CFIT

Being on the right seat sometimes aren't quite fun when you are stuck flying with skippers from hell. Just wondering how you guys cope with this kind of situation.

411A

Try...."yes SIR!" each time...should help...?!?
Only had trouble with ONE co-pilot in 38 years of professional flying.....and the company demoted the guy...out the door, onto the street after "many complaints".
OTOH, "some" Captains can be rather overbearing....these guys need to be expunged from the ranks, for the good morale of everyone.

Roadtrip

Be extra nice to them. It drives them crazy. Oh, be sure to ask them about their families. Be sure to probe into the reasons for failure of their last three marriages, then tell them that you don't think that the problem was with their wives.

skyvan

I have found that the only way to deal with a difficult Captain is to stick exactly to SOP, and to keep to myself.
After a couple of days of being ignored, most of them break down a bit, especially if their SOPs aren't that great.
If they really are so difficult as to be a possible danger, then a quiet chat to the Professional Standards rep on your fleet will often help.
The last resort is to avoid flying with them, advise the Chief Pilot that you have a personality clash (without fingering the culprit) and request that you not be rostered with them for a period of six months or so.
Good luck.

P.S. Final last resort is a baseball bat behind the carpark. Keeps things nice and quiet for about 3 months.

Shadowpurser

When they ask if your coming for a beer in the bar tell them your washing your hair!!!!!!

Pegasus77

As stated above... stick to SOPs; as long as things are not unsafe you only have a few bad days. Too bad for you, not everybody can be your best friend.
If the "hell" you're referring to comes from captains who are unsafe... You can always take control if needed, or get out of the aircraft while on ground. It is your professional duty to do so.

BTB

Change companies. The good ones usually don`t employ earsoles.

Only A Few More Seasons

Good old CRM seems it really works, don't it?

Probably wrong - usually am!

mustafagander

CFIT, that's a tough one. All I can suggest is to be 110% kosher on SOPs, R/T and Air Leg rules. It helps to be respectful and polite, if at all possible.
NEVER withdraw co-operation, that path leads to real danger and your pax deserve better.
Personally, I've found very few turds over a fairly long multi crew career.

Pegasus77

That's an important point: Never withdraw your cooperation, and be very beware of the "I told you so, John"-syndrome.

P77

power lever

A very interesting post. There are a few captains from hell in my company and they totally destroy all morale. I also think it is a bad position to be in because one day the nice F/O won't help them out of a hole which the captain is digging for himself.
I just wished that these captains would crawl back under the stone they came from.

Human Factor

Fairly rare,

Be polite, stick to SOPs, give them no reason to 'have a go'. Don't compromise on safety though. If you see something you don't like, say so.

whats_it_doing_now?

I agree with sticking to SOP's makes your life easier. Quite often difficult guys will not let you fly the aeroplane the way you want to, and they are picky over little things, that to be frank, don't matter. I just go for the quiet life and avoid getting into one-upmanship which i think is dangerous. Personally, as long as its safe and it isn't going to make me famous, I'll go along with it. I may not think its the best course of action, but there are many ways of doing this job, and some are better than others.

Slickster

Agree with most of the posts here. Stick to SOPs, but Know them backwards. These kinds of captains usually haven't updated their manuals for yrs, and then they become intimidated by the fact that you know the job, then generally give you a bit of legroom.
If all else fails, tell them what you think. They might be quite mortified to find that out. If that fails go upstairs, and good riddance to them.

Lou Scannon

The speciality of these captains is in making the individual first officer believe that they are the only idiot and that all the other FO's are fine.

So: As has been said, know your SOP's like crazy! Read up on the tech stuff until it's coming out of your ears.

Then: Talk confidentially to all the other FO's about this person (Knowing that you are not alone will help tremendously), collect as much information on him as you can, particularly where his weaknesses are.

Then, when you fly together you will be the one exuding confidence, knowledge and co-operation. It also helps to pretend that you are line checking him-without any debriefs of course!

The end result will be that the operation will be safe, you will become a better pilot and he will inevitably crack!

If you have to have an argument, do it away from the aircraft on a non-flying subject. Find out what his weakness or hobby is and then denigrate it in front of as many people as possible including the victim. It will unerve him and he will have no comeback-as clearly you had no idea that he was one of those pratts that collected train numbers etc etc.

The best of luck!

BLEKE

Talked about this in a recent CRM course, one thing not to do is what a F/O on a flight to Anchorage did after the CPT had been on his case during the whole flight, on the visual approach he noticed that the captain was lined up with the parallel taxiway, didn't say a thing and God landed on this taxiway.
After the investigation they were both moved right one seat.

power lever

bleke,

you are spot on, this is excatly the sort of thing I mentioned earlier.

The only thing is with my company is that our SOPs are not that good, so some of our captains take it upon themselves to make them up as they go along. Which means one day it is captain X's SOPs and the next day it is captain Y's SOPs.

Spoken to the management about this and nothing happens!

I am trying to leave ASAP.

AOG007

Get friendly with your rostering/scheduling department, and make sure they shaft the Captain!

Amazing what scheduling can do to a crew members life!

Pegasus77

Just returned from 2 days of flying with a true captain from hell. His crewconcept was strictly restricted to himself as a crewmember, SOPs were very important... for the FO, he himself allows any deviation, without prior notice.
My survival these 2 days, as I stated before, was SOPs... Everytime he deviated from something in the book, I questioned him, or in an approach, gave a standard callout.

Although he treated me like sh*t, safety was never compromised. Setting goals/ gates and sticking to SOPs prevented me from the "see I told you" happening.

He was mega-unfriendly, really insulting at times, didn't give a damn about my thoughts, so I had my 2 days from hell.
But I survived, and so did my passengers and my cabin crew (isn't that all that counts?). I chose not to p*ss him off and start a war against him. I did my job, and I just hope I'll NEVER fly with this captain ever again.

My lesson learned? SOPs are the best weapon in the game, if I stick to them, there is hardly any room for comments; otherwise you can prevent him from doing any dangerous stuff, by referring to them.

And like Lou Scannen said... afterwards I met a colleage in the crewlounge who once spent 5 days with the guy on a tour. Having lunch together and being able to be understood by a colleage, who knew what I was talking about, and then being able to laugh about everything REALLY helped!

P77

411A

..uh well Pegasus77...don't you mean "his" cabin crew and "his" passengers....as HE signed for the flight, you are there just to help out. Don't get carried away...if you have a disagreement with the guy, go to the Chief Pilot where you "should" find relief...as you are NOT in charge.
Don't like to upset your applecart, but the company assigned the guy as COMMANDER...not you.