Unofficial SOP’s

[Paterbrat]

One of the things which never failed to fascinate me as a young F/O in a large fleet was the number of different ways there were of doing essentialy the same job. Most if not all the Captains of were war time veterans, few had much co-pilot time. They were a bunch of interesting but generaly conflicting ideas. One cherry picked what seemed to work well and avoided other more bizarre practices. It was a rough and ready method of operating but extremely interesting. SOP's is definitely the way to go but we managed reasonably well without and I was priviliged to have observed then many different techniques of getting from A to B... oh, and the absolute assurance with which each felt as they did so, that their way was the 'right' way!