Budgie69, you say that “BA changed to a standardised system across the fleets, making conversions much easier.” Is this not part of the problem, ie that you are trying to operate the aircraft the BA way rather than the Boeing way. If it is the BA way to check the generator voltage (say) on the majority of its fleets, it will become the SOP to check it on all for commonality across all fleets – presumably to make conversions easier.
Rat5, I have been involved in writing Ops Manuals and I had to submit all amendments to my FOI for his approval before I could issue them to my crews. Therefore they should have proof read them at the very least and also agreed with and approved the changes. I would like to think that was top cover if anything went wrong as a result of a badly written SOP, but I bet it wouldn’t be.
Fireflybob, good advice for how to play it as an F/O but I was trying to get to the bottom of what we all think is the correct direction to go in the future.
It seems that many airlines are going off in their own direction as regards SOP’s and even checklists to the extent that one airlines way of operating the same aircraft is almost unrecognisable from another’s. Whilst this may be OK for the majors with all their collective experience, is it safe for a younger airline to be tweaking their brand new Airbus SOP’s to fit their existing Boeing fleets (say) or vice versa?
Surely it would be better if we all (globally) operated the same types exactly the same way, then between us all we could find the best way to operate each type from our huge collective experience base.
Tell me guys, if we could do it, would it be a step forwards, backwards or would it not make an ounce of difference?
S & L