Thinking out of the box - Path to command

[Capt_dan]

Evening aviators,

I have been told today that I have a SFO/Command assessment in a few days so I am going through our OMA like a mad man to put back any bits of information that has leaked out over the years.

My questions are outside of the black and white of the OMA and the more practical scenarios that are worth thinking of. If you have had a command assessment or currently LHS and felt you learnt something from it or whilst online from other crew has made you think about something from a different angle I would love to hear your experiences, nothing is to mundane. Things like, fuel leaks, weather, alternates or any complications I should consider when in the sim please give your reasons for your choice in the decision that you made. Seems to be a real lack of information or reasoning when it comes to these types of assessments.

Looking forward to learning from you all..

[Permanent Standby]

Having conducted many airline command sim assessments & courses, here's a couple of ideas/observations to assist:

• The main issue I tend to see is lack of a decision making structure. My airline doesn't care what structure is used (GRADE, PIOSI, TDODAR, Plane-Path-People etc etc), the main thing is its logical and easily to follow for you AND your colleague. These structures can be used in any situation, from initial briefing in the crew room (i.e. complicated MEL item) right through to double engine failure. Don't forget to seek some input from your colleague too.
• Don't forget the cabin, and be aware of their procedures! If you give a command to the cabin, what will the crew do? What communications are they expecting to hear? What will they tell the passengers? Is there any point in getting the crew to do a full pax emergency brief when you'll be landing in 5 minutes with smoke in the cabin etc? (it takes 15-20 to prepare a 737 and brief passengers etc)....
• Depending on the sim scenario its not so much the outcome of the event thats important, it's the HOW you got there.
• Think safety first, and don't try to be too slick. I.e. not flying a CDA (is a minor thing), but making an arse of it by trying to be 'ace of the base' and flying an unstable approach (big thing!). You get the idea, you are unlikely to be failed for being conservative.
• Back to your first comments about 'Outside the box'. In a nutshell you need the operational/technical knowledge to go 'out outside the box' just in case, but only if the QRH doesn't give you a satisfactory outcome. Do what it says on the tin! Many hours of test flying etc have resulted in the QRH - it works! Troubleshooting is not recommended and rarely results in a better configuration than the QRH can provide. Only when the QRH doesn't result in a safe condition do you need to start on work arounds (combining checklists etc). If you have to go down that path - be careful and get as much input as you can (colleague, ops, maintrol etc)

I hope thats helps, good luck!

[C152gal]

Read this:
http://code7700.com/leadership.htm

In fact, read the whole site.