Not at all sir. I suggest you read what I'm actually saying (and have said consistently on here for 5 years) before tarring me with that brush. I have always said it is *imperative* that basic stick-and-rudder skills be maintained and that pilots should have a knowledge base relating to the type or types they are operating that is as complete as humanly possible. I think it's dispiriting and borderline scandalous that the airline industry sometimes treats its crews with so little respect and that it is as engaged in the "race to the bottom" as any other industry you care to name - see a rant I made on this very topic here:
DW you are right about this and I apologize for my comment. I also do not mean to come across that the pilots on flight 447 were in anyway incompetent. That would not be fair at all since I was not there and whom am I to judge. I do not like the system nor the training department. You have to know that throughout the whole incident those pilots used every ounce of their collective knowledge and experience and this one time it was not enough.
Could I have done any better? I am 53 years old and still flying. Luckily I have reached the point to be able to say I am not as good as one time I pretended to be. I know now the system (training department) does not and cannot cover all the bases and since we know this we must try to cover the gaps the best that we can. That is our responsibility we have to ourselves, each other and to the passengers who fly with us.
No, maybe I could not or would not have done better. We are only speculating here and that is not really bad since we are learning still (whether we admit it or not) from each other. I have never been in an unknown situation (flying or not) for that long amount of time with all those insidious conflicting information, we really do not know how we would have reacted especially when you throw in the "dark and stormy" bit with several hundred people in the back. Sometimes simulators do not simulate very well since that cannot simulate real fear other then the fear of your loss of ticket. Not the same at all is it?
Until bean counters quit ruling the earth which I do not think is going to happen anytime soon we have to stick together and do the best we can with the crap we are given.
Good day gentlemen.