That's a bull**** attitude.

Maybe. But it's real, and it doesn't spring ex-nihilo.

Sounds like, "you are not worthy of discussing a possible mistake on my part".

More or less the attitude I was trying to describe. If nothing else, I
seem to be communicating it correctly.

With lots of experience there naturally comes a certain reluctance to
try to explain/justify one's actions and decisions to a low time pilot
who lacks the depth of experience to understand the operation. A few
run-ins with some low time pilots who think they can be as safe as an
airline captain because of their great safety attitude, and who presume
to tell airline captains how to fly and believe they are entitled to an
explanation, only makes it worse.

An airline pilot who thinks he doesn't have any peers in the club where
he's flying a Skylane is a danger to all involved.

That's where I'm going to disagree with you. It is quite likely that
he has no peers in that club - no pilots qualified to critcize his
flying. It doesn't help that this was a night IFR operation. I have,
from time to time, provided IFR recurrent training in GA aircraft to
highly experienced pilots who were military and/or airline trained.
They really don't have any peers in the typical flying club.

Few of them will admit it, but they tend to see the ATP as the MINIMUM
standard of instrument pilot proficiency. To them, there are ATP's,
there are those who don't yet have the hours to get the ATP but are
working towards that goal and will breeze through the checkride when
the time comes, and there are the weekend warriors who aren't really
serious about their instrument flying and certainly are not entitled to
an opinion about how a night-IFR operation should be conducted. This
attitude is, in some part, responsible for me getting an ATP. I may
well be the only person who got an ATP because of peer pressure...

I've seen some highly experienced pilots do some fascinating stuff -
and was fortunate enough to learn from them. Often it required a
certain suspension of judgment - because what I was being taught was so
far beyond me, I had no real basis for evaluating it. Almost every
time, looking back with the benefit of hindsight and a couple thousand
hours of experience, what seemed nuts to me at the time actually made
sense. There were exceptions. Sometimes it really was a bad idea.

By the time someone has made captain at the majors, he has probably
(used to be certainly, but times have changed) had plenty of
opportunity to bust his ass. If he hasn't, it MIGHT be because he's
lucky even though he is stupid or reckless - but that's not the way to
bet. It's far more likely that he actually does know what he is doing,
and if it doesn't seem that way to you, the cause is your inexperience,
not his stupidity or recklessness. It's not certain, but that's the
way to bet.

Michael