Oh Gov - give it a break.
I have worked with and trained a host of pilots with backgrounds various from Mil, through Bush / Ag, through CAP509 and all the variations thereof - and your rather infantile approximations don't work at all.
There are no rules about where "good" pilots come from. Anyone who has been in the business for any amount of time knows this. There are natural pilots and gifted pilots and some who just work really hard at at. There are pilots who are good in the Sim and pilots who are good in the World. Some are both - lucky sods.
Some pilots are lucky and some seem to get all the flak. Some are lazy and survive, some work like hell and don't make it. But just being a bush pilot, or an ex Red Arrow doesn't make the cut - not at all.
Some pilots are good stick and rudder people, some are systems people, some are a combination of the previous and people people too. Once again a lucky few are all of this.
In 1914 they took Officers from the Cav to fly, thinking that an affinity for horses might make them more attuned to the problems of the sensitive airplanes of the day. That was not a winner by a long chalk. - I was going to continue this idea - but I will not. It deserves another thread.
Sure, Bush Pilots (and I deliberately Cap that) are good stick and rudder people. They prove it by being around after a few years. Ag pilots likewise. Mil pilots are nearly always good stick and rudder pilots - their background is pretty solid too. However I do resent the slur on the CAP509s (even though I ain't one).
If you want the single leveller - it is training. You take a BP/Ag/Mil and you have a good handler, but there is a lot of work to get him/her Civ orientated and that price is usually accepted and paid. You get a CAP509 or the equivalent and you have the orientation, but no-one thinks to spend the same amount on giving them the stick skills (which, I will agree - they may well lack, unless they are gifted). And then we expect them to get that skill on line. Give me a break. There is a serious divergence of expectations here.
The industry needs to understand where these people come from and what their strengths and weaknesses are. No one pilot can be all things. It just can't be done. Unless we train them.
And that is not that hard. If you have a willing, motivated, basically skilled soul, it can be done - relatively easily. But our training is all arse about face. We train to a tick on the wall. Nothing more, nothing less. The accountants tell us so. Rather we should take each and every individual pilot and train him/her to be the best (s)he can be.
Costs money.... Not as much as you might think. An awful lot of training is repetitive and wasted. If we could somehow identify the areas that each individual needed then the industry would be a different place.
The big question - what does an individual need ? Funny that - I have found that the best person to ask was the student ....
MG
[ 27 August 2001: Message edited by: MasterGreen ]