I nominate this as the 2nd best thread here..

Fond memories of a no longer checking exSTC

STC
"Right, this is your proficiency check, outside tolerances and you FAIL"
"More than allowable swing for V1 cut and you FAIL"
"Speed plus 5 minus 0 or you FAIL"
"Missed app initiated instantaneously or you FAIL"
"Eng A/I not selected off at after T/O checklist or you FAIL"
"Rudder centered/not centered (can't remember which) for landing or you FAIL"
And so it went on.........

Me
"Umm, sorry to ask but as per vol 7 aren't these repeat items if outside tolerances?"

STC
"Nope, my checking, my way"

I think I counted he used the word FAIL 12 times in the initial brief before the PC.

Happy days

Isn't this where you're supposed to tap with you finger if that section doesn't light up ?

Firm grip of the non-essential
 

WTFK's and NFI

b.

How much oleo should be showing? This goes with the static wick question. Wicks? Oleos? Is this line check leading to something more penetrating?

Thanks for the good laugh boys. Priceless stuff. Are you guys in AQP ? I can honestly say the last two years I actually feel I walked out of the school house feeling a better pilot. No more BS stuff.

"Who told you to tie a knot in the plastic bag? It's not SOP"

I laughed.

He wasn't joking.

Brilliant,

Neither is having a plastic bag in the flight deck, or not tying a knot is not SOP.

We really have some door knobs flying at CX.:ugh:

I like the one about not putting your feet on the, wait for it..... "foot rests".

If some of this sounds like what you say on the flight deck, please go away and take a hard, long look at yourself!

The best thing about this thread is I don't feel so alone anymore and realize even worse **** goes on. Was once asked why I hadn't torn the front page of the CFP off (very annoying 747 thing) and folded it properly ? I laughed and said "why do you want to rip it off" but soon realized he wasn't joking!! My favorite comment in one of my ERAS reports dates back to when I was doing my LUFUS :-

"Landing was smooth on centerline and in touchdown zone however told FO xxx that flare was totally insufficient for landing at 280 tones even though on this sector the landing weight was 220 tones"

The Cav:cool:

Indeed! We used to discuss the correct way to fold the front page of the CFP at instructor meetings. There's only one way, and that's the Cathay way :ok:

You could always record some of our finest Sim Checkers on a discrete iPhone and take the resulting evidence to the Fleet office or better, the CAD. Good luck with the rest of your career, however, which is the air that allows these people to breathe and continue the abuse.
Needs some proper Leadership which is another problem.
12 mentions of the word FAIL and I would be tempted to question the mindset of the STC there and then. That is highly unusual, threatening and not acceptable.

This is the best thread Fragrant Harbour has seen in a long time.

Makes me laugh at what a bunch of dickheads are in the training dept at CX.... Unbelievable!!!

Haha! This is a hilarious thread! :8

This is from one check ride.

Checker: "Why did you ask the co-pilot if he is ready for take-off before commencing the take-off?!"
Me: "(Amazed) I thought it to be good CRM to make sure that we both are mentally prepared for this take-off"
Checker: "There is no such thing in SOP to ask the co-pilot about readiness for the take-off"
Me: Ok. (Cursing in my mind..) :}

The same checker asked about 100 nitpicking questions before a check. The crew only answered couple of questions wrong. The checker replied that this oral examination is not going too good. :ok:

Max speed for windscreen wiper?
It's about 180 strokes a minute !!!(Boeings anyway !1)
Geez, never heard such crass, pointless and irrelevant questions on my entire career !
What the hell is going on in CX and why are these idiots appointed to training in the first place ?? What do they think they are achieving ?

But its not just CX. In my BA days (where there were lot of good trainers, some not so good but OK, ) I flew with a U/T training captain, on (his) final check out with a management pilot. He was HOPELESS, truly hopeless and totally clueless as to what was required on a base training session.

I knew I had not done well and after his dreadful debrief I was so angry I told him exactly what I though of his performance. (I had had a lot of training experience in the RAF as a QFI) He was non plussed to say the least, and I expected a P45 job. After his departure I was summoned into the flight manager's office for a "chat". He agreed with everything I said, he had failed this would be T/C told me not to worry and do the trip again next week, which went swimmingly. That was in 1975 but still remember it so clearly.

