Yes discipline ... and company policy!!

Besides, if you are forced to work in a pigsty (or if it doesn't bother you), then your work will reflect that. Garbage in, garbage out. Your working environment is just as important to overall performance, as is state-of-the-art technology. And old doesn't have to mean dirty.

:sad:

kotakota. Judging by whats left sometimes, I think our crews do eat of the floor.;)

A Number of points come to mind after reading this Topic

1. Flight Deck crew Need to Clean up after themselves, ( I once entered the FD after the Training Capt had left, to find Rubbish, Papers and Food in the Flight Deck, so I did my After Fight Inspection Picked up all Offending Mess Went up to his Office and placed it upon his desk. He asked me what the**** I was doing to which I replied I was returning his mess and next time I found it like that I would do the same, Luckely we were friends and he apologised for the mess and next day sent a memo to all Air Crew asking them to tidy up behind themselves after each Flight)

2. Please if you do spill drink or liquids in the Flight Deck Report it in the Tech Log (Nothing worse than all the Lights and Communications going out Mid-Fight, Over the sea in the Dark, very very scarey)

3. Flight Decks need a proper deep clean every 'C' Check, but that doesn't get done due to Management and Bean Counters not wanting Aircraft in the Hanger longer than it needs to be or giving the Maintenace to Third party Outfits who will only do as they are tasked.

I do think BALPA should raise this issue of Flight Deck Cleanliness with the Managment of Airlines and also the CAA, because it does have Health and Safety issues, and with less and less Crew on shift rosters if a pilot does go off sick due to something that he or she picked up on the Flight Deck that also raise's cost issues with the Airlines which will in turn have an affect on Profits.

As you can guess I'm an Engineer I dont like Cleaning up after some of the Pigs that sit up front nor do I like not being able to do anything about it, due to time restraints placed upon me by Short Turnaround Times on the Line or in the Hanger Inputs, I want to hand over the Aircraft to the next Crew Servicable and Clean and with luck the Crew will bring it back to me in the same condition, and in that way I dont get as stressed, and have more time to talk to the lovely Cabin Crew.

Just to throw in my thoughts.....

When I first started my airline job, when getting home before doing anything I would go and wash my hands. After one wash with soap, the water would run away black, after the second, a more translucent grey, and finally after the third wash, it would run clear again.

After a couple of months of constant sniffles and partially-blocked nostrils, I wondered if I was picking up germs from work. So I decided to invest in a couple of microphone muffs and ear-pad sock things, as well as stocking up on Dettol anti-bacterial wipes from my local supermarket.

My pre-flight routine now is to use the wipes on any surface in the flight-deck where I'm likely to be toucing. EG, control column, thrust levers, flap selector, etc. And the checklist gets a wipe over too! I also use it on the headset before putting on my mic and ear-seal covers.

Result now is less sniffles and less blocked nostrils, and the water runs clean after only two washes..... Oh, and several strange looks from Captains questioning me on whether I have Compulsive Obsessive Disorder. To which my response is, "Well take a look at the filth down your side then!"

I don't know if my routine makes a difference, but at least it gives a slight peace of mind!

Cheers,
Shortcut

In response to HKG Phooeys' original post:

Mr Phooey you are I presume living in that former far-flung outpost of the United Kingdom known as Hong Kong?

I also presume you travel to your place of work on Hong Kongs extremely efficient public transport. And on your G-Days you are travelling round town possibly with your family on the same public transport?

Or is it that when you went to work you were obviously wearing latex gloves to hold that handrail and ring the bell to get off the bus? Wearing a full bio-protective suit perhaps, with a filtered airsource? Or you didn't go out on your G-Days, you lived inside a hermetically sealed oxygen tent. Travelled to and from work like the crew of the Space Shuttle in a decontaminated Winnebago.

Now, maybe you could cast your mind back a couple of years to a time when there was a thing called SARS going around. And how everybody in the Hong Kong community, all 7 million of us, sat up and realised what a dirty bunch of what-nots we were. And all of a sudden, overnight, in response to the brilliant govermnment adverts, people were washing their hands after blowing their noses, after wiping their behinds and taking a whizz. So as to be considerate to their fellow city dwellers. NOT.

So if your fellow crew member has got the chart in his/her gob, what do you do? Well, you come in here and have a moan of course!

