Capt Stoobing...........mate ,thats what surprised me...I fly the A-320...the f/o and I were trying to find the correlation between this flying and the Dash-200 he was flying.....asked him if he was familiar with the A-320,his reply was that he was......from the info I gathered..there are several link operations combining and their concerns were the merging of A/C checklists and ops specs.....and how the crews were adapting to them....we are currently going through this process as we merged/acquired USAirways,so there is a merging of operations.
His biggest complaint was that the 400,s were given to "some other" operations and that his outfit would not be getting any of them.It seemed they were more interested in how we were dealing with the transistion as the FAA has approved "internet training" for our study guides.Its been one cluster after another for us and we relayed our concerns about this,so it seems they were gathering info to stay clear of the pitfalls we were having.
Spent many years flying the Dash,so it that respect there really is no difference in the way in which the crews interact.....there are checklists,complex sytems etc etc....so if your going to observe a crew in action there really is very little difference,the concept is the same.
The Capt in queston also I might add didnt seem bitter about what was going on in his turf,it was quite the opposite.The feeling I got was that he and his mates were very pro-active in what was happening(make your own distinction)....but certainly wasnt pissing and moaning...small world..I flew for east/west...he used to be a crew scheduler....hope that clears up a few things..PB