cp;
Is there a sub culture that might view 'diverting around weather' to be'somewhat of a pussy/coward' and do you think there may have been a subconcious need for the younger pilots to 'prove we can DO THIS' and ride through the storm?
No.
If anything may have been at play with any encounter with a thunderstorm (and not diverting around it), it would be the perception of risk/danger through a clear understanding of what the radar returns were indicating. From experience, I know there is a wide range of such understanding in new-hires and veterans alike. Part of that picture is training, standards and checking at an airline. In fact, that is the very reason I posted a long discussion on the use of radar right at the beginning of the second thread on AF447. Others added to the knowledge-base on that thread which I think was really the finest demonstration of professionalism at work.
We cannot possibly know of course if this factor played a part.
In AF447 you had a very experienced pilot, close to the end of his flight career at 58 with a lot of experience but less experienced in that particular aircraft than the copilot
The difference is not material. Like most who fly, I have flown with those less, and those with more time on the particular equipment. Within a hundred hours (hard time) on type, (two months, roughly) and given the kind of training one is offered during a type certificate/IFR, one knows the airplane well enough.
That doesn't mean one can play the airplane like a pianist plays a concerto on grand piano. It means that the differences in experience are largely immaterial. It is simply "time in" that really counts.
In the book "
Outliers" by Malcolm Gladwell the author posits a 10,000hr "bench-mark" at which point something becomes part of oneself, intuitively. I wouldn't suggest the same for airline pilots but nor do I consider a thousand hours in anything doing any kind of flying, "experienced".
PJ2