O Captain! My Captain

[loopa]

I believe another point worth mentioning is that the guy/gal in the right seat is a captain to be one day. The more informative his/her captains' decision making process, the better they can analyze what the person in the left seat is thinking. As well - it removes doubts as to what's actually going on when something irregular is happening.

I've found in my time, the best captain's I've flown with have been the types that with a few words could explain what it is they were doing if it was outside of normal operations. Their train of thought made sense, and would ultimately work its way into SOP structure within the company. These captain's usually ended their reasoning with "does my train of thought make sense? / are you comfortable with that?" Very important to maintain such advocacy in the flight deck.

[P180]

I was told years ago that the only thing in the cockpit that more dangerous the a copilot that just became a captain is a captain that just became a copilot.Something to think about.I have flown with captains that shouldn,t even be driving.I left a good job because of just that if you don,t like what you see being done say something thats your right and could be your life..

[Brown Bear]

So many of you post of captains that shouldn't be there. Most of this can be written off to differences in personality. Seriously, I've been flying with a CPL or higher since 1974, and I've flown with TWO captains who should probably have been doing something else. Just because you don't see eye to eye on everything, doesn't mean the guy is dangerous. The biggest a hole in the company just may be the one who saves your bacon. Personality and safety are not necessarily related. The captain who rubs your nose in the fact that he's the KING, just might be picking up on YOUR haughty attitude. You may not see it. He may. Again, gentle, polite suggestion will go a lot further than veiled hostilities. It's just a job. I can't remember the last time I had a disagreement with my cohort. Except he's not a BEARS fan. I find this annoying as Hell!

[Never Mind]

The captain who rubs your nose in the fact that he's the KING, just might be picking up on YOUR haughty attitude. You may not see it. He may. Again, gentle, polite suggestion will go a lot further than veiled hostilities.

BINGO!!!

[frozen solid]

Except he's not a BEARS fan. I find this annoying as Hell!

I can sympathise. I've had cockpit partners who like country music, and one who actually believed the moon landings were a hoax, and even one who didn't believe in evolution!!! You just can't get along with these people!

[Colonel Sanders]

Just because you don't see eye to eye on everything, doesn't mean the guy is dangerous

This is a problem with young people that have never
held a real job, before they went to aviation college
and then into the right seat of a turbine twin.

I have worked with some extremely difficult, unpleasant
and highly political people at the very large, multinational
corporations I have worked at, in the past. They made me
look like Mother Theresa. Land sharks.

However, just because I didn't like them, didn't mean
they were incompetent. Far from it. Many young people
seem to think that you can measure someone's IQ by how
much they agree with you

You don't have to like someone, for them to be extremely
competent. Many young and naive people believe this to be
the case - that the more you like someone, the more competent
they must be. Like the "easy" teachers they had so recently
in high school, that taught them nothing.

[loopa]

Well said Colonel!

The only thing I wonder though is, if somebody is ultimately unpleasant to fly with (for what ever reason), does that hype up a safety issue in the flight deck? And is the safety issue the person that doesn't like the other? Is it the person that is disliked?

[Prodriver]

The captain is the one not getting the coffee! Seriously though, the more diversity one is exposed to in the cockpit is a good thing, good and bad, it is how one learns and gains his own experience and grows as a competent pilot and professional. Every one was green once and this exposure is how we learn and grow from those +/- experiences that shapes us.

"I really thought someone was coming out w/ that subject line! My god man! " Change that.

[Brown Bear]

I was in PIT at US Air doing my recurrent SIM in the F27. Got a call from an FAA inspector. Would I mind riding right seat to a Mexican captain, and left seat to the FO? Seems they hated each other's guts and WOULD NOT do a ride together. It was very bizarre. I found them to be both very nice guys. A woman was involved. 'Nuf said.

[loopa]

A woman was involved. 'Nuf said.

You aren't possibly insinuating that male pilot's are BETTER than woman pilots?

[Big Pistons Forever]

A woman was involved. 'Nuf said.

You aren't possibly insinuating that male pilot's are BETTER than woman pilots?

I am betting that the two guys were chasing the same woman.........

[loopa]

A woman was involved. 'Nuf said.

You aren't possibly insinuating that male pilot's are BETTER than woman pilots?

I am betting that the two guys were chasing the same woman.........

hahaha!

[frozen solid]

... Would I mind riding right seat to a Mexican captain, and left seat to the FO? ...

I don't understand. What kind of plane has three seats across the cockpit?

