Human facors - sarcasm on the flight deck

[Sir Niall Dementia]

Rigpiggy;

I'm with you on this one. I did once watch from the jumpseat as CRM broke down between a crew and it resulted in mis-set altimeters (which the FO realised immediately, but said nothing) and left the P1 in a hell of a difficult position.

These days part of my pre-dep brief is "if you're unhappy about something, or think I'm wrong sing out quick. BUT don't be upset if I think I need to correct you.

With new FOs on type I also use "if you think you need speedbrake chances are its too late, and in that case use all of it and sort it out from there."

I'm old enough to realise that the 200hr wunderkind (and thats what I was 27 years ago) maybe better educated than me, and I often use the cruise to find out a lot of new stuff, but I need him to realise that within SOPs old age and cunning often have the edge on youth and enthusiasm.

A correction based on humour and understanding, if there's time, or done over a beer and a (relieved) laugh in the bar afterwards just seems to work for me.

SND

[Northbeach]

Could have handled better & poor response.

Captain offers the first officer the first leg of four hours. F/O acknowledges and the flight proceeeds normally up to the time the captain sees thunderstorms on radar 100 miles ahead across the planned track and realises a diversion around them is on the cards. The captain assesses it would be better to make a early diversion necessitating a minor heading change rather than a late diversion with greater heading changes.

F/O is PF and so far has made no indication of studying the position of the storms on radar. Captain calls ATC and requests diversion left of track to avoid weather. ATC gives approval. The captain directs the F/O to turn left on to a specified heading.

"The F/O looks over at the captain and says "So you are taking over control, are you?"

The captain nonplussed at this perceived sarcastic remark, asked the F/O what he was getting at?

The F/O replied that as it was his leg he should be the one to make any decision to divert and in his opinion there was no need to divert so early until a closer to the storm front.

The Captain could have done a better job by telling the FO he was concerned about the upcoming weather and asked what the FO’s plan was for dealing with what they were looking at. (For the casual non-pilot reader remember at 480 knots 100 miles is only 12 minutes away.) I am not saying the Captain is obligated to do so, but it might have avoided the negative result.

The FO comes across as rude and insecure. She/he also seems to be flying under a misunderstanding of what second-in-command means. Did she/he sign the release prior to departure?

It would be interesting to know what the experience level of the FO was as well as the national composition of the crew.

I try to set an open and supportive flight deck atmosphere and maintain as level of a flight deck gradient as I can. Rarely, but it does occasionally happen, I come across a FO that misinterprets my efforts as weakness on my part and then does something that (in my opinion) “crosses the line”. As a background most of the FO I fly with have between 6,000-8,000 hours of jet time, many were previously commanders flying RJs or turboprops and others still command “heavy” 4 engine military transports all over the world. The vast majority of them are a pure pleasure to fly with and I learn things all the time from them. We do not have any 250 hour pilots.

My conclusion; the Captain set himself/herself up for this negative experience by not correctly assessing the FO’s personality or their mindset. To preclude this event the Captain could have brought the weather issue up for discussion prior to initiating action. I would give the Captain only 3 out of 5 stars; just average.

The FO’s response was abysmal; she/he compounded the problem and represent themself in a very unflattering manner. The FO gets 1 star; poor – not disqualifying- but deficient and needing some correction/instruction and/or counseling.

** Sir Niall Dementia, above post, offers some excellent advice here**

A correction based on humour and understanding, if there's time, or done over a beer and a (relieved) laugh in the bar afterwards just seems to work for me.

My 2 cents worth……..given the very limited information I have.

Northbeach

[Slasher]

As a background most of the FO I fly with have between 6,000-8,000 hours of jet time, many were previously commanders flying RJs or turboprops and others still command “heavy” 4 engine military transports all over the world....We do not have any 250 hour pilots.

You lucky lucky bugger! Only rarely do I fly with experienced
FOs who've truly earned the right to sit in the RHS and know
fully what it is to be the SIC. Flying with those blokes makes
any trip a sheer pleasure.

The 250hr hotshots should be yanked out of the copilot seat
(where IMO they don't belong whatsoever) and spend a full
year with their butts confined to the jumpseat keeping their
mouths shut while observing how the professionals do it.

[Northbeach]

The only down side is.............

You lucky lucky bugger! Only rarely do I fly with experienced
FOs who've truly earned the right to sit in the RHS and know
fully what it is to be the SIC. Flying with those blokes makes
any trip a sheer pleasure.

Most of our FOs could pass their command checkride today, right now. with zero additional study or prep. With the poor economy they have been frozen in place long past due. Fortunately the ice is beginning to thaw and things are beginning to move again. We are currently upgrading Captains for the first time in several years.

Having no movement in the airline is frustrating for both of us (much harder on the great FOs who are without command).

Northbeach

[Slasher]

..We don't have 6000-8000 jet-houred FOs (wish we did) but
a couple of ex-capts off civil Hercs and one ex-CRJ bloke from
the States. Trouble is they're rostered to babysit the Co's new
3000hr "captains" which is why its rare I ever fly with 'em.

And yep they could easily be capts tomorrow without batting
an eyelid. In fact it was one of the Herc jocks I hand-picked
as my FO for a charter to snow-bound Russia some time ago
since I have limited experience in blizzards ice and slush in
320s. What he didn't know about cold wx ops didn't matter.

There're only two other FOs in the system who weren't capts
of anything heavy but came with about 5000 FO hours ex-GA
(Metros, Merlins, etc), and did their jet endorsements out of
their own pocket prior to applying. Needless to say that these
blokes are also great (but again rarely flown with for similar
reasons).