"Krztalizer" wrote in message
...

A Finnish pilot who was in F-18 training in USA told that most USN (I
don't
recall whether it was an USN or USMC base) mechanics receive surprisingly
little overall training, by Finnish standards.

I think the more likely scenario is that your Finnish pilot friend had
very
little exposure to the vast amounts of training that USN mechanics go
through -
I seriously doubt if most pilots in any air force are completely up to
date on
the training aspects of a junior enlisted person's life.

My memory is fuzzy so I dug out the original article. Person in question was
not a pilot but a Finnish mechanic. Here's his exact words (my translation):
"In Finnish Air Force mechanics need a long and throught training, but in
USA much of the technical work is done by recruit with a couple of weeks
theoretic training. -Maybe that's why Americans sometimes had hard time to
grasp that we at rank of Lieutenant still actually do something to the
aircraft." Obviously I cannot personally verify how accurate his description
is.