Thanks for the replies folks. Any more?
My own experiences have been less happy. Certainly, once you reach the sim, the odds are that the trainer knows his stuff and the session is very useful, albeit largely filled with boxs that must be ticked for the regulators, leaving scant time for general refresher training or any areas of concern.
But as far as theoretical refresher before reaching the sim, I've been very dissapointed. Usually some form of multiple choice paper filled with obscure questions that take ages to track down and seem to have very little practical relevance.
Also, I've generally been on a 3 year recurrent cycle. 3 years seems a long time between visits on each system. Not that I object (in principle) to getting the books out on my own time every now and then, but it does seem a bit annoying when you're also spending a lot of time finding out irrelevant stuff.
pb