A very interesting post from b55.
You should follow whatever procedures your company has prescribed unless you have a good reason for doing otherwise. We all know it is easier to monitor someone else's flying and nit pick, then when we are engrossed in the flying ourselves.
Also a valid and interesting point about with the F/O flying then s/he is not put in the sometimes difficult position of having to question the captain's actions.
If I am concentrating on doing a decent job of flying OEO (for a couple of minutes till I get it trimmed out and get the autopilot engaged) and the chap next to me starts quizzing me what my heading is and what my airspeed is when he has a functioning set of instruments in front of him, I would be rather irritated to say the least. If anything is deviating then the call is "airspeed" or "heading". I'm not superhuman and OEO has my shirt sticking to the back of the seat in the sim sometimes. If the captain hasn't got something better to do than to measure the F/O's excess capacity (or lack of) at a time when they can both be expected to be fully occupied, then the punter's should be worried.
If that is your company procedure and the F/O is not making a dogs ear of it, then let them get on with it and the captain can do the managing with all the benefit of their extra experience.
Last edited by Oleo; 25th July 2002 at 08:08.