Common sense CAN prevail.

I still remember being told off on the 747-200 for setting 1013 on the stby altimeter above transition altitude, instead of, er, 29.92!

:}

All very funny and sad at the same time......:eek:

However fellas I can honestly say that in 20 years I've only had 2 line checks where dumb questions were asked and honestly most of the time hardly any questions were asked at all...

Maybe I'm lucky or had good checkers!!

Either way I hope it continues that way for a bit longer....

Doing an IF renewal with the Screaming Skull- best nickname ever! - I get briefed before hand that he is there as a representative of the CAD and as a checker only and not to expect any help or inputs from him etc etc. You all know the little spiel they give before all checkrides.

Then he tells me what to do throughout the whole ride and writes me up for resisting his training inputs during the check.....:ugh:

Called in as a replacement FO for an STC's line check with another STC in the 3rd crew seat to being told that

Captain ZZ "it's Captain XX line check and not yours, we won't be asking you any questions"

Then getting questioned by Captain XX to which the reply was

"the answer is 'B' or 'C' if B is wrong "

After 4 or 5 questions and getting same answer, he gave up and didn't ask anymore after that.

Capt ZZ in back was quietly laughing

By the way, funniest thread on this site for a long time.... Thanks for the humour...

I have been lucky as really never getting asked more than what is required which is one technical question. Where is the closest H2O extinguisher. Is the usual one. Lol I use to love the humour in some of the old checkers though with questions like name 3 of the magnificent Seven etc. I said I hadn't seen the movie and he laughed and said **** you guys are to bloody young now a days..

Ooh my turn!!
 

My all-time favorite from one of the many 'small hands, smells like cabbage' long sleeve brigade:

"So Bloggs, when the fuel indication reads Zero, how much fuel actually remains in the system??"
:ugh:

Lurker
 

Samsonite, you've lurked for more than 15 years and now made your first post.
Congratulations!

Same STC used to have your staff travel taken off you for a year or two if he thought you hadn't put enough study in before the check when it came to answering his tech questions.............

Happy days.

Why are there blue dots on the tyre sidewall?
How many are we allowed? (Ok so I've told you I don't have a clue why they're there but you're still thinking I'll know how many we're allowed)
What is the largest piece of wood on the Airbus?
Where is it located?
Why do we have it?
Why is there a repair on the nacelle in that spot? Explain to me nacelle harmonics?
What's the separation in this airspace (over Russia)? Why are they all different everywhere so we could never memorize all of them? (And my favorite) Why haven't you memorized them?

As an old a scaler said "you don't get the housing and education allowance for housing and education, you get them for what you have to put up with, this isn't BA"

Funniest thread ever

Come on there's some good guys too:

CC: "What's this and what does it do?"
Me: "Clock??......Tells the time??"
CC: "That'll do me....end of the technical stuff"

Grivation.
 

Is that not part of the problem? Our training managers sign of on ERAS, with out looking deeper. You can have a great trainer / instructor and get a fair report, signed off. A report by an incompetent trainer/instructor will be signed off the same way. They never question checkers, it's always the student or person being checked at fault in this management's eyes.

When promotions/ upgraded come and your file go to one of those ridiculous committee's / Star chambers. It's the roll of the dice as to who wrote what in your file.

Evidence of this is obvious in the CX culture. Say at sign on, surrounded by colleagues. " I am doing a check next week", and the first response by your colleagues will be " Who's doing it??" In my case 80% or the answers will be " Great, nice guy" ..... 20% "Call sick, manage your file".

Not a culture I like to work in.

This from a friend of mine
 

Certain D!ckhead Irish Checker/Trainer, who tried for years to get into training and constantly rejected. Then when CX short of good guys to go into training, they aim for the bottom of the barrel. He gets in.

Leaving in about 4-5 months (thank God)

My mate is taxying out for T/Off

Closes the sliding table

Clover face turns to him and says...

"...you're closing the table to loudly, you know they're worth about $6-7000 USD...close 'em a bit quieter so they don't break..."

