I learned about aviation from... TMAAT...

[Ian_J]

Not overwhelmed. Just calling it like I see it. It's not happening daily. But a couple times a year, I definitely see a guy/girl that needs to pegged down from sky high to ground reality.


Example. FO does the walkaround, apparently saw a mechanic outside and told him about the issue, never mentions it to me. I'm fat dumb and happy. Then D-20 mechanic comes aboard and asks me questions, I'm clueless. First I'm hearing this issue. FO "takes over" and has the conversation with the mechanic.


Yeah, I put that as "right seat CA behavior." Any FO with common sense would think to include the CA in a mechanical issue said FO discovered.


I mean... right?



And in 2018 or 19, I already shared my story of an ex-Corpie who just added extra fuel without running it by me first.

Sorry, I was a FO for 11 yrs total. I would have NEVER dreamed of doing these things to the CA. It's anti-CRM, disrespectful IMO.

Yeah, you’re right.

I was just wondering why it’s happening to you more often than others.

 

[Ian_J]

Not overwhelmed. Just calling it like I see it. It's not happening daily. But a couple times a year, I definitely see a guy/girl that needs to pegged down from sky high to ground reality.


Example. FO does the walkaround, apparently saw a mechanic outside and told him about the issue, never mentions it to me. I'm fat dumb and happy. Then D-20 mechanic comes aboard and asks me questions, I'm clueless. First I'm hearing this issue. FO "takes over" and has the conversation with the mechanic.


Yeah, I put that as "right seat CA behavior." Any FO with common sense would think to include the CA in a mechanical issue said FO discovered.


I mean... right?



And in 2018 or 19, I already shared my story of an ex-Corpie who just added extra fuel without running it by me first.

Sorry, I was a FO for 11 yrs total. I would have NEVER dreamed of doing these things to the CA. It's anti-CRM, disrespectful IMO.

Crap, I just noticed you said it happened just a couple of times a year. Missed that. Yeah, that’s not so bad.

 

[Cherokee_Cruiser]

Are you guys really surprised?


This was not me. What better example than a virtual airline that made the news when a plane had to go back to the gate because the CA and FO couldn't get along? It was over the fuel load of a flight from DC to LAX.

Imagine. Being a FO and feeling so strongly about the flight plan fuel, that it ends up killing CRM and both want off the plane.




Me, when I was FO? This is how it would have played out:


"Hey Cap, how do you feel about the flight plan fuel? There's a lotta WX around here and we are landing with X.X fuel on arrival."


Capt: "Nah, it's all good, flight plan load is fine."

Me: "Ok"




Two scenarios:

Land LAX: [nothing more needs to be said]


Divert PHX or LAS for a fuel stop:

Me: "So Cap, probably should have taken that extra fuel in DC eh?"


[take off again, go to LAX, call it good]



I wouldn't for the life of me fathom walking off over a disagreement on the dispatch-planned fuel load. And if scenario 2 happened, that CA probably learned a lesson.

 

[Cherokee_Cruiser]

Though nothing compares to a CA wanting to divert and a FFDO F/O threatening against that. LOLz

 

[averettpilot]

Ok as a new FO and not really familiar with the niceties on the 121 flight deck, it slightly drives me nuts when the captain shows up and tries to make me pick who flies first. It’s way more comfortable to have the captain take the lead and say “I’ll take the first leg” “you good to take the first leg?” Or “wanna spin/flip for first leg?” Than for both of us to sit there staring at eachother going “I don’t care, what do YOU want?”. At the last job as a captain because of the way our schedules and pairings were set up when we got a trip I usually had an idea how I wanted the rotation to go and I’d just make sure the FO was good with it too.

I’m at my first airline ever and as a captain to boot so I’m also learning the niceties of the 121 environment. When I ask this question I already have a definite preference in mind, I’m just deferring to the FO to see if they have a preference. If they don’t it’s a snap call to what I already wanted. Honestly if it didn’t make me “that guy” I’d take all the legs cause I like my stick time, but I’m not that guy so I try to let my FOs have a say in what they want to fly

 

[Cherokee_Cruiser]

Question is why?


Here's my theory. When I went through in 2007, we were FOs for years. Much longer than any of us wanted. And even when joined our major, the upgrade still took a while. Me joining my regional in Oct 2007, and then one jump to my major/LCC in early 2012, the earliest I could have held CA was Dec 2017. 10 yrs, 2 months since regional Indoc.

The last few yrs? Minimum time spent as RJ FO, upgrade straight to CA, and then straight to a major airline. They have more CA time than they do FO time. Minimal time spent as FO. That's my guess as to why these things are happening. They're honed as CAs, that some forget what it was to be FO and take a supportive role towards the CA.

