Originally Posted by
HeliComparator
This is the thing I hate most about military culture, it is all about point-scoring. If you are an instructor or examiner in civvy world you don't have to say you are the best pilot in the company. You don't have to prove you are the best pilot in the company. What you have to is have a good instructional technique (that doesn't function on having a "superior" attitude), know the syllabus, the required standard and relevant technical knowledge. And a bit of humility helps!
In the military so much time is spent getting the callipers out to measure the size of each other's balls that I wonder there is any time for flying!
Don't fall into the trap of tarring everyone with the same brush from your possibly own limited experience of military (or ex military) pilots.
From personal experience of about twenty years of both military and civilian flying, I'd say military aviation is all about getting the job done in the most efficient way. Just like the civilian world, really.
The difference is that the military are not constrained by making a profit and are able/must take more risks in training. The very nature of the military job demands great flexibility from their pilots and therefore must expose them to a far broader band of operations. Most military trained helicopter pilots (at least the SH ones) can safely low fly, operate on NVG (or off), carry out USL work, carry VIPs, fly close formation, winch over water or land and even transit to and land on an offshore installation etc etc. They are unlikely to be as competent at any one role as the "role specialists" (I'm thinking both SAR and/or N.Sea pilots fall into that definition) but they can usually get most jobs done. They are selected with that in mind.
However, long time role specialist experts can become blinkered and type cast. I recall flying with "old and bold" pilots who seemed to know everything there was to know about their branch of aviation and were regarded as demi-gods within their own field. But take them out of that environment and they just couldn't cope. For example, one highly regarded RAF QFI and chief examiner (head of standards) once took me to one side and quietly quizzed me about landing on a grass strip by night with no centreline or approach lighting. He was obviously very concerned at the thought of doing so on a future detachment. I was very inexperienced on the aircraft type (fixed wing) but thought nothing of it because as a helicopter pilot I had spent very little of my time landing on brightly lit tarmac runways and had been trained to land on unlit grass. He thanked me for helping put his mind at rest by imparting what knowledge I had. I was quite humbled that he saw me as far more knowledgeable than he was, at least in that respect.
I've also known a number of instances where fairly highly experienced "North Sea trained" helicopter pilots try to move onshore to the corporate world and really struggle because it's beyond their previous level of experience. Some of them go back to the more predictable role of IFR route flying. I've known one ex N.Sea pilot who was completely freaked out by flying below MSA to totally unlit landing sites by night in the casevac/SAR role and quit the job very soon after his arrival. I know because I replaced him. Got those calipers out... not very big, in fact just small (but beautifully marked).