Leg and leg role reversal?
Chris Scott asked (post #141) : "So what happened on the copilot's leg in half-decent weather? Was there not a complete role-reversal?" but he only got a partial answer.
This answer is based on my background in BA. S/O and F/O 9 years Trident, then Capt Merchantman 2 years, Trident 8 years, B757 5 years, A320 3 years, B747-400 8 years. So my experience as an F/O is confined to 3-pilot Trident ops 1965-74 and not other BEA types. In my experience, as per my practice and from observation and discussion with my contemporaries, is that flying was pretty much leg-and-leg at the Captain's discretion, and provided there were no other considerations that restricted the F/O sectors (weather, ADDs, F/O experience, training etc).
That usually meant exchange of all PF/PNF duties, i.e. the F/O undertook all "P1" tasks and the Captain the "P2" duties. As an F/O I also found some Captains were happy to allow me to continue to landing after flying an instrument approach in good weather. A lot of these guys were outstanding teachers of airmanship and problem-solving, although they never got paid a penny as official trainers. The system allowed us to build experience in the RHS of the most advanced aircraft extraordinarily rapidly particularly bearing in mind we often started at age 20 with 220 hours total time. I have quite a few pages in my logbook from my time as a Second Officer in the late 60s with 3 or more signatures for a T/O and landing, out of 12 sectors.
Yes there were also a small number of "difficult personalities", as in all walks of life, but I can't recall anyone who frightened me by wilful disregard of procedures, although some "interpretation" certainly occurred from time to time.
With a 3-pilot Trident crew, on those "half-decent" days with 4 sectors, generally each F/O did 2 legs RHS as P2 and 2 as panel operator P3. The Captain then got 2 landings and each F/O got 1. On 3 sector days the F/O seat rotation meant that we got 1 landing each. Typically the 2 F/Os tossed a coin to see who'd 2 legs RHS and thus get both an approach AND a landing. As Captain I then did 1 T/O and landing out of 3, but got 2 approaches.
On 2 crew a/c same leg-and-leg role reversal was generally applied, although on the 744 it was harder due to the limited number of landings available on trips with a heavy crew, and lack of recent handling practice was recognised as a real issue.
On shorthaul operations I also found most Captains' attitude was that fine weather was an opportunity to practice if you wanted to. If you have higher safety "reserves" thanks to VMC, you can do without autopilots, flight directors and autothrust. You can concentrate on hand flying on basics down to DH quite safely as the other pilot will take it away to land whenever he needs to, having been visual for many miles. The general low level of recency on ultra-long haul ops combined with generic recommendations in many airlines to use all available automation makes this harder to do today but I believe still has merit.
Over to you Chris.