so called 'Austronaught' syndrome come into existence?
Flew with several ex AN FOs in Gulf Air in 1989/90 and found them very good, as was a senior training captain, rather different picture in SIA though. Suddenly being confronted by the European/North American winter, de-icing, Cat2/3, generally crappy weather for days on end came as a bit of a shock after Australian flying and didn't always produce a good result in terms of CRM when flying with FOs who had far more bad weather experience than the Australian captain. In SIA some of the Australian contingent presented a deliberately confrontational approach to management and several were terminated. Others just got on with the job. Heard from fellow captains that just a couple of the ex BA captains were more of a PITA with the, "We didn't do it like that in BA", most of the QF guys also just got on with the job, one tried to split crew rest to LHR etc. into four segments, instead of two and was quickly put straight! Have lived in Australia for seventeen years now and find them to be a good bunch generally but some, just a few, can be complete Chameleons when they get in an aircraft.