Of course the handling characteristics would be different, but my experience of Canadian and African bush pilots is that they could fly a bath with wings and more importantly they have the grasp of the fundamentals of flying that people who have only flown for sizeable airlines (probably) don't have. Bear in mind that much of this experience has been gained from going through some very sticky situations and getting out of it in one piece.
As someone said in response to my views on this on the
Airline pilots "lack skills to handle emergencies" thread, the sort of incidents we saw at Sioux City, Gimli and now Lajes don't happen that often. But they
do happen - and some of the reponses on the now closed thread about the incident showed that airlines do not train for double engine flameouts.
Now, do you think that someone who had not been trained in what to do in the case of a situation such as this - and without the handling experience gained in somewhat more antique types - would in all probability have been able to achieve the same result as Capt Robert Piché - who has 20 years of bush piloting experience on DC6s - did on Friday?