Just to clarify, we are not paid for what we DO do, but what we might, one day, have to do. I do not think any of those on board would consider the crew (cockpit or cabin) over paid. Well done to all, in the air and on the ground that day who brought about a successful return :D

You were really lucky your trainee was absolutely on the ball. Had you lost both engines and ended up in the Chao Phraya, I doubt there would have been ferries with all the safety equipment and safety minded crew coming over for rescue. I am sure there wouldn't be any video cameras capturing your " moment " of taking a drink.

The above cooment is mighty self-injurious. With the miserly pay that some of us get, we are not paid enough for what we routinely do! Anything out of the ordinary require a MAJOR reward.

Sorry but I don't agree. What we routinely do is a skill that with a big wallet and some time my granny can learn.
But what these pilots did was something exceptional, something that can hardly be learned, but something that comes from experience.
And the experience, that is what we (some of us) are paid the big bucks for.

I don't feel for that "Hero" -tag that f.i. capt Sullenberger and others have been given, because they were doing their job.
But I do have great admiration for Sully and these aussies and I can only learn from them and hope that in a similar situation I perform likewise.

That's why I think these awards are important, they deserve respect from their fellow pilots.

GYS, small wonder the T & Cs are deteriorating:{:ugh:

Likewise, my granny can cut and stitch......she can certainly learn to be a surgeon, or even do surgery cookbook style. I too, can do Alan Joyce's job with more finesse....we can go on and on, shafting ourselves nice and propr with this line of thinking.

Cannot agree more with all the plaudits for these guys.
Just wonder if there has been any analysis of whether the situation could have been saved if just a standard flight crew of just two had been on the flight deck.
Would they have been overwhelmed, or was it very good allocation of available resources?

Pilots get tested properly when stuff happens for which they have not been specifically trained and for which there are no checklists. These guys passed all the tests, and as you can see from this, they didn't stop when the pax had been disembarked either...

Handling The Big Jet: the human story of QF32 - Learmount

"....saw a huge dense flock of birds...."

But, I got real stick from ATC at Amsterdam some 15 years ago for refusing to begin the take off roll when I saw a large flock of geese from right to left just where we would have been lifting off.

"Take off immediately or you will lose your slot". Needless to say, I didn't take off and didn't lose my slot.

A photo I took in northwest Norfolk earlier this week shows a typical flock of Pinkfooted Geese; I posted it on a Bird Forum. You'd want to miss a flock like this:

http://www.birdforum.net/gallery/dat...4-Pinkfeet.jpg

"What we routinely do is a skill that with a big wallet and some time my granny can learn."

Like many others in this thread I disagree radically.

As a former QFI in the RAF I know that everyone who arrived to be trained had gone through exhaustive selection procedures and aptitude tests - which had a very, very high failure rate - and I also know that some of them still struggled on the course. It's no different in the airlines, even where careful selection has taken place.

Among those who have self-selected for training, if they get a job in the first place some of them will struggle to keep a job with any respectable outfit. But even self-selecters tend do do their own selection: they drop out of training when they realise they aren't good enough.

I don't know about your super-granny, but I think mine and most others could make it to first solo in the circuit and then they'd fail on the navexes, but even if they got a PPL that would be about it. Flying safely isn't something everybody can do, and flying really well, with deep reserves, which a professional airline pilot should, is a sophisticated skill that needs a big knowledge base to back it up. And while a high level education helps, I have chopped graduate entry pilots into the RAF along with those straight out of school. It's about much more than just academic ability.

Unsung heroes
 

Nicholas.Nickle wrote :

On the same vein, when I was flying for a major Pacific Rim carrier some years back, a colleague pre - empted a more serious fuel leak problem when he countermanded the explicit instructions from company maintenance control and despatcher. He had a engine fuel leak; however the leak rate was moderate and coupled with the well known tendency of the B777 FQI to vary quite a lot inflight made trouble shooting extremely difficult. He could not definitively ascertained that it was an engine fuel leak ( lack of visual cues, and other engine / fuel parameters ) but he certainly nailed it as a fuel leak. However the wonder boys at maintenance were analysing real time data from data link and concluded that there was no leak! They ordered him to continue or if he wanted to divert, he had to come back to them at main base. He told them to stuff it and diverted to ANC whereby an real moderately atomizing engine fuel leak was discovered! Had he diverted as suggested to some stormy lightning stricken airports ( as their enroute airports were that particular day ), they could have ended up as a giant fireball! Instead gratitude from the company, they tried to cover up the inadequacies of the maintenace and despatch departments...in so doing they employed many tactics to cut him down to size. I was utterly disgusted with the attitude of the company management pilots that I refused to renew my contract after my fifth year and plied my skills elsewhere.

