Originally Posted by
TPE Flyer
Ever heard the phrase, "1more than 1 way to skin a cat"? There are plenty of ways to operate the aircraft within the framework of a companies Policies and SOP's.
As an F/O, not surprisingly you have clearly missed the point. The "technique" you were taught by a training Captain, might not be the "technique" I was taught by my training Captain.
The naivety of your statement clearly emphasises my point. No 2 pilots operate the aircraft exactly the same way every time.
What descent profile do you use? What about below 10,000ft? When cleared for an ILS, do you are arm the APPR immediately or wait until you are within the capture region of the ILS (as per manufacturer's guidance)? At what altitude do you take gear on an ILS? Do you activate approach phrase everytime, of do you let the plane activate it by itself when it over fly's the psuedo waypoint?
Every question just asked is open to technique or personal judgement based on circumstances. YOUR way is not the ONLY way.
When your a Captain being hassled over trivial crap by the F/O all day you might understand.
Are all of these questions spelled out in "chapter and verse?" If not, then they're technique, not procedure; they're also not what I'm talking about, which is procedure spelled out in black and white with no discretion left to the pilots. Maybe you were originally thinking of technique and misspoke with the "chapter and verse" quip, and if so then I agree with you on your examples; but it immediately reminded me of the squishy justifications that pilots will come up with to justify anything. Give them an inch in discretion and they'll take a mile. Makes me think of every flight with DGAF Captains who force me to either fight it out over small issue after small issue to stay within the SOPs, or ignore them and thereby let them get the camel's nose under the tent for later violations of more significant issues. And either way, it's
tiring!