I'm not going to argue with any of that because I agree that a TR is not role-specific. However that's only 50% of the job of a school SFI, the rest is recurrent training and there it IS role specific, at least when you are dealing with LOFT training.
Of course there is an element of good basic training in the mix and you are quite right, there is no substitute for knowing your systems and procedures. In this day and age of complex helicopters we often come across malfunctions that are not in the RFM so system knowledge and good airmanship combine to give us a quality we like to call 'pilot resilience'. It will make the difference between getting everyone on terra firma safely and not.....
This is where the sim scores so heavily and combined with a good SFI will make all the difference.
G