Maybe, and I'm not suggesting anything painful here, you could politely ask him/her to remove it from their chops? Or report it to your superior as unprofessional behaviour? You'll probably find they are also the person that cut's their nails on the MTR, spits on the pavement, pisses all over the public toilet seat, before forgetting to wash his hands and get on the bus, MTR, taxi etc etc etc. If you feel you can't do it because of the face culture. Well I wouldn't like to begin to tell you how many holes in the ground have been caused by pandering to face in our industry.

Rant over.


PS Welcome to Hong Kong!! :ok:

One word or rather acronym springs to mind.....FOD.

Crap on the flight deck represents a major flight safety issue. If your aircraft has mechanical linkages your in double trouble. It's all to easy for something to slip under the control coloumn gator into the bell crank...well you see where I'm going and it has happend !

When I was a lad I was taught religously to EMPTY your pockets before entering a flight deck or cockpit.

Even if your in a Scarebus, it runs on wigglies and metal objects in particular represent a high risk when loose in the cockpit. Gum wrappers are perfect for shorting out electrical connections, as are coins.

Gentlemen in the interests of flight safety please keep your work area not just clean but immaculate.

As an aside

Standard practice for fastjet crew to do
FOD checks usually a period of inverted fligth does the trick, the length of which is governed by how much stuff the crew pick off the canopy.

You should see the "flight deck" of a C206 after a day of Dingo Baiting :yuk: :yuk: :yuk:

Filthy Cockpits
 

You should see our ambulances. At shift change at our city-centre station it's
1) pick a germ lab that's been out all the previous shift,
2) get your first call at three minutes after sign-on time,
3) try to grab any chance you get to slosh some water and disinfectant over it (giving the germs a nice warm soapy bath).
4) get the next call - etc etc ad nauseam.
I imagine it has lots to do with 24/7 usage, rarely having a regular assigned crew per van, and snatching meals between calls etc.
:{ :{
Odd thing is we all keep going back for more ... duty? desperation? masochism? a weirdly magnetic love/hate relationship with our respective sources of income? ... who knows?
Keep up the good work, guys and girls. Every time we fly we owe our lives to your hard work, determined professionalism and consistently high standards. :ok: I usually face each flight with a heady mix of :uhoh: and :D - the :uhoh: applies to those in the management/finance/hr offices, not the "front office". The
:D applies to seeing the upper side of the clouds at sunset, circling Zakynthos for half an hour, whisper quiet at 4am with a full moon silvering the sea below, being the only one sober enough to watch the eye-aching gold of a June sunrise over Elba from a 757, surviving a pax flight on an IL18. Sorry if this is naive, romantic :yuk: to any tired professionals among you. I love that side of flight, hate the politics and what its doing to you.

Until recently, I was with a european airline were it was common practice that the only complaint at the end of the flight, either written or verbal, was the flight deck requires cleaning. Not being flight crew, sitting there for several hours, being served trays of food and drink. I always wondered who actually made the mess that was so frequently complained about. In fact one afternoon there was an obstruction to the coloumn, a small empty, damaged coke can was jammed behind.
Breakfast cereal, biscuits, dinner on the floor and in the seat tracks, wet deposits on the pedastal, instruments.
Several times we disscused this subject and wondered what would happen during a decompression incident with this stuff lying around, whether this debris would lift and fly around adding to the problem....

I'm all for "leaving a place better than you found it", and there's no excuse for not picking up trash after yourself when you leave the cockpit. But reading this thread has me wondering just how many hypochondriacs living in hermitically-sealed bubbles are out there masquerading as airline pilots. I mean really...

Legislating away dust in the cockpit?

Cookie crumbs in the seat rail constituting a workplace environmental health hazard?

Involve the government and BALPA?

Dettol-wiping every surface or switch you might touch in the cockpit before a flight instead of keeping your hands out of your mouth like your mother told you?

And most of these comments coming from people who take national pride in the close-quarters, macro petri dish known as public mass-transport and the invention of the queue, both of which seem to be tailor-made for the puprose of germ-swapping with strangers?

Y'all are beginning to worry me. Makes me wonder what kind of diseases you're carrying around.

Btw, I think it was on the Discovery Channel where I saw that the "dust" you encounter indoors (yes, even workplaces that vacumn and wipe off desks every night have dust) consists mainly of minute flakes of human skin.

Just think, even as you read this, you're sucking thousands of them into your lungs with every breath! And don't even get me started about what lives inside the hotel mattresses and pillows you sleep on, mouth agape, where thousands have slept before.

Yes lads, you might go crazy thinking about it.

