My apologies for lapsing into the local vernacular. A 'ginger beer' is, in rhyming slang, the name for an 'engineer'. In other words it was the technical application of the differences that caused the grief.
That said I'm not sure I would like to jump into the SPZ7000 from the Ham Stan, the Trimble 2000 to the Garmin 500 or the C30 to the FADEC of the C++ with just a 'differences course' unless that course was carried out in the recipients native tongue by a sim school that knew the difference between 'attending' a course and 'passing' a course.
We were specially handicapped down in my favorite corner of South America because it was de rigour to 'appoint' instructors rather than 'train' instructors despite the regulations.
This has inevitably led to the blind leading the blind when more complex types are introduced into service. Add to this the lack of a simulator culture, a general lack of quality training of any kind in the offshore community and we have a powerful recipe for lack of competence amongst a workforce that has tremendous ability and potential - if only the 'system' would deliver the necessary training and the 'system' took a look at the goings on in other parts of the world (FAA/JAA/Shell/Exxon-Mobil/Total etc.) and learnt from them.
It doesn't help to have the worlds largest concentration of helo sim schools locked up behind a visa system that makes it very difficult for the would-be student to actually get there. Maybe that wrong will be righted in the coming years.
Sorry about the thread-creep - at least we are keeping the mudslingers in their prams and getting away from the usual pointless Sikorsky-Eurocopter slanging match.
2006 ended on a very sad note for the offshore guys in particular but the sun is shining on this New Year's morning, I'll take that as a sign that we are in for a brighter 2007.
Now I've got to shake off the hangover and help the wife tidy up after last night's celebrations. The best to you all from a bright but blowy south western corner of UK.
G
