Training (from BI to IOE) in the regional was a cakewalk compared to my pilot training and initial fighter qual courses. Not sure of their backgrounds, but my guess is that they, like any ex-mil pilot, must have a very detailed level of systems and operational procedures knowledge. With little redundancy, you have to know your jet inside and out, especially when the AAA starts taking pieces of your airplane off. Moreover, the rules a mil pilot has to comply with not only include all FARs, but also host nation (when you are stationed overseas), Air Force, Major Command and local flying regulations. Add to that all the tactics, techniques and procedures for employing the weapon system, and you can see there is tons to know. I love only having to worry about FARs, SOPs and FOM. The contract is not rocket science either.

When you try to apply that to the regional airline training, you can't get to the level of detail we are expected to know and where accustomed to in the military in that short amount of time. Airlines don't expect you to know all the aircraft systems to the engineering level (like we had to in the military). Rather you need to know what to do when the red, yellow numbers and lights start popping up - see QRH/IAI. Once they realized that they didn't have to know how many psi the fetzer valve will trigger a red light, then it was probably a non-issue for them from then on.