Our flightdeck is spotless, to the extent that we use specs cleaning cloths on the instrument glass during quiet moments in flight.;) and clean the A/C after every flight.

Allthatglitters...................

Decompression excellent idea. Would clean it all out in a flash.
Just keep your harness on though.

It is the nature and culture of the airline that leads to filthy cockpits. Some yeras back starting with one airline I found that the cockpit crew could throw their rubbish on the floor and would then summon the flight attendants to the cockpit to clean up. The first thing I said to my copilot who having just cleaned his headset with his cleaning/disinfectant towel and put the offending towel on the central pedestal was "Put that somewhere else such as the ash tray or wherever you wish, but not in our common space." -(that is until it ready to be cleared away). He was offended but I made my point. As a Captain one of the roles I have to take is to tell copilots that at the end of each flight they must ensure that the cockpit is clean and all rubbish put in a plastic or sick bag for the cabib or cleaning crew to clear away. Instructors and all cockpict occupants have a role to play in this. Life is not just about PTS it is the way we interact with other people as well (CRM) that make for a great flying career. If I get into an aeroplane after maintenance and the cockpit is dirty because of maintenance work then who ever the crew chief is, must arrange for the cockpit to be cleaned. The same goes for a crew change only.

By the way in any outfit, fit to be called an airline a professional Cabin crew will clear all waste within reason as it a hazard in case of of a fire. Basic logic.

Yeah, fropilot, you go tell'em! :p

Um....yeah.....sounds like a wonderful example of good CRM where a cockpit atmosphere that promotes communication is established by the Captain.

My co-pilots always respond positively to nitpicking, especially when it comes just after we meet or when I tell them what they must do after each flight.

:rolleyes:

Lots of posts on Prune today (including one above) that make references to "my copilot" ...

These are the same old timers that make PAs that say I am "your captain" and this is "my airplane" ...

I thought CRM and Mr Darwin had removed most of the dinosaurs from this industry ?

>>These are the same old timers that make PAs that say I am "your captain" and this is "my airplane" ...

**********************************
Aw - go on let them believe that they are in charge and not just the driver. I don't suppose it does any real harm.

Two dots

so I guess the sarcasm of my post (directed at the post 2 prior to mine) escaped you?

After reading this discussion I went to work armed with the determination to clean the FD of all the dust and grime I could. I get to work and find I am flying a 737 fresh out of a C check with not only a fresh coat of paint on the outside but a sparkling looking flight deck on the inside with almost all the avionic pannels repainted and clean, new seat covers with fresh sheepskins! Next time then:8

belowMDA: LUCKY YOU! :cool:

CRM - COUNT the RINGS MATE!

This is my cockpit, you are a resource, prepare to be managed.

>CRM - COUNT the RINGS MATE!
>This is my cockpit, you are a resource, prepare to be managed.

********************************

But have you got scrambled egg?
;)

Yes, imbedded in the sheepskin seat cover. :E

What's all the fuss about chaps.....that's why airlines employ trolley-dollies!
They keep my male pax in order -
They keep FO and I amused -
They come with fluids etc -
....and they clean up the FD whilst George drives and we stretch our legs.

Some of them even look nice!

LOL to three greens. In my outfit, being a small company, we leave "dirty notes" to any coworkers who leave crap behind in the cocckpit. As a result, we all clean up behind us when we leave the aircraft after a duty period.

Sticky situation...
 

hmmm...I had wondered, if there was a problem of the previous occupants leaving their bubble gum on the throttle. ;)

During the last two days I flew upon two different aircraft in our fleet and, in each of them, the level of 'dust' (i.e. dead skin, etc) that was settled upon the surfaces of the FlightDeck was appalling !

Now I'm all for clearing up after oneself, e.g. all trash goes into a Flight Deck gash bag (which we'll also remove when the flying's completed), along with tidying lapstraps, stowing arm rests, putting Jepps away, etc, but I simply don't have the means at hand to also clean and hoover the flightdeck.

Nb. If only for my own benefit (and a for small fee :) ) I would be prepared - on the longer sectors - to do a bit of spring-cleaning (subject to the provision of a soft brush and a small portable hoover).

Aside - To prove what I mean, I'll take some pics on my next flight (Saturday) and post them here ( though hopefully by then d'management - which I know reads PPRuNe - will have done something about this filth ).

In any event I very much doubt that our office-bound 'team members' :rolleyes: would put up with the same level of 'dust' & filth in their working environment.

