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Old 25th May 2008, 10:52
  #29 (permalink)  
Ashling
 
Join Date: Nov 2003
Location: Over the Moon
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I like to think of things as working together to achieve a set goal. Sure the Captain has the final say but he should rarely have to use that authority if he has led wisely.

To answer your question.

In normal circumstances Yes the Captain should go around rather than question the call provided that does not place the flight in parlous danger. People can and do become target/task/goal fixated and can miss all manner of obvious things and it may be that this is what the Captain has done so normaly it would be best to go around and then discuss why afterwards. It may be you have an emergency of some sort/lack of fuel and in these circumstances then the Captain may need to exercise discretion in order to continue. Most if not all major companies monitor FLIDRAS and stable approach's are a big thing so by listening to your F/O and going around you may well be saveing yourself from a world of hurt.

I'm a Captain but my experience as an F/O is that the vast majority of Captains behave professionaly and do not take silly risks or push their luck. They follow company SOP. The exception to that was one contract pilot we had who seemed to have to push every limit there was. To my mind he came under the cowboy label. A number of F/Os complained to management about him and he was removed at the first oppertunity.

Any F/O trying to use the regs to trap someone or play oneupmanship will get a very one sided educational conversation. FLIDRAS works very nicely to protect you in these cases.

There will always be a debate about the authority gradient on the flight deck. In times gone by it was way too biased towards the Captain but there may now well be a case for saying the gradient has become too flat.
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