NCYankee wrote:
You want to see a scary sight, check out a retired airline captain at a non towered airport.
I have heard from several rental outfits that the people most likely to bend a SEP are – airline captains. I have a few friends who fly ‘heavy iron’ and to their credit they all realize that. In fact one of them – who I would consider perhaps the best pilot I ever had the pleasure to fly with! – recently asked me to come flying with him, as he didn’t feel at ease in a Cessna anymore. Not all people who wear epaulettes consider themselves skygods – although it looks like lenthamen met one who does. Forget it.
He could only give that answer because he flies 737s. If he flew Airbus, it wouldn’t even be possible to couple an autopilot to an NDB (or directly to any nav source like one VOR). So I’d say you and Airbus got it right and he is one of the tough guys with an “If it ain’t Boeing, I’m not going” sticker on his flight bag.
I wonder how that guy could possibly be functional in a cockpit. Maybe he is not? Maybe that is why he never went beyond 737s?
“Oh I believe in resource management all right………your the resource and I’m the management!”
Reprinted from Air Line Pilot, April 1988.
I have a similar story, some years ago a 737 captain for a well established EU airliner was not able to reach his planned FL and explained me some theory of local Mach number and perhaps temperature negatively effecting this but later in the flight they were able to reach that level. When I introduced to him concept of max. ceiling at given weight it was kind of rejected. But few days later I received a phone call from him – “…you are right”
It is not very long ago that I was sitting in the restaurant of our tennis club, waiting for my son to finish his training. I had my iPad on the table and looked at some IFR aproach charts, preparing for my IFR check the next day. A younger guy, maybe 35, at the next table saw the chart, smiled at me and asked me for what “company i was flying”. I said “for none”, and that I was just a private pilot, trying to understand some details on that chart. I think he said he flew for Air Berlin.
So he came over, explained some stuff on the chart to me, and then one word led to another and i showed him some pictures of the Cirrus (;-)) He had never seen that type, he said, he only knew Cessnas and Pipers from his training. He had “no idea that were small airplanes with glass cockpits” … and later i realized that he really meant it. He really knew next to nothing about GA and he also said: “It’s just a job, I would never spend my free time flying around”. (I never met him again :-))
Then I told that story to my friend who flies A340-600s, he is a senior captain – who rents 172s at his club whenever he has time to fly his family or friends. He flew F-104s in the navy and was an instructor on the Tornado later. He then told me how he, every nown and then, asks a young First Officer to hand fly an ILS in IMC … and how some of the youngs guys really don’t like that and get very tense … And that some of these young copilots are absolutely not interested in the flying part.
Flyer59 wrote:
And that some of these young copilots are absolutely not interested in the flying part.
How did they manage to become pilots in the first place, and why? For most people the road to a right seat is so long that you they need to stay motivated and put up with all kind of shit to get there.
Would there be differences between those who cruised through the airline cadets, and those who obtained their licenses at ATOs, had to build experience instructing, flying freight at night in airplanes barely flying, then on to commuters and finally after years of sacrifices made it into a major airline or a corporate jet outfit?
How did they manage to become pilots in the first place, and why?
I think it’s a new class of pilots, and sometimes i see that kinde with the local flight school. Their parents pay the ticket for them and for many of them, like that other guy i described, just see it as a “job”. Most of them have no interest in technical aspects and study the stuff just to get through the exams, and we all know that you don’t have to understand anything to pass those.
One thing is clear though: that’s not the kind I’d like to be flying with when both engines stop at 3000 ft AGL over the Bronx … (I was just writing that story for my book all day :-))
Pilots like that take the jobs away from those who really like it and then badmouth it all the time. Not my kind of guy.
The same goes for this kind of sky god who will do what the OP told about. Disgusted does not come close. Folks like that should not be let loose on the public, let alone an airplane.
RWY20
You can’t couple the AP on a 737 to an ADF signal.
Your opinion that Airbus have got things correct is far from the truth, some might say that the pilot / Aircraft interface is the worst feature of the Airbus and has been a contubuty factor in a number of accidents.
While the Boeing is far from perfect and in some ways it is showing its age but it is a far better man/machine interface.
Aircraft interface is the worst feature of the Airbus and has been a contubuty factor in a number of accidents.
While the Boeing is far from perfect and in some ways it is showing its age but it is a far better man/machine interface.
That’s a very exclusive opinion that is not supported by most people in the industry.
