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

Dougie, I love ya like a brother from another mother, but all I can say is "d'uh"...

When you see that 24 hour 3 day, during the week, commutable on both ends sitting in open time for more than 2 PCS runs, and finally offered up as a green slip, you just KNOW how that's going to go down.

DO. NOT. WANT.

Richman

That's like flying with "pack man" on the 737 in ATL. Dude's trips are nice senior 3 days, but always in FO open time. I got stuck with him one trip. I was so done with that guy by the end of those 3 days.

Ok, I've gotta ask. Why's he called "pack man?"

He used to hand out this printout on how to correctly modulate zone temperatures in the cabin to move the "bubble of air" in order to maximize passenger ventilation in the cabin. LCA's finally made him stop doing that, but when I flew with him he still carried around this eurotrash "everything you could ever know about the 737" book to look up details not carried in our books.

Definitely one of those guys that had a tough time defining the line between technique and procedure. Finally on the last day we had a little "talk" about the difference of the two. No clue if any lightbulbs came on or not...

Wow. Seriously, some guys make this job a lot harder than it needs to be.

Sometimes those guys are ok...I flew with an old timer on the DC-9 out of MSP. He used to work for Sperry designing the old analog autopilots. Knew more about the subject than the next 10 people, and he could not only make that subject interesting, but could explain analog electronics, as a whole, and make it not only understandable, but actually pretty darn cool.

If you emulated his techniques with the DC-9 autopilot, you could make the NAV TRACK function actually work...

Richman

You forgot, "Would you like to pick up a trip? You know, [Air Carrier] has been voted one of Fortune's Best Places To Work? How about a nice Indianapolis turn, sign in tomorrow at zero four forty five, Copilot Roger?"

I totally agree that some guys like that are ok. This guy wasn't! He's got some odd personality ticks- It reminded me of some of the crazies that knew everything about the RJ at the regional I was at. They have all this knowledge but don't know how to apply it nor how to relate it to others.

I made a quick remark below 10,000 feet about something and after we parked in the gate I got a debriefing on sterile cockpit rules. Another time he debriefed me on my reverser technique as "the FCTM says the second detent is preferred" (I only went to idle as we were rolling down 26R to the V loop). After a couple times of him referencing the FCTM as procedure is when we had the discussion on how the FCTM is techniques, not procedures.

I'd imagine there's a BIG difference between guys flying F-16s "single pilot" yet are still invoking CRM with formation procedures and so on compared to a guy flying freight in a Chieftain.

Biggest pet peeve, guys that don't know the difference between technique vs. procedure. Hence why I am trying to swap out out my entire March schedule with open time so I don't have to fly with such captain.

Yeah...about that...

hah.

That was the best thing about flying at NWA...no technique, only procedure. Every person you flew with did it exactly the same way.

I'm sure my southie bros would disagree, but it went a LONG way to eliminating %99.9 percent of the drama that goes with that crap, along with the 15 minute dissertation at the beginning of each trip on how that particular guy "does things".

Richman

I had a captain who would give me a long winded briefing at the beginning of a trip. I was a new FO at the time, so I wasn't use to getting a captain with a "weird" way of doing something.

So I couple of legs into the trip after landing, I ask if he wanted to start the APU. He briefed on which cities to start the APU, but I couldn't remember. So he snapped at me and told me I should have listened to his briefing. Umm okay. Next day, we fly into ATL. It's my first time in ATL, and since I was at an airline with no ACARS, we radioed the OOOI times. Apparently on taxi in, he told me what times he wanted, but I certainly didn't here him, so I radioed my own times in. Well he got upset with that. A number of other small things happened on that miserable trip, and I finally got the lecture of how I don't listen to anything he says and how he's having to babysit and do my job.

Even though I was new, I wasn't that new to where I still felt uncomfortable or anything. I ended up flying with him again several months later and had the same issues arise.

Anyways, I was sure to swap him out if I saw him again. I never had to though. After I was recalled from furlough, I ended up doing an out and back with him, a couple years later. Either I was making sure to be extremely non-confrontational or he was just burnt-out and didn't care anymore. We ended up having good conversation, and it was actually a pleasant turn that time.

Meh, I'm done with that place. It's like the public library after dark.

Richman

I'm going to take a wild guess who's playing the part of the overbearing teacher weilding the ruller and an overinflated sense of self-importance....

Richman