[single_swine_herder]

Although not common by any means, the Beech Twin Bonanza sat 3 across ...scroll down about 1/3 of the way for a cockpit shot.

http://jatosajatos.blogspot.ca/2012/02/ ... -king.html

[Jack In The Box]

Brown Bears posts are spot on. It's very necessary for FO's to be assertive when needed but there's a line. I've found a lot of FO's to be very timid and do not speak up when they should. Learning when and how to speak up respectfully and effectively is a learning curve for all-one that I found being a Captain myself really helped myself along. However being rude or a know it all (and these I've flown with as well) is no more a desirable trait than not being assertive enough..

BB I'd fly with you any day! But I'm not a Bears fan, sorry.

[Colonel Sanders]

the Beech Twin Bonanza sat 3 across

I still fly one.





Couldn't find anyone to check me out in it, so
off I went, with the POH in my lap. GO-480 Lycs
and pressure carbs.

[Brown Bear]

That became the Queen Air....

[frozen solid]

How very odd. I've never seen this before. I guess if the other guy is bugging you it gives you a place to go sulk:

[Colonel Sanders]

That's the fancy training dual-yoke configuration. The
one I fly has the normal single-yoke, which gives you
lots of room in the front. However, it's a bit of a skit
to swing it up and over in flight, to the other side.

Despite it's draggy appearance, it really hustles. We
fly it easily in formation with the 421's at low altitude.

And the sound of those GO-480's into those augmenter
tubes ... it sounds just incredible. Twelve cylinders and
almost a thousand cubic inches, spun up with the gearing.

It's fun with ATC, who have never heard of a "D50" before.

[pelmet]

I was told years ago that the only thing in the cockpit that more dangerous the a copilot that just became a captain is a captain that just became a copilot.Something to think about.I have flown with captains that shouldn,t even be driving.I left a good job because of just that if you don,t like what you see being done say something thats your right and could be your life..

I knew a guy who was chief pilot and eventually made his way down to co-pilot on type for a while.

[pelmet]

Google "CC130 fire key west"

Perhaps one of the finest examples of a very appropriate and necessary deviation from the SOP. Very well handled by both the front and back ends individually, and the crew as a whole.

Is there any detailed info on this. Doesn't DND publish accident reports somewhere?

[single_swine_herder]

Admittedly, my memory on this one is very fuzzy, but a similar decision to vary from SOPs and training which worked out for the Hercules crew in Key West on a very long runway resulted in the now defunct Skyward Aviation (formerly) of Thompson caused them to run a Cessna Citation off the end of the runway at Rawlins, Wyoming when they rejected above V1, bounced their way past the fuel pumps at a gas station, then burst into flame. Luckily, the crew escaped through a hole in the wreckage.

http://aviation-safety.net/database/rec ... 19980724-0

On a statistical basis, I would suspect pilots don't do well at the virtually instantaneous development of spontaneous procedures on their own when compared to the collective thought through and trained actions of the collective knowledge of thousands of fellow aviators ...... in the vast majority of situations.

[Rowdy]

I would say 90% of it is personality conflicts. I've flown with a couple of guys that no matter what, we were just not going to be buddies, but we flew the airplane appropriately. There have been only TWO skippers I flew with that I thought were going to kill someone at some point. One is no longer and the other was fired from that particular company (unrelated) and I don't believe is in aviation anymore. I spoke to both of them after some 'events' during our flights together.. both were very receptive and i thought it was positive. After hearing from some of the other FO's at the time, I decided it in best interest to pass this along further up the chain. Fortunately, or unfortunately, after that I never did get to fly with either to see if there had been any changes. I will have to say though, that outside of the airplane, I liked both.


BB you've got it spot on. We're both their to do the job, fly the plane and get home safely. One needs not worry so much about the 'title'.

[Gannet167]

The Herc accident in question is actually somewhat related to the OP.

"The investigation team identified that a stainless steel braided flexible hydraulic line associated with the auxiliary hydraulic system pump was breached where it routed next to an electrical power cable" http://www.rcaf-arc.forces.gc.ca/en/fli ... r/hky1dmyy

Basically, the aux hydro line was chaffing against something, it ruptured and an electrical arc caused a jet of flame followed by a fireball from the mist of high pressure hydro fluid. The loadmaster quickly told the Captain (Aircraft Commander) what was happening and based on his communication, the very unorthodox decision to put the aircraft back down on the runway was made. SOP, which I am normally a very big fan of, would have been to continue airborne, run some checklists and make an emergency landing. Luckily Key West has a long runway and the herc has no issue going over arresting cables - so the aborted takeoff after being airborne worked. Regardless of whether the runway was long enough or not, it is widely thought that based on the damage caused by the fire, they would not have made it around the circuit for an emergency landing.

