First Officer Minimums
 

My airline restricts First Officers to ceiling of 300' and vis. of 1500 metres. Crosswind limits also apply by a/c type.

It is my opinion that this is a crock left over from the good old days.

I am seeking information from as many airlines as possible as to what limits, if any , are applied to crew other than the Captain. For example, Second Officers are not even allowed to be in a control seat below 5000' a.g.l..

I am interested in any limits imposed such as but not limited to ceiling, vis.,autopilot use,crosswind etc. etc..

My airline operates all over the world with 737's and up including Category 3b operations.

My airline claims to operate to worlds best practise. What does yours do?

FO Minimums
 

In BA, the FO is limited to Cat 1 (200ft/550m) and 2/3 aircraft limits for the prevailing conditions.

Hope this helps

Some do, some don't....
 

F/O minimums,

Have worked for several companies (all heavy jets) and they all have restricted First Officers to 200'/550m (CAT I)....period.
No crosswind limits, or others that I can recall.
Have also trained many in the sim/aircraft, and if they can't cut the mustard there, they do not belong on the line.

How else will they learn if they don't fly (especially HAND fly) the aeroplane in adverse conditions? To overly restrict F/O's is bad policy, IMO.

Thanks for the quick start.411's post is exactly why I'm asking.

My company (737) restricts FO's to

400m+ RVR for T/O
Planned minima Cat1 + 100', RVR +200m
X-Wind T/O and landing 15kts.
No non-normal configuration landings

The only restriction to FO in the companies I've been is to Cat I minimums landings and no Take offs below 150m RVR.
Also no landings on short runways (less than 2000 m).
:ugh:

In addition....
 

Would go further with my comments above, if companies feel the need to overly restrict First Officers (takeoffs and landings)...then the training Captains at these respective aircarriers are NOT doing their job properly.

When the chips are down, and First Officers HAVE to do the landing (for whatever reason), they had better be properly trained and have good handling abilities...otherwise, bad news.

The SV TriStar incident of some years ago is a perfect example...due to tire/wheel fragmentation, all but one half of system 'D' hydraulics were lost (First Officer MUST land the aeroplane) yet he did a fine job BECAUSE he was properly trained in the first place.

Essential....period.

Could respondents, if willing, please nominate your airline as I would like to present this to management.
Does any airline here restrict autopilot use. My airline does not allow fo's to use the autpilot for ils below 1000'. I cannot for the life of me understand this and seek evidence against it. I think they might be the only airline that does. A lot of other asian carriers require autopilot use on approach!

Canada's Westjet operates the 737-200 & 700. The only time the PF role is mandated to be handled by the Captain is for the landing from a Pilot Monitored Approach (mandatory if the RVR is less than 2600 ft). The FO is the Pilot Flying for the approach down to minimums, selecting and monitoring the autopilot.

There is no differentiation between Captain and First Officer using the autopilot.

That's absolutely ridicoulous, FO minnimums!
Maybe they think this way the FO will improve their handling skills if they HAVE to!
BTW, even worste and sad is to mandate use of autopilot

LEM

The section in the ops manaul at bmi (all fleets) reads as follows:
(slightly edited for brevity)

Take off and landings by the co-pilot are always at the captains discretion. Unless the commander is a training captain OR the co-pilot is a senior first officer (in bmi this means you have passed a command assessment course) the commander will handle the aeroplane in the following circumstances:-

1. Operations to and from CAT C or B airfields where weather is a significant factor in planning the approach or departure.

2. X-wind greater than 2/3 of the maximum allowable for the conditions.

3. When the weather is close to CAT1 limits or a non-precision approach is being flown to limits.

4. When the take-off RVR is less than 2x the limit.

5. When there is a primary aicraft system malfunction.

Sounds like quite a long list but in practice the only ones that come up are the x-wind and RVR limits. The others mainly sort themselves out. In addition if an autoland in being flown the Captain is always PF.

I do agree that FO's need to practice in bad conditions but you need to balance this against the fact that in many companies there are often a large number of inexperienced FO's and more importantly, Captains. Imposing some sort of limit can take the pressure off both these groups of people, some new guys are pretty relieved that they are not expected to land the a/c in a howling 35kt x-wind and equally many new Captains will be pleased they don't have to supervise the same.

It's a tricky one really but in my experience the limits we use seem to be sensible and work quite well. If it were my descision I would lift the restrictions after perhaps 3 years and/or 3000 hours rather than waiting until passing a command assessment. We have loads of FO's who have been with us for years who can handle the aircraft at least as well as I can so why not let them get on with it?.

