I have being flying multi crew for several thousand hours now and I am just not sure how to deal with certain captains.
I am sure others have experienced the same and so I was after some advice about how to best deal with the situation.
There are some captains out there who seem like they get great satisfaction out of criticising first officers or always trying to point out their mistakes and teach them something new all time. Others won’t let you make any decision on your own.
These captains, who are not even training or check and training captains like to treat each flight as a training flight, even though I was checked to line a long time ago.
They come up with comments and criticisms about my flying that not even a check and training pilot would pick up with on a check flight !!
I try not to make the same mistake with them again, but every flight they seem to find something new to criticise me about. Like I had been doing the same thing for the past 12 months with them and all the check and training captains, but only now they come up with the criticism over something that did not matter to them or anyone else ever before.
Seems like a no win situation as they always find a fault with my flying.
Other times these captains like to “train me” by telling me to do something differently to how I do it. I am only flying the way I was trained by the training captains but these line captains try to teach me new ways, as if I am flying the wrong way (non SOP).
I am sure standardisation is a big issue not just amongst line pilots but even amongst training captains.
What do you do if a training captain has trained you one thing and then along comes a line captains who tells you to fly another way ?
It is possible he was trained a different way by a different training captain and so he might think he is right and I am wrong.
What do you in these situations and sometimes it can make life very frustrating when the captain has got nothing better to do than criticise you or try to retrain you on a normal line flight.
What do I do ?
Go along with them and do whatever they say just to keep them happy ?
Report them to the chief pilot for trying to teach me something different to the way I was originally trained ?
Make to comments to the captain like :
I didn’t know you were a training captain now ?
I didn’t know this was a training flight ?
I don’t believe the SOPs’ say that and point it out to them.
I was trained differently to the way you want me to fly by training captains, but you are only a line captain (so why should I listen to you?).
I am sure some of these comments would not go down well but what do I do. I am getting tired of being a “yes man, yes, I do whatever you say captain..”
I just want to keep the peace and be a good FO, but it can be so annoying and I feel like I am in a no win situation sometimes. Some captains will always find something to critisize me about, try to teach me something, or to do something a different way.
I have seen other crew members encounter the same problem. Usually the FO’s who stand up to these captains all off sudden get treated a lot worse. Before you know it, they got nothing better to do it but argue and fight over the SOP’s, with books and manuals being opened and quoted etc…and they will both hate each other with a passion.
I think its against some of these captains pride to point them out as being wrong and they will get back at you (criticize you) a lot more now just to rub it in how incompetent you are.
One of the captains that I fly with has made comments to others “how to expect FO’s to learn if we captains don’t tell them anything” and so he thinks its his right to teach / train / critisize every flight.
What do you in the situation to make my life as an FO easier but not ruin the friendship / working relationship ?
It’s a lot worse when each captain has their own unique flying ways and expects you to adapt to their ways.
Its getting to the point where I have to keep notes on each captain to review just before I fly with them.
I am sure that captains don’t like “difficult FO’s” who won’t listen and like to argue back. I don’t want to become one of these.
It shouldn’t be like this. Any successful solutions ?
Go with flow, put up with it or stand up for myself ?