Woody

Your story paints a pretty much universal picture of how pilots behave toward each other, unfortunately.

Life tells us that we are, on average, too individualistic and self-serving for our collective good, though that very individualism can be essential in saving a tricky airborne situation.

As a collective, I don't like pilots much. They think they are naturally loyal to their fellow pilots, but they'll slag them off and dump them in the doodah at the drop of a hat. Most are are too individualistic to be loyal when it comes to the collective crunch.

But maybe this aimless little musing of mine could be directed at any bunch of professionals whatever they do for a living.

My Thoughts, you talk Jive
 

nicholas.nickle wrote : nicholas, you are a perfect gentleman!

Thank you very much for giving your trainee captain the credit. I know a lot of blokes would have appropriated the " feat " for themselves.:D

Woody, you did us proud with your principled stand and I am sure your colleague appreciated your support and encouragement.:D

a man's job nonetheless
 

but lets get honest here...

(and I know A LOT of flyboys are going te get ticked of by this) lets look at the facts present on the flightdeck..

How many aviators were present? captain, training captain, training captain in training, a flight officer etc? If they couldn't have held it together with this much brain power and hands/ears/eyes on deck well shuck's, really time to eliminate all pilots, give raises to the cabin crews and go center in command from gate to gate.

A good job, and some coool heads up there (I think, can't here the voice recorder). But another honest thing here; the real "iron knuckles" pilots that considered flying as hard work and not as a hobby are by now going for full retirement, leaving the gross of pilots/my collegues left who are in it for the money and the uniform!

It's a catch 22, I knows. A pilot doesn't earn anything anymore unless he has to take command of an abnormal situation. But as the autopilot can handle with more consistency and often much better the normal flight procedures, pilots are at a disadvantage here already with the management breathing in their neck with acars reports and what have you not. When you train you cost money, and then putting extra training in for the "special occasions" (AF447!) airliners just as rather skip those and put them on the flight deck saving simulator time, hotels,replacement flight crews, training captains, pocket money, meals etc. Aircraft are designd these days to fly so "sharply" saving gas, wear and tear etc. that a normal pilot can hardly keep up anymore and he needs a physics degree with IT on top of that to keep up, let's just round it off to the titel of an aeronautical engineer? But what have we/I besides me more often then not: a young man(woman) barely finished high school who's mom or dad upfronted the money because he/she always wanted to fly and they see/saw it as a good return investment. And the uniform does look sharp doesn't it?

I think we need to take a good look at where aviation is going, and most importantly the knowledge, wisdom and real flying skills we are about to loose with the last generation of real pilots that are going for retirement right now! When I don't fly I just don't feel comfortable with what I see going upfront, both of them sometimes not older then 30, and the performances I am then subjected to in "flight"


And at last, spare me the details of their dinner ball and smug faces, this isn't present at any other "mishap" that happens when something goes wrong in aviation land, and personely if they consider this a feat with all surrounding circumstances present it is a sorry day for all of us because they need all this just to bring things these days to a good ending?!

:ok:

True, there was a lot of combined experience there. That was advantageous but.....only because they managed the resources well, and communicated well. I can easily imagine that many people involved being a hinderance if they weren't really well coordinated,knowing when to speak, when to listen, whats important whats not etc etc. Not every group of pilots/cabin crew would get a good result out of that scenario communications-wise. Well done I say.

Forget all the posts.

After all the analysis- it was an extremely difficult problem handled brilliantly by a well trained crew

Not saying they didn't handle it well!

But reflect on this:

- The FO was working on ECAM
- The supernumerary instructor was working in the AOMs and basically directing operations, he was assisted by the second supernumerary captain handling satcom.
- The supernumerary FO was inspecting the wing through the cabin
and ...
- The designated captain and PIC was handling the stick, and basically only that, as the AP said goodbye and the aircraft was difficult to handle

Is that a normal airline cockpit environment?
Is that a normal work and command distribution?
Is a complex modern airliner with a complex abnormal situation only able to be handled with so many cockpit occupants?

Well done, but honors??


Food for thought

The episode that brought them to our attention has nothing to do with the number of pilots on the FD at the time of the incident, but the controlled and considered manner in which they all dealt with the issues as they arose.

Given, a normal flight would have been down by two, but as luck would have it the day was saved by the combined experience of all. So lets not denigrate those involved, they all contributed, and I'm sure the pax are highly appreciative of that small fact.

Nobody is denigrating the involved.

What somewhat bothers me is that the laudatio covers in smoke the fact that had there been only two, the incident might have turned bad.

I simply miss the question raised, if this aircraft system got too complicated to be handled by the regular two man cockpit.

Could be. It is a concern that you could have such a complex emergency faced by a two person crew.