 

[Jordan793]

When I was a captain at my regional, I always gave the FOs the first leg. It gets old when you only fly into hubs and do the same thing every time. i can count on one hand the number of times I’ve landed in Europe/South America/Africa as an FO. I could fly back to JFK with my eyes closed from these destinations.

 

[killbilly]

When I was a captain at my regional, I always gave the FOs the first leg. It gets old when you only fly into hubs and do the same thing every time. i can count on one hand the number of times I’ve landed in Europe/South America/Africa as an FO. I could fly back to JFK with my eyes closed from these destinations.

This is why the two-leg swap is so good.

CA flies first leg (to outstation)
FO flies next two (hub/outstation)
CA flies next two, etc - repeat for rest of pairing.

At my shop this doesn’t work as well since we have a LOT of 1 and 2 leg days, but that seems to be changing as we are doing more stuff with the Canabus.

 

[bimmerphile]

Question is why?


Here's my theory. When I went through in 2007, we were FOs for years. Much longer than any of us wanted. And even when joined our major, the upgrade still took a while. Me joining my regional in Oct 2007, and then one jump to my major/LCC in early 2012, the earliest I could have held CA was Dec 2017. 10 yrs, 2 months since regional Indoc.

The last few yrs? Minimum time spent as RJ FO, upgrade straight to CA, and then straight to a major airline. They have more CA time than they do FO time. Minimal time spent as FO. That's my guess as to why these things are happening. They're honed as CAs, that some forget what it was to be FO and take a supportive role towards the CA.

that’s correct, and I can play FO until I see a dumb move happening and the CA has their thumb up between their cheeks, because they’ve either been insulated from bad ops for 15 years and don’t see it coming or are too lazy to do anything about it

a leadership void will be filled, from either seat

 

[Cherokee_Cruiser]

that’s correct, and I can play FO until I see a dumb move happening and the CA has their thumb up between their cheeks, because they’ve either been insulated from bad ops for 15 years and don’t see it coming or are too lazy to do anything about it

a leadership void will be filled, from either seat

I mean, as FO, unless safety of flight is/was about to be affected, I couldn’t care less what they do. I would learn from them, for better or worse. Take all the great attributes of a good CA and learn from the bad ones in terms of how not to be. This, over 11 yrs as FO.

 

[bimmerphile]

I mean, as FO, unless safety of flight is/was about to be affected, I couldn’t care less what they do. I would learn from them, for better or worse. Take all the great attributes of a good CA and learn from the bad ones in terms of how not to be. This, over 11 yrs as FO.

your ideal CA traits are different from someone else’s, essentially you are trying to be what you think is a good CA based on your personality and ignoring that your FOs might favor different traits in leadership because they think differently than you

 

[Cherokee_Cruiser]

your ideal CA traits are different from someone else’s, essentially you are trying to be what you think is a good CA based on your personality and ignoring that your FOs might favor different traits in leadership because they think differently than you

Well, I am a dead center C in the DiSC Assessment.

I think ignoring and bypassing the CA altogether in decision making is not a good leadership trait in a FO.

 

[ERfly]

Are you guys really surprised?


This was not me. What better example than a virtual airline that made the news when a plane had to go back to the gate because the CA and FO couldn't get along? It was over the fuel load of a flight from DC to LAX.

Imagine. Being a FO and feeling so strongly about the flight plan fuel, that it ends up killing CRM and both want off the plane.




Me, when I was FO? This is how it would have played out:


"Hey Cap, how do you feel about the flight plan fuel? There's a lotta WX around here and we are landing with X.X fuel on arrival."


Capt: "Nah, it's all good, flight plan load is fine."

Me: "Ok"




Two scenarios:

Land LAX: [nothing more needs to be said]


Divert PHX or LAS for a fuel stop:

Me: "So Cap, probably should have taken that extra fuel in DC eh?"


[take off again, go to LAX, call it good]



I wouldn't for the life of me fathom walking off over a disagreement on the dispatch-planned fuel load. And if scenario 2 happened, that CA probably learned a lesson.

That's the one culture thing I REALLY like about where I work. There is almost always a discussion over the flight plan release before the Captain signs it.

Most of the time, it's:
CA: "Have you had a chance to look at it?"
Me: "Yeah."
CA: "Happy with everything? Anything stand out to you?"
Me: "Nope" Captain signs.

Since I'm fairly new on the plane, I'm still learning what comfortable FOD is. On the MD, anything less than 14K was concerning. On this, it seems around 11K FOD is generally a happy number. If it's less than that, I'll ask the Captain what his/his her opinion is, based on their knowledge. Once they explain their reasoning, I'm cool with it. However, just about every one of them as said, "But if you want more, I'm perfectly ok adding more."

