Wide Body Time

[ATR42DRIVER]

Please excuse my ingorance but could someone please clarify why “widebody” time is so sought after? Is it really that much different than medium haul narrow body time? What is the major difference from being a B737 captain and a B777, A380 or B787 captain? Is the decision making process harder for widebody aircraft? Is a widebody harder to fly?
I’ve always wondered why an experienced B737 or A320 captain can’t easily go DEC on a widebody.

[casablanca]

While the size of the aircraft takes a few hours to get used to, I would say the most common difficulty is adapting to flying longhaul / international. Often you will find very good pilots( myself included), that have lots of experience in a certain areas, whether it be Europe, USA, Brazil, etc.... and when they start flying to China, New Zealand , Bangladesh, Kyrgyzstan, etc.....it is common to struggle with different rules, enormous language barriers, and other peculiarities.
I constantly hear guys say to me, " I don't know how you understood anything he said....I got nothing"
Its just a matter of time and operating experience but not something you will master in class

[BANANASBANANAS]

At risk of sounding like a grumpy old (wide bodied) git, can I offer the reply that no answer will ever satisfy 99% of the narrow body guys who ask this question.

There are handling issues such as greater inertia, greater anticipation required etc and the ability to manage a much larger crew but the big difference is with the management of the overall operation and the ability to shoulder and discharge the increased burden of responsibility that comes with it.

Your average 737 operator in Europe could have an engine fail in the cruise and instantly see 10+ alternate airports as options on his ND. The situation is very different in a 777 heading over the Pole to West Coast USA when the nearest alternate might be 1000 miles away. That is one of a myriad of differences.

Having flown turbo props, B744 and most Boeing types in between, I can tell you that a very different thought process is involved - that is not to say that narrow body guys coming on to wide body aircraft can't cope. Many do, and do so admirably. But statistically, the company will have a lower failure rate recruiting guys with wide body experience.

All the above said, market forces will (unfortunately) always decide minimum experience requirements and the way this industry is heading, wide body time may well become desirable rather than essential in many more airlines.

[allaru]

After you have done 10 years or more in the left seat of a widebody you will realise how stupid that post was.

[slowjet]

ATR, it might appear to be "sought after" but it isn't really. It is, simply, a selection device. Oversubscription to a DEC widebody requirement will cause your Selectors to seek the wheat from the chaff. You will quickly appreciate that the recruiters will feel happier with current widebody and even type rated applicants rather than a slimbody. They shouldn't, it makes no difference but they will just feel more inclined.Witness that in most airlines, this kind of type transition is handled without problems almost every day. I was once shoved in the holding pool for a major because i had no "underslung" jet experience ! Good Grief,

Bananasbanas; Good post. Didn't deserve the hand-bag swipe that followed. Didn't agree with all of it though. The nearest alt being 1000 miles away is a good thing isn't it ? Drills complete , decision (easy) complete, intention declared, crew briefed.......................sit back & order a cuppa................eh ? 10 alternates in your field of choice might be more of a head-scratch.

I loved heading out over the N Atlantic in my "Big Twin" even though it was a "slimbody" and after exceeding the range requirement of UK airfield as possible return alternates, the only option was Kef or Goose. Easy. Loved it. Oh, and then, doing the same on a "widebody" made no difference whatsoever.

[eckhard]

I think allaru’s comment about a “stupid” post was addressed to ATR42DRIVER?
Bit harsh, even so.......
Uninformed maybe but not stupid.

[reverserunlocked]

Always wondered this one as there’s no question that smashing around doing multi legs to challenging fields in a Dash 8 in the winter is a harder day out at work than an ULR in a 777 to a 3000m ILS. But I accept that the demands of the operation are totally different.

[fatbus]

Some wide body pilots feel they are special. Slightly adjusted handling techniques and that's it ! Take a 380 guy put him is a 320 and let him adjust , job done .

[break dancer]

Put any jet pilot into a C206 landing in 600 mt and it’ll be a disaster.

Enough training and a monkey can go into space. The question is whether the company is willing to do that and whether the company has experienced FOs willing and able to hold the DEC hand to the varied challenges that a narrow body Captain may not have been exposed to.

[High Energy]

Put any jet pilot into a C206 landing in 600 mt and it’ll be a disaster.