Without getting into a discussion over reject speeds, ASDA and all that - the main take away from this as it relates to this thread is that a crew member was able to communicate something very important very effectively to the Captain, resulting in a split second and life saving decision. The other crew member who explained the situation to the Captain was not even a fellow pilot. I would suggest that this speaks to the necessity of having good communications and trust. The Capt could have thought that he didn't believe the loady's description of how bad the fire was, or thought he knew better. But as a team they saved the day and communications were an essential part of the result.

This is a picture of the interior damage, looking aft at the ramp. The light you see at the top of the picture is a hole burnt through the air frame.

[Castorero]

This thread has drifted a little and as providence would have it, I got an email from my old mentor Ron that put it all back in perspective.

Ron is cut from the same fabric as many old timers on this site, Cat, Rowdy, Xbank, Doc, The Colonel, to name one or two.

A no non-sense approach to imparting a life time of hard earned knowledge sometimes leaves behind some memorable moments, like when I was struggling to get the Beaver on the step in a narrow short dogleg slew in a stiff crosswind. It wasnt looking pretty, when Ron shouted above the din "you sonofabitch, are you trying to kill us?"


Rod, this is what it’s all about and how and why I survived 30,000 hrs of snow,fog, 1/4 mile visibility,gale force winds, low ceilings etc ,
in three of the worst places for VFR
flying in North America.. READ & HEED my son. Ron


The Payoff
Dedicated to Frank Crismon (1903-1990)
By Capt. G. C. Kehmeier (United Airlines, Ret.)


