Thank God it goes down the toilet with the J model. You learn the ops limits you need and you don't fill your head with useless herc trivia. Feel free to learn the construct of the 1553 data bus and desribe the path of electron from a BAU to the MC, but do it in private, don't bore the crew. If I cannot touch it, fix it, reset it, overspeed it from where I'm sitting but I know how it works, why in the hell would I need to memorize when the sphitzer valve opens or closes +or - 5? Don't get me wrong, the crews I fly with have been flying the J for longer than anyone (except the Brits). We know the plane- we just don't play gay engineer games about"where's the wooden roller or what part did Harley Davidson make or how many holes in the urinal." The checklist is king and that is what we teach. It has been revised probably 15 times since I started fly the J and you'd be hard pressed to find a situation that cannot be solved by the book. We do have some guys who couldn't break away and found nuggets of knowledge to fill the voids of their brains, but that is not the norm. Initially I had the same worries as you. I was fresh out of CIQ at LRF and could spout all forms of knowledge and draw most systems. I felt uncomfortable in the J. After a couple thousand hours, I got over it.
Can you tell me how many pounds of force it takes to pop the trunk of your car or how many lug nuts are on each tire and number of threads showing after properly torqued?