So tell me Cole, and others...

this "dead skin and dust" etc...

how does one recognise it?...

I mean, I spent 40 yrs in cockpits, how come we didn't have these problems in my days?

Like, do you lot these days shed skin like snakes, lizards etc??

:ugh:

Thats the trouble with the beach fleets and all that time sunning down route. The peeling skin has to go some where. :E
Those office waller's suffer, apart from the odd nasel discard, only dust from shuffling papers and sharpening those pencils

amos 2,

The answer may be that these days the aircraft are pressurised. You can't just open the window in the cruise and blow the dust away. Shame really.

Kirk out…

Having not read the whole thread (there is quite alot of it), but it would seem to me that the office wallahs would probably turn around and go home if their office wasn't cleaned every evening by the contract cleaners, so why can't we have our flight decks cleaned?

At the last company I flew with the 'cleaners' wouldn't even clean the heads at the end of the day's shift. Well, they did, or said they did, but actually all they did was to empty a can of (so called) air freshener into the toilet cubicle. The aeroplane then stank of rancid heads and cheap air freshener, instead of just rancid heads. I realised that getting the flight deck cleaned was a leap of astronomic proportions if we couldn't get the heads cleaned.... I don't know quite why we put up with it, but for some stupid reason we do.

in one airline there was a abort due to a box of tobacco got stuck
between throttles and pedestal could not apply take off power:*

I have also heard of an occasion where the aircraft went off the side of the runway because some pillock had left an empty Coca Cola can underneath the nosewheel steering tiller and it jammed.

By the way, not only do we clean up after ourselves but we fit loose (plastic/leather) covers over the flight deck seats after flight so that the maintenance guys can sit down without having to worry about how much grease their bums have inherited during a long night of hard work.

It only takes a couple of minutes and it works well.

Filthy flight decks
 

Just be careful cleaning your own flight. I wasn't.
Very bored somewhere between Berlin and the Canaries when I thought I'd use a 'hot towel' to wipe around the radios. It went very quiet for half an hour or so!

I must say im surprised at the response of this thread. Given the more important issues of fatigue, pay, conditions, intimidation, chapter 11 resulting paycuts and pensions, etc .. this thread will surpass them all in responses.

And I know I now are included in these responses.

Pilots should clean up their rubbish, throw away empty cups, wipe any spilled coffee in the cup holders after flight.
Only selfishness and arrogance would preclude this.

However they do not have time before flight to do spring cleaning with a vacuum cleaner, and should not be required to. Cleaners come on the aircraft to do that before each sector.

I would not be opposed to using a dustbuster in the long cruise sectors, but would it be wise to poke around the controls and equipment during flight.

Over and above the wipeing of screens by pilots, and vacumming by cleaners, the flight deck should be thoroughly spring cleaned in the hanger during each check, whether by engineers or cleaners cautioned over the care required with expensive equipment and risked of blocked or damaged controls.

Some of you guy's & girl's have hit the nail on the head when it comes to a/c cleaners doing the cockpit.
As an ex cleaner I can tell you it is scary stuff in there and we did have one new guy who wishing to impress his supervisor took it upon himself to spray all the nice switchs and guages liberally with a mild cleaning fluid solution!
Coming out of the cockpit with a large and satisfied grin on his face he was met by an engineer who asked "what the bloody hell he had been doing" and upon receiving the answer promptly grounded the a/c for 24 hours!
Cleaning of cockpits should be a specialized job but I do agree pilots should clean up after themselves with regard to papers/food etc.
Just to add although I am an ex cleaner I was not the new guy I mentioned above.HONEST.

Dumdidum, where's that dustbust.. ah, there it is. <whirrrrrrrrrrrrrrr>
Hmmmm, ladida, well this goes rather nicely <SHRAAAKKK> Whoops, there go the FMC buttons.:8

My airline doesn´t have the money to hire someone to tidy up, so you may all just imagine what happens when the "freight dogs" rocks during flight and all crap lifts from the floor and panels? :-) I get surprise every time of what sorts of things I find...

Not to mention all dirt and germs flying around... There is then no surprise in that some pilots get sick...

The engineers think it´s below their dignity to handle a vacuum cleaner and a mop ( need more women engineers!) but won´t allow the cleaning staff in. They might damage the delicate equipment. Bull****, if you ask me! So, I just sit in the !!!!. :(
And this is a flag carrier:mad:

Charles, you're so precious. :bored: