Swaps: Hey! Wait, oh HELL's no...

Don't disagree at all, it just gets frustrating when a captain asks for non-standard stuff that nobody else asks for and then gets pissed when you forget to do said strange thing on the next leg. I'm happy to do it, but when a guy gets angry that I can't conform to their strange non-standard ways of operating the aircraft, it makes me really wonder what's going on over in the left seat.

At the same time, I've had this happen very few times, like with one or two captains.

But what I did have a problem with was when we were sitting at the gate, doing nothing. And the captain tells me to turn on the Yaw Damper. A switch perfectly located directly between us.

In case you didn't know y'all are under new ownership and CDOs are most likely going away...

Definitely understandable. I had one non-standard thing I asked for in my brief as a captain: I hate staring at strobes while someone is sitting in position, so please don't turn on the strobes at night until you pull the gear up. Gear up, strobes on. Guys would almost always forget the first few legs, which is understandable, so I'd just gently remind them. Now, if they're still not doing it by the third day, we've got a problem.

Must you remind me. I've still got them for another year or so. Then I'll actually have to start working for a living.

Screw that...stop staring at my airplane and you'll be fine. I'd rather somebody mess up my night vision than not be seen hauling ass down the runway. I know some airplanes are designed like that, strobes come on after weight off wheels...but my book says they come on when we cross the line.

Atleast you don't deal with Alaska, they turn on all the lights when they cross the holdshort line for takeoff/position and hold. So you're crossing downfield, AS is in position with strobes and ALL the landing/approach/turnoff lights ON...makes your heartbeat jump up the first couple of times.

For the benefit of those behind a -200, can you wait 5 seconds until that nastly lower tail nav strobe is not going to blind the flight crew in the airplane behind you? I know there are pilots at 9E who wait until the tail strobe is not directly in another crew's eyes before turning on the strobes. I know at night I will turn them on once we are 45 degrees into the turn onto the runway.

Blinding people with your strobes is a safety issue. There's a very good reason that many airplanes are designed with a weight on wheels switch that won't allow the strobes to come on until you're in the air. People will be able to see you just fine with all of your other lights on.

Wasn't looking to start a debate about that, anyway. Just pointing out that the Train is right. Captains who expect their FOs to pick up on their idiosyncrasies right away are being a little unreasonable. Give them a little time to adapt.

Not permitted in the contract. You fly with who you fly with in this part of the charter world.

+1 with dealing with non-standard crewmembers. If the other guy asks me to do something that's non-standard but safe, I treat it like a request. If I forget and do it the standard way, oh well. If I'm still forgetting and the other guy causes an issue out of it, we indeed have a problem, and he doesn't have a leg to stand on if he tries moving it up the chain.

Didn't think about that one, as I can't see it flashing like I can the Wing strobes, Our book says they come on when cleared onto the runway, whether that be for take off or to "position and hold" yeah I said it... I will keep that in mind next time.

After reading threads like these, I dont know how I would survive in a crew environment. Anyone have any stories of difficult pilots who had 5000 hours single pilot time switch to a crew position?

We have a lot of military guys who were flying single-seat fighters for years, but they never have anything close to that much time. Even the guys who stayed in a while usually don't top 3,000 hours. They seem to do just fine, though. All of the single pilot time doesn't seem to cause them any problems with the crew environment.

I know that we've never shown preference. Not sure about SWA. My new hire class had a mix of heavy and fighter.

Joliet Foxtrot?

Affirmative

You had me at TACOS!

SWAP. Great way to keep a brotha' on the ground at TEB while all you big iron guys use up our miles in trail.

"We'll be a pathfinder over that fix that doesn't have weather within 50 miles of it!!!"

Oh, wait. Not that type of swap?