Originally Posted by
Ewan Whosearmy
What did they struggle with, ES?
The common weakness was in overall capacity. By virtue of reaching the front line they had obviously demonstrated the required minimum standards in a variety of skills. But as the complexity of the task ramped up or as ‘post-graduate’ skills and knowledge were introduced, basic errors crept in. That much is pretty common: errors can be addressed and ironed out, that is the process of learning and few get it right first time, every time. The problem comes when addressing errors creates new errors elsewhere, especially in basic skills. I seem to remember that reluctance to take captaincy decisions, repeatedly missing radio calls and inability to recall sortie events were common to all 3 pilots: classic symptoms of being maxed-out.
The WSO was subtly different: the aircraft’s role, weapons and software had changed a lot during his time away and he couldn’t un-learn his prior (obsolete) knowledge or assimilate new knowledge to the extent required to be an effective operator. I guess you could lay some blame on the OCU refresher course, which might have exposed the issue earlier had it not focussed on ‘legacy’ skills which our man could just about cope with. But I think that would just have weeded him out earlier. (Incidentally there are plenty of counter-examples of seriously aged aircrew coming back from long layoffs and doing just fine!)