Enough training and a monkey can go into space. The question is whether the company is willing to do that and whether the company has experienced FOs willing and able to hold the DEC hand to the varied challenges that a narrow body Captain may not have been exposed to.





But the same could be said for a widebody guy/girl suddenly being dropped flying into warzones, uncontrolled airfields, severly performance limited airfields, visual approaches / very dynamic approaches to short runways etc etc. As they say here; same same but different. Plus nowadays in this part of the world there's a whole generation of pilots that go straight onto a widebody and don't have any other flying experience to fall back onto. That I can see would be a big issue. I get the inertia and management bit but I fail to see that being a big issue if trained properly and the guy/girl has the right qualities. That can be easily assessed in a sim.

[16down2togo]

It's like bananas said,
it is not necessarily the a/c itself, which ads to the problem, it's not to have an alternate at every tree, weather phenomena much more severe after an 8 to 10h flight with no 2 hrs of extra fuel and ATC units that are not necessarily in your favor but actually working against you.
You'll be surprised how isolated your destination can be in a densely populated country sometimes.
I'd strongly recommend that you have flown your a.. off in short/med haul before you try the, share enjoyable, demands of real long haul you might not go to a certain area or destination for two years
and other challenges.
Although I strongly recommend it with the right amount of experience, never get's boring.

[misd-agin]

My favorite is the 6700' (2042 m) single engine divert field . 777-300. Northern tier often dealing with snow.
Or diverting with 250-300 passengers into a town that has 100 inhabitants. But at least they should be out of there in 6-12 hours.
And the plane should be fixed within 3-4 days, unless it's on of the 7-10 day repairs.
Narrow body diverts? That barely moves the needle in our operations center.

[JAARule]

My favorite is the 6700' (2042 m) single engine divert field . 777-300. Northern tier often dealing with snow.
Or diverting with 250-300 passengers into a town that has 100 inhabitants. But at least they should be out of there in 6-12 hours.
And the plane should be fixed within 3-4 days, unless it's on of the 7-10 day repairs.
Has that happened to you?
What is the major difference from being a B737 captain and a B777, A380 or B787 captain
The difference might be the attitude the DECs arrive with. If the trainee puts in the effort and continues after check to line, it is different to, but no more difficult than, medium haul. Millions of pilots do it successfully and easily. It's not difficult. The hard parts are staying awake and dealing for hours and hours with some of the numpties they're now hiring.

[donpizmeov]

I would have thought if the number of Alternates gets smaller, the decision making gets easier . Many short haul only fellas have joined EK as DEC in past. Most had no problem . Some had a problem adjusting. Just like anyone else who joins .

I just wish it was a requirement to have long haul PIC before becoming management. As these LCC short haul ones we seem to get have no clue what doing the job is like.

[BigGeordie]

Just had a look at my logbook. I haven't been to Australia since December and haven't been to North America since September last year. However, on a reserve month I could have to go to either of these places with only 30 minutes notice. That is different to flying around Europe in a 320 on a couple of sectors every day. Not really harder, just different. Flying the aeroplane is the easy bit.

Absoultely agree with what The Don says, you can train a DEC to be a widebody pilot but a LCC short haul manager will never, ever know what it is like.

[SOPS]

I went to EK as a DEC. I was a captain on a 737 at the time. The company I worked for was European based but due to the nature of the operation we flew through Europe, Africa, the ME, Asia and even got to Australia on occasion !! I found no trouble going from the 738 to the 777. But I must admit, I had flown over a lot of the EK network in my previous life.

These days a 240 k round trip is long haul enough for me 😄😄

[Mr Good Cat]

Some wide body pilots feel they are special. Slightly adjusted handling techniques and that's it ! Take a 380 guy put him is a 320 and let him adjust , job done .

I think that's the whole problem here...

Most current wide body Captain's started in the narrow body environment so it's just a case of readjusting to a smaller plane and the type of flying you used to do.

Going straight to the left seat of a wide body with only narrow body time and route experience is much harder as there's a lot more to learn in a short space of time with not much chance to practice (a few flights a month). It's especially a problem if the airline you are joining wants to chop you if you aren't 100% up to speed from day one.

So yes, there is a difference depending on your background. It's not so much about the airplane!

[misd-agin]

Has that happened to you?

