This would hold more water with me if I didn't read the Aftermath and On
The Record columns in Flying magazine religiously every month and see a
lot of accidents with 10,000 hour ATP pilots doing stupid things in
piston singles.

It's also possible that the ATP, since he's all high and mighty flying
big iron, doesn't properly respect the task of driving a little spam can
around for personal use and so lets his guard and judgement down.

Also remember that a captain for a major airline probably has a dispatch
department that does the scut work of calculating loads, fuel, etc. for
him. Plus he has computers on board to help with those tasks. He also
has a co-pilot in his cockpit to help out and spot mistakes and back him
up. The airliners he flies have a much higher level of equipment and
automation than the skylane. Given all that, I just can't accept the
premise that an ATP heavy-iron driver is automatically peerless flying
Skylanes. That's like saying a long-haul truck driver's skills transfer
seemlessly to the task of being a safe and proficient bicyclist.



Michael wrote:


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