I spent almost two hours doing my upgrade oral about 5 years ago. Although I had flown the EMB, I decided to upgrade on the RJ. Out of the two hours spent on the oral we spent less than 5 minutes on aircraft systems. The entire oral was on the FOM, Op Specs, MX procedures, FARs, etc. At the end of the oral the examiner asked for some feedback. I told him how surprised I was that we had hardly talked about the aircraft. He responded by saying that we had learned the aircraft in class and in the sim, and that the stuff we had talked about was more related to being a Captain. I had similar questions as Tony and it had come as somewhat as a surprise.

I've been told that it comes down to one thing for the instructor/DE. Would I feel safe putting my family onboard your aircraft the day after you finish Captain IOE? You could answer all of the questions correctly and fly the sim and aircraft just fine and still not past that test.

I've recognized a few First Officers that can fly the aircraft just fine but I couldn't imagine them being in the Left Seat. Judgement, initiative and so on are lacking. We all know someone of this type. We've even had captains sent back to the right seat because of this.

I should add that I'm not saying that this applied to Tony.