Re: spl23
".....Are you sure you've got that the right way around? Speaking as a PPL with a lot of rotary experience, I find it hard to believe you would give slots flying helos to the worst pilots....." Again, "worst pilot" from a fighter selection process does not mean the one with the worst spatial awareness or reflexes, it's more a matter of the overall package plus attitude. Some people can be exceptional pilots yet not be natural fighter pilots, and other good pilots suffer more quickly from information overload (a modern fighter pilot has not only his onboard systems fighting for his attention, he also has to co-ordinate and manouvere with at least a wingman plus probably other friendly fighters, local ground- and air-control such as AWACS, his own defense systems such as lase detectors, radar detectors, jammers and flares, his own detection systems, and then his weapon systems as well, all the while still doing the actual manual task of flying the aircraft). Helo pilots more often fly single aircraft missions on shorter flights, and usually don't carry as complex systems.
But, if you want an historic example of whirlybods screwing up where fast movers didn't, when the USMC first ordered the Harrier they decided chopper pilots should fly it because they had experience of hovering and landing. They turned out to have the worst accident record of any group of Harrier pilots (more than twice as bad as the Indian Navy pilots, for example!), a record that was much improved when the USMC switched fast jet pilots to flying the type.