Perhaps I need to put my last companies proceedures in perspective...
They were launch customers for most of their aircraft, they had the best maintainace, paid the best salaries and the instructors were all current military pilots....no expense was spared.
Of the 1000 pilots ALL could fly the 1000ft circuit because it is what we were trained to do. We had only one landing incident in my 18years that I can remember and that was a 747 after a long night scraped a pod with a close to limiting xwind...at home base and after a stabilised approach from OM.
The only thing that a few didn't do was to grease it on...what one calls a catch the first wire landing or some call the Boeing handbook landing...they were all military guys or thought smooth landings were for woossies.
Pay gold sovereigns then you don't get monkeys....or something like that.
I only once broke SOP....as a first officer on a polar flight.
Because of an unusual wind pattern we flew way north of the great circle track (shortest distance on the globe for you flat earth geezers) which took us over the pole.
At the time the death ship had the most sophisticated nav system..but as I had never been fortunate enough to do a nav ticket I bought a sextant and a book. (belt braces bit of string).
Our planning was tight, very tight and was Fairbanks with alternate ANC.(com dest).
To save fuel engines turned off most of the bleeds ...which wasn't nice since we had 200 chain smokers from the land of the rising sun.
At the pole the displays switched and gave us two different tracks 30 degrees apart which is when I eventually said horlicks to the book and using the moon and nav read outs intercepted the correct track.
Whilst I was initially castigated I happened upon the fleet chief techy...who hadn't understood the incident and contacted the manufacturer.
A couple of months later he came back with an answer that there had been something wrong with the software which but they didn't know what.
For those of you who don't understand the implications...if we had not followed the correct track we would have run out of fuel.
No superman cape needed as it is what we were all paid for.
I posted a less explicit version on an old farts site which I enjoy most of the time to have a fellow member post a 707 reminiscence on the same route but during day when the Gyro compass went US....the skipper annoyed the CC before they had started lunch service with a request for the cheese platter...and two tooth picks. He cut off two lumps of cheddar, stuck the toothpicks in and positioned them on a clipboard on the coaming which he used as a sun sight.
With some clever mathematics ..the sun moves around the earth at 15 degrees per hour for you flat earth disciples...plus the rate of crossing meridians ....another complication as the spacing changes depending on you latitude ...he managed to maintain a heading within 5 degrees...and the nav did the rest.
I notice that none of you wizz kids have commented on the 747 fuel transfer using jettison pumps (they have stand pipes in the tank) nor the on ground emergency where the fuel tank shut off was left open nor the other little naughties that if the crews were professional they wouldnt have dug themselves into a hole or a watery grave as the case may be.
Thank the lord or Mohamed (as the case may be) that I worked for a proper company and can enjoy the fruits of my labour and a decent pension...pass the chardonnay .....whilst some of you lot are missing the point about being a professional.
And for the bus drivers amongst you...an apt discription for some of you...I met the skipper who had a hydraulic controls warning after take off ...action offload ...followed in quick succession by the other systems...mayday...quick circuit and put it back on terra firma ASAP.... From what has been posted think many of you would have been in the mire....he is 1/2 my age....