My company only has the standard 'Captain PF for Cat ll operations'.

I see no logic for differentiating between the PF and PNF.
It only serves to keep the satisfaction of using ones skills from perfectly able FO's and protects/hides sub-standard FO's.

An on the ball FO should be able to see where he may be close to his limits and offer control to the captain
A captain can at anytime takeover the duties of PF anyway with the line "If it's going to get broke, let me break it!"

Have you read AIRLINE SAFETY by William Heller?
No brainer with him: "Copilots should not be allowed to make landings and takeoffs with passengers on board."
Twenty years have passed since and today such a policy is unthinkable.
But I suggest you read it anyway, a GREAT book....
:ooh:

Yes, all very strange. I believe in a competency/experience based assessment. It is possible due to seniority in my company that a pilot will not actually approach and land at minimum conditions for 15-20 years when finally a number will come up for command assessment. It is indeed a trial by fire for these people and the upgrade is feared by many. The other stupid part of it is the situation where many new hires are extremely experienced(including yours truly) and have been jet captains with 10 or 15 thousand hours plus.
If a pilot satisfactorily demonstrates in training the ability to operate to minimums/maximums then the PF/PNF role should be interchangeable. If a pilot cannot demonstrate this then upgrades should be refused. It is a very silly situation to find this out after 20 years with the company, and really should be discovered in the probation years.

F/O Minimums

Whilst I don't have a real problem with this, how would the captain on the day know what limitis the F/O was approved to handle?

In BOAC days I undersand P2's used to have a 'Landing Card' that captains signed after a landing, they initially would approve 'day only, max 10kts wind' or whatever and gradually up the limits to whatever company procedures allowed. We have moved forwards from that (in BA) to Cat 1 and 2/3 max allowable X/w straight from training - I don't think that is a bad position to be in - maybe it could change to aircraft limits with the provision of a sim check prior to issue of the 3rd stripe and promotion to SFO? At least then there would be evidence for the captain in the form of an extra stripe. When it comes to joiners with previous experience, give them a 3rd stripe from day one.

Hmm at my company for as long as I can remember F/O's are restricted to Cat1 limits at the discretion of the Captain. The Cat11 and Cat111 can only be conducted by the Captain using the autopilot and autoland. Cruise pilot's are only allowed in either of the forward seats above 10T. There are T/O rules but unless the wx is really marginal most Captains are a bit lenient, as others have pointed out, you can't learn by seating on your hands. I try giving the F/O's as much responsibility as I can because that's the only way they are going to learn the trade. This policy has only disappointed me on a few occasions and the upside is that I pay for very little beer...

A much bigger problem on long haul is keeping your competency due to the lack of landings and T/O's. We have a system, as I suspect(know) others have, that the most senior F/O's fly the long haul and then go back on the short haul to get promoted. Some of them experience real problems so maybe how we do it, should be revisited.

Hey Folks I sat right seat for 12 years and the went LS for about 20 so far, so hang in there it's worth it..

400 m RVR for T/O.
CAT I min. for ldg.

Hi!

My airline has various restrictions on when the Captain should land or take off (short runways, contaminated, etc.), but, since we are not very standardized, most of the Captains don't pay any attention to what our manual says and let us (the FOs) do whatever they feel comfortable with. We can do everything with a training or evaluation captain.

We are prohibited from using autopilots on our approach below a certain height because ours are terrible. Basically, no one uses an autopilot on an approach, and if they do, it's off prior to the FAF.

Cliff
KGRB

My company's F/O limits are Min ceiling 300', RVR 750M, X-wind 15 knts (A/C max 30) unless flying with a training captain. Previous company x-wind limit was 25 knts (A/C max 36).

The one before that (military) had no F/O limits. The F/Os were assumed to be trained to the same standard as the Captains and were treated like adults. When I was a captain on this aircraft, I made a point of letting the F/Os do approaches in these conditions - how else are they supposed to learn!

Hey, I am 18 and have wanted to be a commercial pilot all my life, starting for frozen ATPL in September hopefully. This could make a few of you experienced guys chuckle at how niave I am but here goes anyway! I had an idea about F/O limits but I didn't know it was variable and to the point were you are not allowed t/o or landings in a number of situations. I know you learn everyday, but are you not tought how to land in a x-wind or low cloud through training or even type-rating? Must be?! I wonder how many landings F/O's get in the UK?!! Wasn't there a situation where a flight had to divert because of poor vis or something about a year ago, northern England, I seem to remember it being on the news. Anyway guess it's a captain's world.