Would be interesting to see the other perspective as well.

I would want the captain to be capable of taking good photos of me at the controls so that I can keep my instagram followers up to date.

he should not get angry when I am texting my mates on the turnaround. It is not difficult to set up the FMC so he could be getting on with that rather than moaning at me.

The captain should also not complain when I twist and turn the buttons with vigour and looking cool. You can’t be a professional without being able to look the part.

oh and finally, while we are on the subject of moaning, why do they always moan about not having my uniform on properly? It is too warm to do up my jacket and I am definitely not taking my sunnies off, even inside.

if they want me to be professional, they should start being professional too. The number of captains I have seen plonk in the aeroplane at about 1000ft in with a heavy landing, when on a long runway you should be aiming to touch down a bit smoother but a lot further into the runway. For passenger comfort. That’s what being a good pilot is all about.

kind regards,

Nigel
Age 19.5

If they’re expecting encyclopaedic knowledge of the OMB, there’s no reason why a good Captain shouldn’t brush up on the latest Love Island gossip in return.

Oh, and stop asking for how much fuel the FO would like to take if you’re just going to use the one that’s in your head anyway...

Caution, communication and an aware of ones limits with regards experience.

How about:

Capt: "This is the MINIMUM amount of fuel I think we should take, do you think we should be taking any extra on top of that?"

At the end of the day, the captain isn't going to get airborne with less fuel than they want (quite right!) so how about giving the FO the lower limit and letting them work up if they want (And if you're willing)?

Unless the FO can justify the amount he wants then I will take the one in my head...

That also boils my pi$$. When it’s my sector and I want to take plog fuel (because that is most efficient, innit?) and the captain says he wants to take more! He had his turn at deciding the fuel load on the previous sector, this time it’s my aeroplane. I paid £129k to be sat here so I’m bloody well going to make some decisions. You don’t need anymore than plog because that has enough fuel to divert. Only a doddery old git would need to take extra fuel because he can’t make the right decision in an instant.

i just got my third stripe, so I have exactly the same qualifications that the captain has, therefore I’m just as good as he is. Probably better, to be honest. I went integrated.

kind regards,

Laurence
Age 21.

I’m close to upgrade so have not yet flown with another FO - but am I the only other FO surprised by the attitude of some of the replies here. It would be hugely disappointing to find this sort of attitude to be widespread.

It would be hugely disappointing if anyone took the thread seriously.

Old captains buy the first 2 rounds and flirt with the ugly one. New captains are a right troublesome bunch in this regard....

Now we get to the real nitty gritty! Buying rounds... Definitely a treat to be relished, as if it happens, you can relax in the knowledge that your company is actually quite tolerable! If you don’t get bought a drink, you need to take a long, hard look at yourself (and ideally, the job adverts in the back of flight international)

Some funny replies....
As a TC and former FO who flew with many a skipper in my 9 years as an FO in different airlines, it’s my view that FO’s should expect a new CP to be thorough, not flaunt the rules and be able to run the show as he or she has been trained with the understanding and support of the FO....it’s not a competition! I often sit and watch senior fo’s raising eyebrows and tutting whilst a new CP is getting to grips with their new role. All I can say is, “we’ll see how you find it when it’s your turn” because there’s slightly more to it than just moving three feet left, and believe me, some of the fo’s whom I thought would make it..... didn’t. Tread carefully, it’s not a rite of passage.

The Captains I like flying with understand that a two day growth is part of my identity and not an attempt to become a Hipster. They don’t get all awkes when I apply lip balm while staring at them in cruise and they totally understand the benefits of sending acars messages to base while in busy terminal airspace. If we get vectors off track and VNAV is sucking they remind me which one of those stupid old modes will work until ATC stop mucking us up. Basically, I like flying with the smart ones.
Andrew, 24

Advice for both seats. Do not be a smart ar$e. Do not pre empt. Do be on time. And shave or grow a beard (ladies exempt from both). Sloppy appearance equals sloppy pilot.

