Roland Perry wrote:
In message , at 12:40:39 on
Wed, 19 Jun 2013, Recliner remarked:
I'm a great believer in understanding what's going
on around you, and being interested in the jobs of people who affect you
directly, in the way signallers and ATC do (for drivers and pilots).

Equally, do signallers have cab rides (or sim sessions)? Or do
drivers spend any time in maintenance depots or train
factories/rebuilders? And how much time do pilots spend seeing how
their planes are built and maintained? Or do ATC officers have sim
sessions? I suspect the answer is a negative in each case.

As pilots are directly responsible for doing a visual engineering
inspection of their planes before every take-off, I sincerely hope they
have quite a good understanding of how they are built and maintained.
That's probably the most important 'crossover skill' on your list, but
all the others should be done to some extent or another.

It's more than just the visual inspection. Now that flight engineers are
long gone, pilots also have to do a certain amount of mechanical and
electronic trouble-shooting in the air, obviously helped by computer
systems and their colleagues at base. For example, in that recent case of a
BA A319 that had damage to both engines when the unlatched cowls flew off,
the pilots had to make some critical immediate decisions. Luckily, their
decisions were spot-on, probably helped by a decent understanding of what
was going on to their stricken plane.