It's little things like that I appreciate. It took several months of being here for the shock of being asked if I was ok with the release to wear off. That didn't really every happen at my previous employer.

I've only had a couple of Captains here just blindly sign the release before we have a discussion (and in one case, before we even met). It's generally a red flag and any assumptions I had about what lay ahead generally came true.

 

[BEEF SUPREME]

Not overwhelmed. Just calling it like I see it. It's not happening daily. But a couple times a year, I definitely see a guy/girl that needs to pegged down from sky high to ground reality.


Example. FO does the walkaround, apparently saw a mechanic outside and told him about the issue, never mentions it to me. I'm fat dumb and happy. Then D-20 mechanic comes aboard and asks me questions, I'm clueless. First I'm hearing this issue. FO "takes over" and has the conversation with the mechanic.


Yeah, I put that as "right seat CA behavior." Any FO with common sense would think to include the CA in a mechanical issue said FO discovered.


I mean... right?



And in 2018 or 19, I already shared my story of an ex-Corpie who just added extra fuel without running it by me first.

Sorry, I was a FO for 11 yrs total. I would have NEVER dreamed of doing these things to the CA. It's anti-CRM, disrespectful IMO.

So my last month as an FO I had all evening turns to PSP and SNA. The universe, in its infinite cruelty gave me the line I wanted the month before I was going to upgrade. I'll never see that again. Anyway I was doing the same PSP turns every night one week and there was bad weather in PSP very cold and almost snowing, it was February. The captain wasn't around when the fueler showed up in SEA. They were giving us load permitting fuel and I knew we would get wing frost because we were going to tanker fuel. So I called dispatch and asked that we didn't tanker fuel to PSP because there was no de ice capability in PSP. As soon as the captain showed I told him what I did and why and told him the fuel truck was still there so he could change it if he wanted. He seemed pretty pleased with the decision and it was a non event.

 

[Cherokee_Cruiser]

So my last month as an FO I had all evening turns to PSP and SNA. The universe, in its infinite cruelty gave me the line I wanted the month before I was going to upgrade. I'll never see that again. Anyway I was doing the same PSP turns every night one week and there was bad weather in PSP very cold and almost snowing, it was February. The captain wasn't around when the fueler showed up in SEA. They were giving us load permitting fuel and I knew we would get wing frost because we were going to tanker fuel. So I called dispatch and asked that we didn't tanker fuel to PSP because there was no de ice capability in PSP. As soon as the captain showed I told him what I did and why and told him the fuel truck was still there so he could change it if he wanted. He seemed pretty pleased with the decision and it was a non event.

That’s reasonable, you have a good argument for it.

 

[Cherokee_Cruiser]

That's the one culture thing I REALLY like about where I work. There is almost always a discussion over the flight plan release before the Captain signs it.

Most of the time, it's:
CA: "Have you had a chance to look at it?"
Me: "Yeah."
CA: "Happy with everything? Anything stand out to you?"
Me: "Nope" Captain signs.

Since I'm fairly new on the plane, I'm still learning what comfortable FOD is. On the MD, anything less than 14K was concerning. On this, it seems around 11K FOD is generally a happy number. If it's less than that, I'll ask the Captain what his/his her opinion is, based on their knowledge. Once they explain their reasoning, I'm cool with it. However, just about every one of them as said, "But if you want more, I'm perfectly ok adding more."

It's little things like that I appreciate. It took several months of being here for the shock of being asked if I was ok with the release to wear off. That didn't really every happen at my previous employer.

I've only had a couple of Captains here just blindly sign the release before we have a discussion (and in one case, before we even met). It's generally a red flag and any assumptions I had about what lay ahead generally came true.

Ours is all electronic. Most CA and FOs sign even before showing up to the airplane.

 

[Skåning]

That's the one culture thing I REALLY like about where I work. There is almost always a discussion over the flight plan release before the Captain signs it.

I like that, think I’m gonna steal it

 

[MikeD]

I've seen before where I had to put on CA pants on, and the problematic type A F/Os answer was "we are supposed to be a team here." Oh we are - but there is one Capt here, not two - which is ultimately what the problem was at this moment.

“But one thing you don’t do, is share command. It’s never…. a good….. Idea”

 

[MikeD]

Man, reading some of these FO horror stories, makes me glad I’m at a 121 supplemental part time, where the majority of guys have 30-33+ years flying the 737. And who get phased or get bothered by ….nothing, really.

 

[Cherokee_Cruiser]

“But one thing you don’t do, is share command. It’s never…. a good….. Idea”