Hi!
Lets put it the other way round: Over 2000 hours I have perfected the art of landing single engined light aircraft in gusting crosswinds that reach one half of the landing speed of the plane, have flown "YFR" in what must be about the world's most regulated airspace (apart from France...) thereby risking to lose my expensive ATPL on nearly every flight, and all this while constantly fighting against the shortcomings of forty year old hardware and electronics of the most unreliable kind ever built by humans.
But I can play a videogame as well as anybody else and I can press autopilot buttons as well as anybody else and I would even go so far and bet that I can enter a flightplan into an FMS faster than most (becáuse I practised this often enough on hand-held-GPS units that have only four keys instead of 50) - and yet they dont invite me to fly their Airbusses and Boeings
But seriously: Most of my colleagues who went to the airlines have lost their SEP class ratings when JAR-FCL was introduced. Theoretically, one check ride with an examiner per year is enough to keep the SEP (VFR) rating valid (JAR-FCL 1.245). For some pilots this may be enough, but would you let _your_ child fly with someone who flies only one hour on type per year?
As an instructor, I have prepared a few very experienced airline pilots for these checkrides, and the most common problems are:
- Lack of patience: A short final in a C152 with a bit of a headwind lasts nearly as long as the complete ILS in an airliner. In attempting to speed-up things, some pilots will fly much to fast on final and have difficulty to get the aircraft down on a short runway...
- Flare too high
- Overly strict adherence to memorised operating procedures: One pilot asked me for rotation and climb speed, and when the first was reached, he called "Go:Rotate!" and tried to pull his usual 12 deegrees of pitch (in a Cessna 152) ... luckily these things are well protected against tailstrikes and the runway was long enough for another attempt
- VFR flying (airspace structure!).
But of course I agree: JAR-FCL really tends to over-regulate in many areas.
Greetings, Max