The difference might be the attitude the DECs arrive with. If the trainee puts in the effort and continues after check to line, it is different to, but no more difficult than, medium haul. Millions of pilots do it successfully and easily. It's not difficult. The hard parts are staying awake and dealing for hours and hours with some of the numpties they're now hiring.

It hasn't happened to me. But coworkers have gone into small towns and been stuck for several days.
In Europe and the U.S. the tough decision to make if both engines fail at cruise is to choose which airport you want to attempt your dead stick into. Long haul international to Asia is often a multi hour diversion into an airport that you never want to go to.
Wide body flying isn't that different versus n/b flying but the regions they fly in can be significantly different.

[eckhard]

I went from 10 years 737, including 8 as Capt, into RHS 747. The training was top-notch and I found it enjoyable to learn about the new considerations required for LH flying. Not so much wide-body but long-haul was the main difference. (Having said that, I guess widebody differences include the greater number of passengers and the attendant higher occurrence of medical issues.)

Although in many ways the 744 was not so different to the 737, it was a new airline, new SOPs, new routes and working with three or four flight-deck crew and up to 18 CC that took some getting used to. And as previously mentioned, you only get to fly three or four times a month and do a landing one or two times a month. Any individual destination may only come up once a year. With a large fleet, most times you are flying with strangers. So, each flight is a bit more of an ‘adventure’ and it just takes longer to get the hang of it. That’s what I found anyway.

I wouldn’t have been comfortable about going into the left seat for at least a couple of winter seasons. Little did I realise it would take 18 years! Now LHS on 787 after a brief spell on European A320 Ops.

As others have said, it’s not at all difficult but airlines want to minimise the training risk and so previous LH / WB experience is considered to be valuable.

[AfricanSkies]

My 2c worth - it's not the aircraft, for 'wide body' substitute 'longhaul'. Long haul mindset is you can fly anywhere in the planet with 1hrs notice, you're used to different region's ATC and nuances, you're more careful because you're not going to the same place 10 times a week. You know where to find all the info you need globally, there's many different environments from ice bound US airports, polar, North Atlantic, hot and high, good/bad ATC, China, Russia (metric) etc etc and one small mistake can put paid to your job. Another big difference is that you're used to operating when fatigued, handling an approach and landing after a 10hr flight with only 2 crew takes a bit of getting used to, you adapt but if you're already used to it its valuable.
Another thing is that wide bodies tend to be part of a large fleet, which is run in a different way to smaller operators, so if a candidate has experience being part of a large corporate machine and a history of fitting in well, chances are he/she will fit in easily into the widebodied company environment they're applying for.

[dubaigong]

according to my experience after more than 2 decades in aviation , there is no problem to go from a small/medium to a wide body as long as the training given is good and long enough and that the trainee has the capacity it takes.
There were/are Airlines where the cadets are going directly to the wide bodies as those companies don't have anything else , of course they required long and thorough training to achieve that goal and not all of the candidates will succeed.
In my career I went from a B737-200 first officer position to a MD-11 first officer and this transition has been done without any problem but I have had a very good training.
I think that what is more important is what kind of initial training you have had , that is where you get the main part of your basic skills and gain good habits and as long as you keep it , the rest of your career will just be an easy flow.
As a trainer I usually have had less difficulties to train cadets without any experience than direct entry pilots with , most probably , less than good initial training and sometimes attitudes making their training more difficult.
I can even tell you that I have seen a DC-10 captain struggling to learn to fly a glider at the time I was a glider instructor…

So it is wrong to say that flying a wide body is more difficult to fly than anything else , the truth is that each " flying machine " as its own difficulties that should be learned and as long as your are properly trained and you have the capacity , there will be no problem.

[repulo]

Dubaigong, I like your attitude! I think your conclusion is spot on, prior training standard and the level of training received when transitioning are the key elements. We had 737 CPT move to a 747 freighter outfit without prior wide body experience. They had no problems, same when some went to the 767, flying mostly the Caribbeans.

[swh]

I thought the widebodies were in Europe, North America, and Oceania. Slimbodies in Asia.

Each to their own.

[fantom]

You should see my first wife...

