The problem juliet refers to, I think, is that of small men with big egos.

Frankly, I amazed they allow us to drive to work.......

Seniority is a whole other issue that will be argued till the end of time. Fact is its what most of us live with.

Seniority means that a captain is a captain not because of their superior ability, but because they joined a day before someone else. Most are excellent and acknowledge the abilities of their crew, using them to enhance their decision making. And of course we all understand that ultimately it's the captain that has the final say and takes ultimate responsibility. As an FO I'm more than happy with that. All I ever ask is don't treat me like a child, I'm a fellow professional who is more than capable of ALL the roles and responsibilities required in getting an airliner from A-B. Even taxiing.

Sorry for the thread drift!!

About 15 years ago, one of our Captains hit the boom of an ARFF firetruck with the right wingtip of a practically brand new 777 while taxiing to the gate on his fini flight.

The firetruck drivers had positioned their vehicles at specially pre-painted markings on both the sides of the taxiway leading into the ramp so that they could shoot a stream of water in a high arc over top the aircraft as a salute to the retiring Captain as he taxied to the gate.

The trouble was, the markings were painted to accommodate MD-11's, L-1011's and B-767's and no one had remembered to readjust them for the longer wingspans of our newly acquired 777's.

The poor Captain had flown his whole career and never so much had ever scratched an airplane and here he was now stopped short of the gate waiting to get the collision sorted out with his family and friends on board for his retirement flight.

Later, the company and FAA tried to blame the F/O for the mishap but ALPA rightly put up the defense that there was no possible way for the copilot to see the right wingtip's impending collision with the firetruck.

From that time on, I was more than happy with our company's policy that Captains did all the taxiing.

Going to be scary when you get a command then...

Yep. Pretty scary.

Juliet - Guess you want to do the RTO also ???

Capable maybe , responsible - NO .

This is surely a thread going nowhere , calling out Captains . It's the companys' train set . If they allow you to taxi , fly a sector or do paper work , apply Nike . Just do it !

If it's allowed , then I am sure most Captains comply , but it is their choice also . You are not entitled just because you think you may be competent or have been a 5* general in your previous life .

In your military life , did your superior rank indicate that you were the most suitable for the job ? Did your underlings comply with orders simply because that it how it works , even if they disagreed or were competent to command your platoon , division or aircraft ?

The military is completely different and quite irrelevant in that there is no seniority as such when it comes to flying. I've been in command with more senior officers in my crew, happens all the time.

Do I want to do the RTO? Interestingly in a previous life FOs were allowed to call abort, and shockingly it never caused a problem. In my airline I can't, and that's fine. Am I capable of it though? Yes I am, I haven't lost that decision making ability.

All I've been saying, in response to some comments on here, is that the attitudes of some in aviation are pretty crappy, and invariably based on a view that their ability is based on something other than their seniority number.

I appreciate that it's the captain's neck on the line so if he wants to do the taxiing (lvps or anything non standard) then I take no offence in that. I do however feel that I am fully capable of taxiing an aircraft and that is mostly for his own reassurance.

Shorties can be special, no doubt. I suppose, being shoved into a locker a few times too many would do that.

I worked for a lot of airlines(not by choice, lot's seem just to die over the last decade) and different a/c types.

Some had 1 tiller, others 2.

On this with steering both sides the FO could drive on his sector. But to be honest, this was one company and all the others sticked with "the captain drives".
I find this fair enough as the captain(and not the FO) is responsible for the safe operation of the flight and even more for safe taxi procedures. If something goes wrong, even initiated by the FO, they always go for the guy in the left seat.
Best example - in my current company we do as well lots of flights into Africa, had already a few "wing touches" on narrow parking areas while under control of a marshaller. He waived them right into the obstacle and of course they made the captain the black sheep - even changed procedures so captains would be even responsible for damage caused to the aircraft while under marshallers guidance. In this case I prefer to drive the thing into the wall by myself rather then let the FO do it :E.

The same goes for a Rejected TO. I see(like most companies) no problem why a FO could not call out a malfunction, but making a STOP or GO decision should be(and is nearly everywhere) the captains decision. To many "opinions" during such a critical phase can cause confusion and lead to errors where you do not want to have them.

The FO has a very important role on a flight deck by supporting the captain and giving ideas. Sometimes as well to bring the captain again on the right track if he took the wrong turn or missed something.

