[QUOTE=
You military guys must have something similar ... airplanes that were more hostile to your career and your longevity than an enemy AA battery manned by overly ambitious staff officers.[/QUOTE]

Buck,
Some great stories from the E120.
I'd say with Navy transports at least, the biggest difference is your QRH is just for handling the emergencies, then it's most pilots goals to have diagnosed the actual problem through pulling and reseting circuit breakers inflight prior to giving the plane back to maint.
Navy maint folks cycle through often, so you don't have the level of expertise there and if you turned in a plane and said AOA out of service, they'd have it down for 24 hours of diagnostics and a FCF required to test their best guess of a repair. If you wrote up, #1 AOA gage heater inop, then they'd fix that right away.
Also, for a long time, the Navy treats every aircraft tire as if it's next landing is onboard a carrier. I literally pressed my thumbnail on the side of a DC9 tire one time and the crew chief thought it was a sidewall cut and therefore tire is no good. ANY cord showing, tire is considered out of service. Now of course location can have an effect on tire condition, IE tires always good enough for Afghanistan takeoff. I have NEVER heard of a Navy transport having a blown tire on a normal landing unless the aircraft had another issue first.