Pilot Dar
This is a hard one so I would like to add another angle or call it a slight suspicion of mine
I have flown with pilots who are extremely methodical and detailed but go at one mental speed and appear unable to pick up their game if events require that.
I have also flown with pilots who are equally detailed and methodical but can also pick up their game when required and to whatever level that is required and they tend to be the best.
They seem to have very fast visual brains and are natural multi taskers.
In between that lot there are various combinations of the above.
I read an interesting article on how our brains worked and how we all have different talents and abilities.
Most of us are fine when all is running ok but it is when something starts to go wrong that the flaws appear.
It was explained like this. Imagine a computer which holds banks of memory.
Now think of the graphics card which also holds its own memory.
As we gain experience a lot of stuff is stowed away in the computer memory banks while the graphics card memory deals with all the instant and visual stuff.
Some of us have small amounts of memory on the graphics card and rely on our main memory in the computer.
Flash to much information too fast and the poor graphics card stutters and then freezes.
The guy lucky enough to have top of the range high memory cards and large onboard memory can deal with everything that is thrown at it without stuttering and freezing.
So yes training, attitude etc are all important and make for a safe pilot 99% of the time but there is more to it than that.
It is interesting in the safe confines of a simulator to throw more and more failures at a pilot until he goes into brain freeze where the brain can no longer deal with the information coming in and the level that that happens varies from person to person.
Pace