I agree with Pierre -

What difference does crew role have?

Captaincy is about decision making. If a Nav has a hell of a lot more experience than the pilot, he should be the Captain.

The RAF promotes people based on experience/seniority, why is being in an A/C any different?

no the raf does not promote for the above. it promotes for running the creche/scouts and spellling. if ship/sub captains dont drive its not cos they cant its cos they can and have the ability to allow their co driver do it. no stick no vote - simple.

I was collared by one of our airline's recuitment interviewers who asked about who captained navy aircraft. It seems an ex-observer with a frozen ATPL and about a hundred hours stick time (or whatever you can freeze and ATPl with nowadays) was trying to count his "Captain" time towards the hours requirements.

He who lands it, commands it.

Shadwell the old

Seeing as Kev Nurse is on Guernsey's Own, "What an ARSE" may be a compliment or a come on!!!!!!!:eek: :uhoh:

Two, three or four engines, it don't matter which - Glass cockpits - Two crew - No argument!

Which one of our multi ac has two crew then????

It is not obvious for sea "Captains".

On a ship, the man actually holding the steering wheel behind the rudder is just one out of many affecting where the ship goes. A lot is decided by what the men are doing with the sails, ropes and winches, or what the engine room team is achieving.

So, the person actually holding the steering wheel on the bridge is not even an officer. Actually holding the wheel and being helmsman is IIRC given to quartermasters.

A ship is navigated by someone who holds no controls, but who stands behind, watches the outcome of the work of helmsman, engine room and others, and gives orders. Which may be Captain, and a lot of time is Officer on Watch.

So. On a plane, who should hold controls, who should be a Captain? Could or should a plane be flown by two First Officers while the Captain occupies an observer seat?

Shadwell
You should well know that captaincy is about experience, knowledge and airmanship - that's why ISK have a good share of WSO capts. Most importantly, captaincy, amongst other things, is facing the Boss and Stn Cdr if you screw up - they don't send for the Lead Wet or P2
As a back end capt twice, I had my share of incidents - each time I quite simply stated on crew intercom, " P1 - capt, you are to RTB and get us there as quickly and safely as possible"
I also read and signed the F700, usually after everyone with an interest had seen it - I also ensured any crew member who had entered a snag, gave a face to face de-brief to the respective ground trade before vacating for the bus
Worked quite well

all the planes in my company are 2 crew glass and in fact in most modern outfits are although some of the less modern aircraft still have flight engineers ( i would still welcome them back even now- salt of the earth and all that). what about captains only landings at certain airfields. also i am sure that on a ship if the steering bloke keels over then the skipper would be able to take over and land without too much drama. dont see the point of a loadie being skipper on a j, or even one of the ftr controllers on the airborne bunker. as for having skipper in jump seat whilst having .... well what a waste of money.
lets face it ,should have tried harder during training or bought an atpl then you get to be captain - one day (+the big pay cheque)
incoming........

Since when did the RAF have "Captains"? That sounds like the AAC or RM's.

Actually only on the Antique AT fleet. The Ultra modern Tristar has 3 little black boxes called INU's NO nav Reqd.

Be careful about using the word "drives". If by "drive" you mean the Nav types in some waypoint names and tells the pilots "The kit's good if you want to use it" then they do indeed "drive" it.

But if you don't mean that, then your wrong and they don't drive the VC10. They programme the flight plan waypoints for use by pilots by either engaging the kit or following a white line. It is possible (and in some operational flights SOP) to fly without the nav kit engaged over long distances.

And you can input as many waypoints as you like, and engage any one of the 2 autopilots you want. Without the CAPTAIN allowing for the Nav key to be engaged, then nothing is driving the aircraft :ok:

F**k me ! And to think I've been turning up to work all this time, taking off and landing planes and all I needed to do was answer the radio !!

Wish someone would tell me these things !!!

I'll remember that when the weather is on minimas next time and you need someone to land the thing.....:E

Shall I ? Why not. While I'm at it . . .. . . .

You'll know from the OCU (Trg Flt for the purists out there) that the autopilot comprises of an Alt lock, an IAS lock and a Mach lock.

Unlike your modern jets which have far superior autopilots whereby you can programme in your cleared height, and the thing takes you up there as well as adjusting the power for you, the VC10 requires a PILOT input to make all that happen.

So, you can pitch the aircraft using the pitch wheels and turn it using the manual control (or the heading bug if HDG mode selected). Until the nav key is engaged, that's how the turns will be done and until you are in the cruise the aircraft will be levelled on the pitch wheels.

More often than not it's the pilot inputs in the VC10 at critical stages of flight you'll be noticing.

And above all, the autopilot will only perform as well as the person operating it. It's not a magic box you know . .. :ok:

FFP - You'll be too busy working the radio to land the thing unless you convert on to something that lands itself.

True. I'll be able to give an awesome Finals call, just before the jet crashes in the undershoot :ok:

Is there any truth in the rumour that future large jets will be manned by a pilot and a dog?

The Pilot is there to feed the dog, the dogs job is to bite the pilot if he touches the controls??:E

obviously more to do with the civil airliners that are able to auto land zero/zero and taxi to stand

Can't taxi themselves I am afraid, and it is easy to get lost in very low vis.

On the mighty Vulcan the Plotter often 'flew' the aircraft in azimuth. Once, over Iran he was the only crew member awake, I had one eye half open, and he had to turn the aircraft south. In those days he did not have an R/T button so he could not make any R/T calls.

The pilots woke up as the Sun drenched the cockpit.