Originally Posted by
Blacksheep
When serving at BZN I encountered a 10 Squadron Captain who wouldn't speak to ground crew directly, but tried to conduct business through the Flight Engineer. In my case unsuccessfully - I just walked away from his aircraft and asked our LSS Flight Commander to speak to him.
As the first commissioned Flight Engineer on 10 Sqn I can say I never encountered any Captain who was not a gentleman. Most had been Captains in Transport Command or Bomber Command and were well versed in leadership and how to converse with other ranks. When a Flight Engineer was a member of crew, since I was on Hastings and onwards, Captains hardly conversed technically with any ground servicing except thru' his Flight Engineer who understood better the nuances of technical information. I often had to unscramble technical detail to simple language to inform my Captains. The Captain never attended the Tech Services office to check the F700 or any other technical information...this was the F/E's task as the pilots did their flight briefing at Ops.
IMO....Centralized Servicing removed a lot of the personal contact between aircrew and groundcrew.
Also, the Captains walk-around inspection was a tradition rather than a requirement as the F/E would do a much more detailed inspection, often having to scramble to finish before the passengers came and block his access to the steps to return to the Flight Deck..
Later, when the Ministry announced that all VC10 Captains would be instant Sqn. Ldr. rank, I did encounter some who could have done with leadership training.....but I left soon after that.