That is NO LIE.

What sort of screwed up company employs people like that.

Good guy Q
 

"Ok tech questions...which switch/instrument/knob is a local HKG department store?"
Few moments of silence....
"Wing On"?
"Excellent !! tech quiz over"

Gotta have fun

Regarding the Airbus tray table, I do find that some guys/gals slam it into the stowage so hard, the whole forward panel vibrates; can't be good for the all that good gear that resides there. It's annoying and unnecessary (if I was Irish I'd add 'to be sure to be sure').

The same glorious irish twit found it necessary on one training flight to throw a clip board AND strike a JFO upgrade candidate, the old stiff ones, not the soft ones. Tantamount to assault if you ask me. During cockpit set up. Should have stopped, got out of the seat, called medically unfit, gone to Doctor and then the Police. Nice to see him talking to the old Bill later explaining his actions.

Because the JFO feared for his future he didn't do anything but was extremely traumatised by the said twit who continued the so called "training" in his usual incompetent berating manner.

AND the training office does nothing because they are complicit in a culture of coverup and bullying. Ohhh, and why don't they (muggins target tee) come and talk to us about it? If they can't work that out, then long so may it continue. Manage your training file accordingly (I like that).

Bob, are you saying that JFOs used to be old and stiff, but now they are new and soft?:E ( sorry, I could no resist)

I think that all our checkers are beautiful, truthful souls.

SOPS
 

...funny, I read it the same way also :O

"A woman, without her man, is nothing."
"A woman: without her, man is nothing."

Punctuation is powerful.

Great thread. Aloha.

Monster330,

I know you are not lying! The same clown has a thing about the closing of Jep/Nav tech charts.

DO NOT open and close it over and over again. Take the whole section out, remove/ insert the specific charts needed, then re-insert the whole section. Therefore only one open and close.

:mad:

This guy is obsessed with how you open and close things?.......very strange.

This dude sounds like the perfect Cathay Pathetic training manager - what went wrong?

Accurate answer .....
 

STC: "Do you know what a no coast drag brake is?"

Me: "Yes"

...... end of questioning, no further comment made!!

I got got picked up for not having the FMC FAF showing during the descent brief. Not having heard of this we asked his reference and he replied "aha! Fleet newsletter!":ugh::=

ME: "Cleared below transition...."
HIM: Folded arms and silence.
ME: "Uhh, cleared below transition...."
HIM: Still, folded arms and silence.
ME: "Uhh, we are cleared below transition....QNH?..."
HIM: "The call is TRANSITION....when you say it I'll do it."
ME: :ugh::ugh::ugh::ugh::ugh::ugh::ugh::ugh::ugh::ugh:

HIM: On ground, gets out FCOM3 and finds it and shows me, along with further remonstration.

Apparently not ALL Canadians are assholes though!:ok:

Not CX but here in Oz: We had a checkie who boasted that he spent two hours every night reading manuals, rules etc and, certainly, he appeared to know EVERYTHING about the aircraft and aviation in general. I admit, he was a very good operator himself, but a shocking checkie. One of those guys who is invaluable as a trainer because of their ability and extensive knowledge, but totally out of control with the power that comes with checking. A flight with him was a continuous barrage of questions, often while you were busy. Typically he would ask stuff that could not be measured e.g. "When visual, how far horizontally must you remain away from cloud?" Me: "Er......far enough to see where you are going?" Him: "Not acceptable, you of all people being a check captain yourself, must know". Me: "Actually I do, but how do we measure it?"


He never got the message about keeping questions practical. One day after I gave him a line check I marked him down for 'Compliance with Regulations'. He had never had a grade of less than 'excellent' in his career, so was quite miffed at getting an 'only average' from me, the resident cowboy of all people.


His sin? He did not switch on the navigation lights, by day, in cloud. Cowboys one, Anal Retentives nil.

"Transition"
"No, don't set it now, you might level at a FL"
"Ok, Standard set and cross checked"
"well you have set the QNH now so stick with it"
"Standard set, you can do what you like"
"Well no need to be funny about it"

"No need to be a f***ing arse" which of course i couldn't really say!