“I ought to make you buy a ticket to ride on this airliner!"
My new chief pilot's words to me were scalding!
I had just transferred from San Francisco to Denver. Frank Crismon, my new boss, was giving me a route check between Denver and Salt Lake City.
He continued: “Any man that flies for me will know this route,” he continued. “That ‘fourteen thousand feet will clear Kings Peak' is not adequate. You had better know that Kings Peak is exactly 14,256 feet high. And Bitter Creek is NOT ‘ABOUT 7,000 FEET.' It is exactly 7,185 feet. And the identifying code for its beacon is dash-dot dash-dash. I'm putting you on probation for one month. And then I'll ride with you again. If you want to work for me, you had better start studying immediately!"
Wow! He wasn't kidding!
Boeing 720-047B N93143 18063 Tucson Davis-Monthan Air Force Base - KDMA
For a month, I poured over sectional charts, road maps, Jeppesen approach charts, and topographic maps. I learned the elevation and code for every airway beacon between the West Coast and Chicago. I learned the frequencies, runway lengths, and approach procedures for every airport along the way. Then, from city maps, I plotted the location of all streets that would funnel me to all of the runways for each airport.
A month later the boss was back on my trip.
“How long is the north-south runway at Milford?”
Fifty one fifty.
“How high is Antelope Island?”
Sixty-seven hundred feet.
”If your radios fail on the Ogden-Salt Lake approach, what should you do?”
Make a climbing right turn to 290 degrees, then level off at 13,000.
“What is the elevation of the Upper Red Butte beacon?"
Seventy-three hundred.
"And how high is the airport at Laramie?”
Seventy-two fifty.
And this line of questioning went on from Denver to Salt Lake.
“I'm going to turn you loose on your own. Remember what you have learned. I don't ever want to be around when they are scraping you off some mountainside with a magazine your blood's pasted to your lap."
Twenty years later, I was the Captain on a Boeing 720 from San Francisco to Chicago. We were cruising in the clear cold air at 37,000 feet.
http://asimov52.files.wordpress.com/201 ... n722us.jpg
South of Grand Junction, Colorado, a deep low-pressure area fed moist air upslope into Denver, causing snow, low ceilings, and restricted visibility. The forecast for Chicago's O'Hare Field was 200 feet and one-half mile, barely minimums. Over the Utah-Colorado border, high mountains backbone showed white in the noonday sun. I switched on the intercom and shared:"We are over the juncture of the Gunnison and Colorado Rivers. On your right is America’s Switzerland…the San Juan Mountains. In 14 minutes we will pass over Denver. And we should arrive O'Hare at 3:30 Chicago time."
At this point, a key generator overheat light clicked on: RED!
"Number 2 engine's generator won't stay on the electrical bus," said the flight engineer. So he switched his power selector to number 3 engine. The power failure red light clicked off…
For 3 or 4 seconds.
Then it came back on…STEADY RED!
Quickly followed by a COMPLETE ELECTRICAL FAILURE!!
The flight engineer yelled, "Heavy smoke is coming out of the main power grid! Hand us the smoke goggles."
The engineer reached behind his seat, unzipped a small container, and handed the copilot and me each a pair of ski goggles. The smoke was getting thick. I slipped the emergency oxygen mask over my nose and mouth. By clicking a switch on the control wheel, I could talk to the copilot and the engineer through a now battery-powered intercom. And by flipping a switch, we could still talk to the passengers. So just before I closed all four thrust levers to idle I called, telling them:
"We are making an emergency descent!"
The four engines that had been purring quietly like a giant vacuum cleaners spooled down to a quiet rumble. I set up a left turn and extended the flight spoilers. Then after we slowed down to gear speed, I put down the wheels down to increase descent rate as I ordered the passengers and crew to fasten their seat belts. I pointed the nose exactly toward Denver as theRockies came up rapidly. And I ordered the flight engineer to alter the cabin altitude up from 5,000 to 14,000 feet.
As we leveled over Fraser, at 14,000 feet I retracted the gear and speed brakes. Now at this lower altitude, the engineer opened a switch and the Boeing's ‘ram air' cleared out the electrical wiring's smoke. Fuel, of course, is vital to the life of a fuel guzzling big jet. But electricity can be, too. And our artificial horizon and other electronics were useless scrap tin and brass. All I had left was the altimeter, the airspeed, and the magnetic compass--simple instruments that guided airplanes 35 years earlier.
"The last Denver weather was 300 feet with visibility one-half mile in heavy snow. Wind was northeast at 15 knots. And gusts to 20," the copilot volunteered.
The clouds merged against the mountains. To the northeast, the stratus clouds were thick, like wool on a buck sheep before shearing. I steepened the glide as we moved over the red sandstone buildings of the University of Colorado. Then headed southeast and we picked up the Denver-Boulder turnpike.
I told the copilot, "We are going to .. run underneath those snow clouds along the Boulder turnpike then on Colorado Boulevard south to 26th Avenue. Then fly east to Runway 8's threshold."
The West Coast reserve pilot gave me a doubtful look, like You don't ..-run a jet load of passengers around TV and radio towers under a 300 foot ceiling to the approach end of a major runway!
Coming south on Colorado Boulevard, we were .. running at 100 feet above people's roofs. And I was intensely focused on not losing visual contact because we'd have to yank it up into the goop and fly the gauges.
But I didn't have any gauges!
So I had to mentally hang onto previous studied pilotage to get us safely down at Denver. (And not, at the moment, think about whether or not my wife loved me.) I picked up the golf course and made a crop duster style move left.
"Get that landing gear back down. Give me 30 degrees of flaps!" I shouted as I shoved all the engine thrust levers forward.
“Now I am going outside the airplane. Don't let me get less than 150 knots!"
I counted as the avenues slid below . . 30th, 29th, and 28th. And I picked up 26th as the snow was slanting out of the northeast from the 'low goop' just above our heads. Blurred trees and power lines were somehow starkly defined under the snow storm's belly. The windshield heaters were dead but, lucky for us, the blizzard snow was not sticking to the glass.
“Hey, let me know when you see a school on your side. Then 'time hack me' every five-seconds after we pass that school yard."
A handful of seconds skipped by.
"There it is! Yard's full of little kids. Start your time hack…..NOW!"
Just east of the school yard, I counted five streets zipping by, then Monaco Parkway's boulevard….then all perpendicular streets disappeared. I figured eight more seconds…keep 26th Avenue just to the right of the nose. Whoopee! No television towers are going to reach up and grab us now.
“Gimmie full flaps."
Ahead, dimly glowing within swirling snow, three lights marked the close end of Runway 8. We crossed 20 feet above the center green light while skidding to the runway center line with a cross-controlled rudder to make one of the best landings I've ever made. Reversed thrust. Rolled out.
In the following 'white out' of swirling snow, it took extra time to locate Stapleton's terminal. In no hurry to smack anything now that we were safe, we eventually taxied to the terminal to see its flashing red light showing it was closed for business. However, a mechanic materialized from the significant white-out and waved me into a gate with his wands.
"Cut!"
A bagpipe skirl of sound spiraled down to silence.
"Skipper, my hat's off to you. I don't know how you were able to do all that!"
"Hmmm. I used to fly for an ornery old Chief Pilot who made us REALLY learn each route," I said while hanging my headset and scratching the top of my head where it itched.
Frank Crismon passed away at his home in Denver on 25 Jan 1990.


G. C. Kehmeier
United Airlines, Retired.
[Abridged]