Talked over coffee to ex GA pilot now flying with Dragonair. He was completely surprised at the highly competent standard of the local "ex cadet" first officers flying the A330's - some with as little as 500 hours. Seems that lots of Chieftain and Cessna 210 hours doesn't translate into equivalent jet transport competency where automatics and general button pushing skills is considered more important than raw data manual skills. Never thought I would see the day when airmanship and steely eyed rat cunning would be surpassed by automatic monkey skills. Fact of life nowadays. And it works, too.