But Go/No Go decisions are very tricky and need a lot of experience.

The only eception from above said things and the copilot may actually rightfully reject are jammed flight controls on his sector. No way that the PNF would figure that out and here it is absolutely the FO's call to reject.

I agree that captain is overall responsible for safety, but I consider takeoff (including V1-cut scenario) and landing much more dangerous than taxiing an aircraft at 10-15 konts and making some turns. If FO lands so hard that the landing gear collapses, they will come after you as well - but I guess you still let them land?

Well, it is captain's decision when to delegate PF duties to FO. I can understand if you wouldn't let an FO taxi the aircraft on a narrow apron in Africa at night (just as you would probably take controls in case of any major flight controls problem for landing), but why not let them learn on a not-so-busy airport with large empty apron and wide taxiways at broad daylight?

One way of looking at this is - if they know how to do your job (e.g. taxi the aircraft, start the engines, etc.), they can be much better at noticing something is going wrong during this part.

In most companies where FO can taxi the aircraft, callout "STOP" during takeoff roll automatically transfers the control of the aircraft to the guy in the left seat anyway.

Do you mean immediately, or once the aircraft is stopped? Just curious!

@Flying Stone, I agree with all of that.

I am a little uncomfortable when (other) people imply that the F/O has little or no responsibility for the safe operation of a flight. Of course they have. Sure if it comes to court, the F/O might not be the one in the dock, (although they probably will be), but if through their negligence or actions, an accident occured, that F/O is going to feel extremely responsible, whether legally so or not.

The training for a F/O on Hermes in Britavia was done with the PF in LHS which had the only nose wheel steering control, electrically selected, but hydraulically powered. The Chief Pilot sat in the RHS. The F/E set up the power I requested.

As F/O LHS I was required to have my right hand just forward of the throttles so that if I needed to close the them before V1 the F/E would have a tactile confirmation of this, in case he had failed to hear my command.

My " Legal Six" T/Os and Landings took 1 hour and 5 minutes at Blackbushe, which was not busy.

A couple of days later, together with another equally well trained (and also new) F/O we three flew together to Singapore and return ( 71 .50 in 10 sectors.) I did some other flights with other crews to Nairobi etc. to do some 120 hours in that first November.

ALL T/O and landings were done by the pilot who was sitting in the LHS, who might be a Captain or F/O.

Years later later a similar system of seating was usual on Caledonian Airways DC7c and Britannia fleets, right from the start of that Company. Both aircraft types had a SINGLE nose wheel steering. The flying part of the T/R was much more comprehensive and took longer too!


( One perhaps unusual technique required on the Zambian Oil Lift, required the Britannia to be REVERSE TAXiED to an unloading bay.
THE PILOTS MUST HAVE BOTH FEET ON THE FLOOR ,,,,,
TO STOP GOING BACKWARDS ASK THE F/E TO CANCEL REVERSE AND GIVE ME FORWARD THRUST.!)

LT

I'm not a fan of watching the Captain stumble through the before takeoff checklist/line-up checks while I taxi from the right seat. And don't get me started on the after landing flow.

I'd rather just give him back control of the airplane and take care of all those things, thank you very much. Lest we get to the runway without TA/RA, or get to the stand with the weather radar still on.

Now there is pilot who gets it:)

While i'm not very passionate about the whole FO taxi thing, if the above is the case for more than the first two or three weeks it shows clearly incompetence on the captains in question. Give them a re-training session, if they dont get it and they still miss steps after that, show them the door, the lower seniority guys will enjoy that a lot :ok:

No excuse in my book. They are so clever, they should be capable of learning a few simple flows. And reading a checklist is child's play.

If they can't do that then are they really competent to fly as LHS?

Plus if they did these things on the ground every day (as we do in my company), they do just fine. I taxi to the stand (captain always parks), and the captain does everything else. Sure he might miss the weather radar... but I've done that too. That's why we have checklists. If we were perfect every time, then there would be no need for checklists.

In an airline flying a fleet of 320+ 737-800 aeroplanes into little and large airports across Europe, the average FO probably has <2000 hours flight time (turnover and command at 3000 hours being the norm).

I can perfectly understand why such an airline specified all its aeroplanes with only 1 tiller!

ps: the same airline limits 2 stripers to 15knots crosswind.