[flyer47]

It’s just different, a larger aircraft has greater inertia so one needs to plan ahead a little more than on a narrow body. However, it’s not really any different from transitioning from a twin engine piston to a turboprop and from a turboprop to a jet. Lots of flights can be over large bodies of water or over very sparsely populated areas where the closest airport can be three hours flying time away. Flying to China from the Middle East over the Himalayas takes a little bit of planning to avoid some rather high cumulogranite in an emergency situation but one is trained to do it.

Widebody aircraft are very stable and have a lot of built in redundancy. Once one becomes used to the handling characteristics of the aircraft and the environment in which one is flying, it an easy transition for any decently trained pilot.

Some widebody pilots will try and convince you it takes a superhuman effort to fly big aircraft. From my experience, the bigger the aircraft the easier it is to fly. As mentioned, one just needs to become accustomed to the differences

Personally, having transitioned from being a Flight Instructor where every student is out to kill you, to a turboprop pilot flying to places like the Scottish Highlands and into Leeds Bradford, then to a jet pilot and a Captain flying to major European Cities and to the Greek Islands where there are lots of circle to land approaches. To Cat C airports such as Innsbruck, Salzburg, Ajaccio, Funchal & Gibraltar, I can honestly say, even with Far Eastern weather, Chinese ATC, lots of night flying, long ETOPS segments and jet lag, being a widebody Captain is the easiest flying job I’ve ever had.

[nolimitholdem]

I've never heard a single soul try and "convince you it takes a superhuman effort to fly big aircraft". Ever. Sounds like an overly-sensitive narrowbody pilot talking perceived slights, to me.

What is incontrovertible is that the loss of a widebody hull is far more costly in human and financial capital than that of a smaller machine. That is not to diminish the loss of ANY life, but simply underscores the difference in scale of operations. The potential for loss is far greater with more lives and more expensive equipment, and the scale of compensation is to match the responsibility of managing a larger operation and larger risk, nothing more.

Debate all you want over which is more "difficult", it's irrelevant. And if you're chafing because you you haven't gotten your widebody command yet and you feel you deserve it because it's just as "easy" as rockin' the 737/320 or a turboprop, you've missed the point entirely and need to read Glider7's post closely. Spot on.

The quality of pilots I've met over my entire career has been determined far more by their attitude than what they flew previously.

[White Knight]

The quality of pilots I've met over my entire career has been determined far more by their attitude than what they flew previously.

for once nolimit I agree with you 100%

[fatbus]

Some of you are so full of yourselves, what next Boeing is harder to fly than Airbus or visa versa . It's not rocket science or only reserved for astronauts!!

[swh]

Some of you are so full of yourselves, what next Boeing is harder to fly than Airbus or visa versa . It's not rocket science or only reserved for astronauts!!

It may not be rocket science however it is cheaper to insure your operation if everyone has sufficient experience on type or a similar type.

The industry tends to promote people with more experience on wide bodies, people with more experience have a lower risk profile. Similar to the way young drivers pay more for insurance than a more experienced driver, even if it is the same model or car.

A lot of these requirements are driven by insurance requirements as they can reduce the airlines fixed costs.

[glofish]

Good Airmenship is based on three pillars. Assessment (talent, motivation), Training (basic training and ongoing further development) and Experience (exposure, analysis).

Discussions like on here often fall too short. It is not an absolute matter of time on wide-bodies, but it counts towards the two last pillars. The same applies to the turbo-prop, or regionally limited Loco guys …. and so on.

The underlying problem is best described with the Swiss cheese model. Any hole is basically one too many, but there will always be some. Our intent should be to eliminate as many as possible.

In today’s aviation environment elimination of such holes is however threatened by the incredible expansion of number of aircraft and aviators and the decay of final profit for operators brought on by deregulation, unfair competition and lowering of standards to satisfy an artificially boosted demand by overly cheap prices. Sort of a vicious circle.

Concerning our topic, it is the lowering of standards that matters. Obviously the older farts (count me in) are the witnesses of this erosion. Airline owners, managers and their hollow beancounter and HR stooges are all much newer to the industry and never take long to fail and get replaced by even more obedient henchmen (or get back as walking dead archaic like TCAS). Our observations and warnings are cried down, because it goes against short term interests of greedy owners and fast career wishful dreams of wannabee pilots. We are called arrogant and worse, mainly to be quickly silenced. Nobody likes messengers like that.

