Reading through this thread reminds me of another thread recently about PPL's and commercial jets.
Once again the same undertone escapes and it is evident that many of you professional pilots are pretty precious individuals considering that except for the first and last 500ft, it is mainly pushing buttons to command automatics these days !
For my money I consider that the most important commodity in aviation is the ability to exercise good judgement. It is my experience that a 1000hr multi engine, instrument rated CPL (or PPL if they don't fly for money and want to avoid more paperwork than absolutely necessary), who flies regularly on the airways with exactly the same procedures as a commercial jet but with a lot more disadvantages in lack of automatics and limited weather capability, while acting as PIC, co-pilot and FE (old engines you know!) is probably in a pretty good position to help the PF with the following.
1. Communication with ATC
2. reference to, preparation of charts and mutual briefing (read double checking) of arrival and approach procedures and frequencies.
3. Reading of checklists.
4. Flagging up to the PF anything that doesn't look right and might be worth a quick mention just to be sure.
Related to point four, on a personal basis, when jump seats could be occupied by non employees, a gently placed question saved a BA777 captain friend of mine from taxying his nosewheel in to some newly laid wet concrete at a relatively remote airport which I happened to know quite well and in that case there were two well rested and capable pilots, not one.
The mantra would seem to be redundancy, use of resources and good judgement. Maybe in another case it wouldn't be wet concrete to taxi in to but rather a mountain that was about to be flown in to, or an unusual attitude at low level that had occured while distracted but of couse airline pilots never do that, do they, and the principles of flight are so vastly different once you get your hands on that big shiny automatic jet
I think that the Captain of this flight should be applauded for excellent judgement, impeccable use of common sense and more importantly a healthy dose of humility. I wish all airline pilots that I trust my life and that of my family to, would conform to that standard, but unhappily, as is evidenty in these forums, I wouldn't trust some of you with the remote control to my TV set, the problem is, one never knows for sure who is up front in charge of the jet
