Originally Posted by
megan
Ixixly, we had instructions from the training dept that line capts were not permitted to offer anything that could be construed as instruction to FO's, reason being line capts don't have sufficient knowledge. The operation was unique in that it didn't comply with regs or its own ops manual. FO were supplied by a contractor, ink still wet a lot of them (we all have to start some where), only stayed for 18 months on average as there was no career progression, not permitted to crew night flights for example, that had to be done by two capts. There is a big world out there besides the strict airline world.
My interest in pulling the CB was piqued by an incident before we became two crew, had taken off and just settled in the cruise when I saw the the oil pressure on one engine had dropped into the yellow and fluctuating plus/minus 5PSI and temp had dropped 15°C, pulled engine to idle and pressure dropped to a fraction above minimum permissible. Upon shutting down the ramp hand came to the cockpit and said you've got a great puddle of oil on the ground. Investigation found no oil in the tank and a split in the line from tank to pump. As long as the engine was kept running it was going to be available in the event the "good" engine coughed, had it been shut down and a restart attempted there would have been no oil. Never shut down an engine capable of producing power one Ansett chap said.I can't prove it, but I have good reason to think that a submission I made to CASA resulted in the REPCON program. What have you done?
I'll tell you what I didn't do, that's put up with clearly safety deficient operations such as the one you're describing. You were instructed not to present anything to the FOs, you could have gone to the training department themselves and pointed out your findings, but decided not to and instead keep it for a fun anecdote later on for people discussing why they think the current generation of Pilots have gone soft due to Automation rather than poor training standards. Ironic.