To have no jet experience, no wide-body or no LH experience is no disqualification, everyone passed through this stage. To counter these holes there is training and exposure. Both mean a lot of money and time, two things airlines hate and logically try to avoid. Regulators should be the counterbalance, but we witness a rampant corruption in that respect, worldwide. We more and more witness jumping training and experience steps at an alarming rate (ab-initio right onto WB, MCC and quota-bound assessments i.e. “Emiratisation”). This means leaving some holes unfilled, against all aviation mantras.

To counter this threat, the industry handily presents all kind of further automation and the operators greedily jump on it. It not only leaves these holes unfilled, it even creates new holes (children of the magenta and dependence on automation). The remedy is quickly found and called “revert to basics”, but it is as hollow as the claim to always put safety first. Because the “basics” are no longer here! Today’s new pilots do not have all essential basics, they never got the chance to acquire them. The bad part is that they don’t even know that they don’t have them, just as their new instructors don’t! They are of the same breed.

We might no longer be able to go back and train all the modern aviators to these basics. What has to be acknowledged in all honesty though (by everyone, the new pilots, managers and especially the regulators), is that they are really missing them and try to form the training syllabi in function of this evidence. This to mitigate the deficiencies. Expansion will suffer a little bit, but we have to shape assessment and training to accommodate that trend. After that we have to shape rostering as to give as much exposure and experience as possible. This is more costly and complicated, but the way pilots are thrown into new environment without some guidance is frightening.

This is not meant to belittle any fellow pilot. If they had passed the same honest assessment, the same good basic training and time to get exposure and experience, they would be as proficient as the old and arrogant farts …..

I however shudder almost every week when I read the latest incident reports. It seems as if the reporters and the concerned postholders can no longer see the forest for the trees. I sometimes try to put some report back in time and just imagine the reaction of my first CP or TRE to that.

I guess I wouldn’t have survived such daffiness.

[BANANASBANANAS]

Top post Glofish.

If I may presume to summarize it;


The lunatics are now running the asylums!

[bringbackthe80s]

I think the answer to the op is quite simple.

Any job for which a very specific experience is required is usually a sign of a company not willing to take the (best) people from scratch(ish) and TRAIN them to a high standard appropriate to the operation, end of.

The more specific edperience you require the more potential very good people you are excluding, and looking long term (!!) no company would want that.

This is why selections at any air force full pilot career are tough but open to anybody (certainly not to cpl holders with 500 hrs flown at the local club for example).

The only thing that counts is selecting the right people, training will sort the rest and give you (hopefully) the best pilots.

We all know that this costs money and very few companies are willing to spend it.

Nothing to do with low cost, turboprop etc..just simple selection training and long term goals.

[Lascaille]

We all know that this costs money and very few companies are willing to spend it.

But the safest operations - in all sectors! - are never those that have a rigid and inwardly-focussed training department that 'knows best' but instead are those who relentlessly 'evolve' their protocols by asking every experienced new joiner 'how did you do this, and why'.

[Monarch Man]

Lascaille, which is where EK quite frankly is found wanting with respect to its training environment, its ethos and its narrow focus on reactive policies and procedures.
Part of the challenge transitioning from shorthaul to longhaul (who cares if you have 1 or 2 aisles) are the significant differences locally and variations in expectation from one place to the next, rinse and repeat over 100 destinations and it becomes another beast entirely.
For me, I gain confidence when I see my colleague in the right seat actively identifying issues, and having or developing a plan, rather than quoting 8.3.3.6. Blah blah blah, which says we might or possibly might not be able to breath through our nostrils. It’s a sad reflection that at EK, compliance is more desirable to many, rather than resilience and its taught that way by the training department, despite protestations to the opposite.

[Lascaille]

For me, I gain confidence when I see my colleague in the right seat actively identifying issues, and having or developing a plan, rather than quoting 8.3.3.6. Blah blah blah, which says we might or possibly might not be able to breath through our nostrils. It’s a sad reflection that at EK, compliance is more desirable to many, rather than resilience and its taught that way by the training department, despite protestations to the opposite.

But that's character. That's innate. It's the job of the hiring department to provide that quality and the job of the training department to maximise the other, isn't it?

[glofish]

But that's character. That's innate. It's the job of the hiring department to provide that quality and the job of the training department to maximise the other, isn't it?

You are only stating the obvious, but on zillion contributions we try to show that they DON'T deliver.
That's the problem ........