Agree with PDTFlyer - PDT ground was extremely different than my last ground (same plane). Much less of the watch building that I am used to - and good riddance I say. IMO PDT wasn't much of a fire hose - maybe an industrial garden hose. I'm all about learning and knowing your aircraft, but I don't miss my days of "I'm a spark of electricity coming from the GPU, I just got hooked up to the aircraft, tell me the path I'm going to take" Shoot me now
As far as the systems, it is very relative to what you're used to I believe. My previous turbine/advanced a/c time is military RW, so an 'old' 145 seems new and the systems are very automated in comparison. Heck, I believe the hydraulic system is about 5 pages in the AOM. I don't think a fuel and hydraulic system get much simpler.
Also agree with Flynboat - its the whole package that added to the challenge for me. All my time - except about 1000 hours flying IFR single/multi pistons pt 91 corporate - has been in crewed aircraft, but not 121. That was a big mind shift for me. Who's saying what, doing what and when - and saying it correctly to the letter was extremely distracting to me at first. IMO, if you have to devote any mental energy to IFR procedures, you have a chance to dig yourself into a pretty big hole.
Again all just my opinion, but difficult/easy is such a relative thing to the individual that it is really hard to say. Some guys may have never heard of N1/N2 and may struggle with basic systems. Other guys (me
) may have never flown planes in a 121 CRM environment, and be spitting out the V2 call as we're sailing through Vfs