As I see it, this really boils down to what had in mind for these guys - essentially I'd imagine they're being recuited simply as someone that isn't going to drop the ball.
You see, if you've ever looked through ads in the sunday supplements or taken a look on the bookshelves, you may've seen the generic "be fluent in X language in 4 weeks" courses. Generally you pop on a pair of oversized headphones, fix a rictus grin to your face, spend half an hour a day doing this amongst some pine furniture and voilá, you're fluent.
Of course you're not, what you've been learning is phrases. Your ability to adapt them to your own circumstances, to interpret the differences amongst broadly similar things that are being said, etc etc, is limited, if at all present.
So whilst one can hardly claim aviation fluency after 200 hours, but it is indeed equivalent to some grounding in basic grammar and idiom. You're aware it exists, and if push comes to shove, you will at least have a minimum foundation upon which to fall back.
Will you need to fall back on it?
This is the interesting part I believe. Now recently I've been having a play with my aircraft, FDs and AP/AT off for various departures and arrivals - back to the sorts of basics I had to practice when I had 100hrs or so - it's good exercise and I enjoy the challenge. Will I ever find myself in a scenario in which they have failed?
No.
Not failed, but switched off. Job interviews and sim rides folks? We're like battery chickens 99% or the time. When we're let out to peck the dust in the sunny farmyard, our feathers and wattle grow back, we get healthier, and are altogether a more appetising meal. As battery chickens our old fashioned flying skills are usually rusty - an understatement - but like the chickens we can improve and pass the sim check. I'm wondering if the MPL guys could. To me it seems like they would have nothing to improve and would thus find it disproportionally difficult to pass an old fashioned (ie normal) sim ride for a job. Unless, that is, the sim rides will in future consist of who can say "check" the most amount of times and the most crisply..
