Is MrO really just Admin Guru or that other pest WEB Fanatic! in disguise?
Or is he/she one of the FEW AR@!S left from circa Carterton who rather blinkerdly believes that anything aft of the flight deck door is only fit for making tea or coffee and doing up lap straps. Whilst only true sky gods sit in the cockpit, a location rather aptly named for the likes of MrO!
GM to answer your question the J is completely a 2 man flight deck. The guys are taught from the outset that us tea boys are not going to be available so they have to react to all flight deck occurances as a two man crew. More importantly when we are available we restrict ourselves to merely following the drill from the FRC's or book 3 and SHOULD only pipe up if we felt something untoward was occuring. Our "tech" is reasonable but no way near as in depth as our pilots, although some would no doubt dissagree with me there.
However apart from producing the odd hot drink and halumi lounza roll with our all singing and dancing micro waves us ALM's have proved and are continuing to prove that we have a lot more to offer in the way of flight deck help. We can, when asked and not as the norm!!!, talk to artichoke, pass departure messages, copy down and more importantly fully understand taf's and actuals, liase with mil and civil op's regards A/C and pax requirments, balance the fuel panel and crossfeed as required. And as part of our pilot incapacitation drills we need to be able to monitor VSI and bank angles via HUD or head down diplays, understand approach plates etc and assist if required with air traffic calls bt with the "automatics" working any capt or co worth his salt can manage all this quite happily on his own.
However as I said this help is simply offered, fairly regularly practiced BUT IS NOT EXPECTED. And I am led to believe that even more skills will be taught as part of the Tac package again to assist only and not to replace.
Bearing in mind my earlier post stating that if a Puma/Chinook can rattle around at 140 kts at 50' with a pilot and a nav whose only nav aids are gps and a quarter mil then why can't a J with it's HUD, moving map display,GCAS, F16 radar!!! etc etc manage it at 150' -250' with 2 pilots. The simple answer..............IT CAN!!
However MrO I can only speculate that the various CRM packages introduced over recent years were to counter the neanderthal attitude of those like your self. I, and I am sure many of my colleagues will find your assertion that ALM's "play" at anything extremely insulting. We are all proffesional aircrew doing our utmost to offer the very best service we can and the idea that we would be best placed aft of 245 for the entire flight watching the walking freight sleep or making sure the palletised freight is secure is not only ludicrous but a complete waste of a valuable asset, which thankfully the vast majority of the J front enders completely aggree with.
all spelling mistakes are "df" alcohol induced