PJ that is great - when I was SPing in PNG and there was the occasional need for 2 crew the result was a joke - I am very glad to hear that its done properly now.
A few years ago now I flew for a PNG company, starting with around 2500 hrs of single pilot time flown in oz. After a training regime that quite frankly would put most regional (and some jet) airlines in Australia to shame
The resulting cockpit environment at times was not unlike a close knit crew in a rally car. You may well scoff, but in all the low level flying in & out of valleys in marginal weather that we did I never felt uncomfortable. Nor did we ever mis-identify a valley, take a wrong turn, mis-judge rising terrain etc etc. You can imagine my surprise when moving on to a large airline back in oz. I found that 'proper' multi crew ostensibly consists of the PF flying & the PM operating the radios em tasol.
Great analogy.
That does not surprise me at all. The quality of the (SP) training we got in Talair/Airlink etc was excellent -vastly superior to what was happening in GA in Australia then or now - PX was similarly excellent in CRM/2 crew ops, world class in fact - those of us who went out to the world after PX all feel the same way - we have never had training since that is the equal of that we received at PX,
particularly CRM.
2 crew ops in Twotters was just starting to be mooted when I left GA and joined PX thus I have no experience of 2 crew bush ops other than in the Dash 7. I remember discussing this issue with mates after we had joined PX and 2 crew Twotter ops became a reality - while non of us could work out what a co-pilot would do in a Twotter
- I think the consensus was that PX CRM/SOPs would be needed and that just was not going to happen in PNG GA
at that time.
I am very happy that changed.
Having said that I am
still VERY HAPPY that all my time in Twotters/Bandits was SP.
It was FUN