8846
Sorry its taken me a couple of days to get back to you, been busy working, just for a change ...
Non Techs. A vast area covering all the management and airmanship aspects (eg SA, Capacity, Prioritisation) of flying an aircraft and like any other skill they can be taught and developed. Otherwise why have CRM courses or task management tools such as ANC, DODAR, GRADE, CCCCC etc and why have the assessment process score these skills if they cannot be taught. Obviously, as with any skill, the more you practise the better you get especially if you are guided as you develop. I believe that proper guidance and instruction can accelerate the development process. You see that all the time in sports. What sometimes worries me is that once you qualify in the RHS or the LHS you are pretty much left to your own devices by the training system save for recurrent sim and SEPs which tend to be dominated by regulatery requirements.
FOs would develop more rapidly if given more in the way of development flights and sims and the same goes for Captains. Snag is that all costs money. Much more could also be made of video analysis of how you managed a scenario in the sim. I'd also feel a-lot more discussion and education could take place around incidents and the lessons to learn from them especially ones that happen on your own fleet and operation. Perhaps an extra day on SEPs purely on flight safety, crm and management as well as appropriate publications.
In the RAF I did sims every 2 months and benefitted greatly from them and as a crew we spent many hours together discussing and rehearsing our response to various situations. Without these things I would not have developed as quickly.
All that said you can't spoon feed people, if they aren't motivated and don't work hard then no amount of effort on the part of the instructor will change a-lot.
Hope that makes some sort of sense, I'm a touch bleary eyed at the mo.
Oh and kontroler flying a military aircraft is not just about flying skills either. I do realise Guy Gibson and Bader were not popular with all by a long shot. Point was that they were young men in positions of huge responsibility who discharged their duties very effectively. I was not suggested a commercial pilot should seek to emulate their management styles.