I want to tell YPGV something about "experience".
I am a low time private pilot. I will never fly big jet aircraft.
However, I believe that if you can safely operate a little aircraft then you are going to be able to safely operate a large one, furthermore you will do it better and more safely than someone with no GA experience. The reverse is not true, as numerous instructors who have sat beside airline captains in small Cessnas will tell you.
There is such a thing as "seat of the pants" experience acquired in GA and small aircraft that is priceless. It is an innate understanding of the forces acting on the aircraft at all times, I say "innate" because you ****ing feel them directly.and sometimes violently, and learn to take immediate corrective action - or else.
You do not get this feeling in Three hundred tonnes of aircraft, however exactly the same forces are at work, as can be seen in the many videos of crosswind landings of large jets. What the basic GA flying does in my opinion is give a pilot a basic feeling of anticipation of what the aircraft is about to try and do much faster than someone with no GA experience, and therefore allow them to react faster to stimuli.
I base this opinion on my knowledge of the behaviours of sailing boats - vessels that move in Two different fluid streams at once - wind and water, that are in many ways considerably harder to manoeuvre than aircraft, and the people that helm them.
I learned to sail at age 9. I have sailed more or less continuously for fifty years. I can say categorically that those that learned to sail in a little boat can sail a big one competently after instruction, much more competently than someone with no small boat experience.
It is very common in sailing to see a person come late to the art with no small boat experience, buy a very large, heavy and expensive vessel, acquire experienced crew, and instruction, then attempt to race it.
No matter how intelligent they are, no matter how much instruction is given, no matter how much money they throw at the boat (Five million is typical, and a million a year in expenses) it always ends in tears, because even the best of them is ALWAYS half a second or more behind the boat compared to an experienced dinghy sailor.
And Jetstar had a heavy landing? Surely that is getting behind the aircraft? Surely a botched approach is the same thing - getting behind the aircraft.
Of course there are "bad habits" in GA and operational skills that can be taught and learned, like the care and feeding of engines, navigation, etc., but the fact remains, how do you ensure that pilots don't get behind the aircraft? I don't think you can teach that in a large aircraft.
My gut feel is that the cadets schemes and "GA is not relevant" crowd are self serving arguments by those who want to drive costs down, and nothing else.