From an Ops boys perspective...95% of my freelance pilots are Ex-Mil guys and I can't fault them, some of them of course are away with the fairies and believe the sun shines out of their rears but at the end of the day they go where I ask them with minimal hassle, they always look the part, they're confident in their abilities and I'm yet to have a punter grumble. Having said that my guys have been around the civvie circuit for a wee while now and know the commercial constraints of running a charter company. A couple of times now I've tried fresh faced guys who have just left the services, complete disaster, it would appear that unless somebody is sat in the l/h seat telling them which direction to go and where to land they couldn't find a landing site even if it had coloured smoke grenades and a great big arrow from the sky. Once the punters are on board it is then decided to take the pretty route therefore throwing my profits clean out of the window, and if a light comes on, oh jesus, pan call, mayday mayday mayday, oh hold on it's just the interior light. Having wittered on far too much, from my view I like having Ex Mil guys on my books they just need to have been in the civilian world for a while before I'll touch them. As for civilian trained guys, I'm not too sure, I haven't encountered too many and the ones I do know seem oddly nervous and unsure about things, but as I said I don't know too many...