Young Paul:
So tell me, those of you grumbling about eager beaver fos. What should I have done in each of these cases?
- new to type, used the speedbrake to descend thousands of feet below target descent profile because he didn't trust the FMC to calculate a proper descent path
None of your buisness, has no safety implication, let the old man fly his ship as he likes. He will have to justify additional fuel burn and might just take some time to get used to the new FMS
- did a manual loadsheet that was incorrect, not realising that the problem with the computer loadsheet was actually that the position of the bags was taking the aircraft out of trim
You must intervene. That is what an FO is for, most definately.
- asked me to disconnect the autopilot and fly in such a way as to simulate turbulence, to justify strapping the passengers in for the sake of the cabin crew
I'd laugh about an order like that - is it a joke or what?
- refused point blank to put en route winds into the FMC because it shouldn't change the ETA
Legally you should have had a flight plan with the fuelcalculation on it, including wind. So what the hell? Would you land asap if your FMS failed?
- waited until he thought I wasn't looking then reduced the cost index so that the aeroplane flew well below company target speed, to increase his overtime payments
What sad, indignified behaviour, but none of your business as an FO.
- loaded "round trip fuel" on charter flights, filling on the gauges rather than using a litreage uplift (which was company policy), failing to take account of the fact that every time fuel was put into the centre tank, there would be 200kg less by the time it had been burnt than was shown on the gauges at the start of the flight
Sorry, I don't understand what you wrote.
- nearly flown the aircraft into the approach track for another runway due to changing the radio set up after briefing the approach (and without telling me)
Big, big nono. This requires a debriefing, and if the CPT shows no insight into his mistake may even call for a report to safety/training department.
Your questions are easy to answer. An FO is there to execute the orders of the Captain and run the ship according to his plan (military XO and CO). The FO's responsibility extends to a monitoring aspect of flight safety and the duty to intervene should it become endangered. Personal preferences like flying 15nm iso 25nm off track to circumnavigate CBs will have to wait until the tailor has stiched on the 4th stripe. The same goes for descent planning (your FMS story). Maybe you knew better, your margine for error had gotten narrower as you had many hours on type, but you have to grant the other guy a more conservative plan if wanted. I let the FOs do stuff like that, what do I care. The opposite (I'll show you a descent where we don't have to add power until 1500'...) calls for absolute alertness and maybe intevention, be you CPT or FO.
In a Sim session during my conversion training last week I was flying with a guy just out of flightschool. He had not even sat one hour in a real jet, but he straight out refused my acceptance of a clearance below MSA (in FRA, radarvectored). I was shocked, had not expected such resistance. As we were in a timecritical scenario (Elec problems, Battery discharging) I quickly weighed the need for saving a minute of flighttime (shooting the ILS out of 3000' iso 4000') and the time it would take to explain to the new guy something about MRVA, emergency authority, OMA regulations,...
I swallowed my pride (harder than I thought, to not let my ego insist on having my order followed), got on the ILS in 4000' and flew to a happy outcome of the situation.
During the debriefing however I told the FO about the difference of taking a clearance below MSA in Frankfurt to doing so in other parts of the world.