A good Captain will let the know-it-all in the RHS dig a big hole, then bail him/her out. Never say “ I told you so”.

Let F/Os play with the FMS - they are better at that than you, BUT if their hands hover over the gear or flap levers, smack them. Just because Mummy and Daddy never smacked them doesn’t mean you shouldn’t.
But when it is the F/O’s sector, unless they are about to kill you, leave them to it. Nothing is worse than a line captain who turns every trip into a check ride.

Sounds like you fly the 737? :}

The Captains is responsible for the cost of the operation. The hardest thing I have to deal with is trying to convince the FO without pissing them off, that we really don't need to take more than flight plan fuel when he/she asks to take more for no apparent reason.

I give the FO the respect they deserve. All I ask is they turn up early, look smart with your jacket buttoned up, be prepared and understand the task in hand which is to get from A to B and back without any problems. If I think the destination is ok for them to fly it there, I offer them the outbound leg. I let them choose first what they want to eat, I'll eat whatever is left. I let them fly it and say nothing unless I absolutely have to. I remember my 8 years in the RHS. 3 years now in the LHS. You may think sitting in the LHS is easy with regards who you will fly with, it's not.

Why? I maximise my rest time and arrive at sign on time.
Everyone assesses risk differently. If my f/o wants more gas than me I take it as long as it doesn’t prevent us getting the FL I want or push us over a landing weight I think is sensible for the runway at destination.Sounds like your F/o’s are more conservative than you. Such is life, just don’t cock it up or you’ll waste all your savings in one day :)

Any possibility you could explain how you come to that assumption

If your FO wants to take an extra tonne for not apparent reason, you would take it ?

Since part of the job of a Captain is to develop and teach the FOs, why not take it and use it as a learning point (with the caveats listed above)?

After landing look at the fuel and debrief. If he/she has more than the tonne remaining then congratulate them on managing their energy well and discuss whether if it was necessary to take the extra gas. If less, why was that? what could be done differently? Or was it a good decision to carry extra.

Depending on the sector and the tankering gain/loss, you may find the lessons identified may exceed the cost of the fuel and self-confidence. Just food for thought.

p.s. It’s not just trainers that can develop FOs

So be wasteful as a learning point rather than explain why in the first place?

So if the FO wants to start the decent 10nm earlier than you would have done, you presumably stop them and make them wait until your TOD? Or do you wait and then discuss later why they had to use V/S etc to shallow the decent later on.

Any fuel that you take above the OFP Fuel Req’d is only ever a best guess based on experience, but that doesn’t mean it’s an exact science... or that extra fuel would be listed as an OFP figure.

If you think you have the right answers all the time, you’re probably in the wrong job (not you specifically CM, just in general)

Yes, indeed.

That says a lot about lack of professionalism and responsibility towards your employer. What do you think your pilot managers would think if they knew you were irresponsible enough to carry extra fuel to use as a learning point. It's a business, not a flying club.

That’s exactly my point, none of this is an exact science so there isn’t necessarily a “correct, most efficient TOD”. You probably don’t know how much of the STAR you’ll fly, whether you’ll get a shortcut, track extension, winds are only a forecast, when you’ll need EAI etc etc etc

Anyhow, that’s my last input

Even less reason to descend early!

Sorry but that’s complete tosh. What is this, 1952 or something? I’m sure if you usually had a full head of hair but came in one day sporting the Ed Norton American History X hairstyle eyebrows might be raised at that. So why is that shocking on the top of your head but go a couple of inches lower and that’s the ideal? I’ll give you a clue why, because it’s all b*ll*cks.

Same as what I’ve witnessed in a previous airline where a grotesquely overweight base captain has marched over the apron to an otherwise immaculately turned out FO who happened to have some five o clock shadow to administer a b*llocking for his “appearance”. One has a bit of five o clock shadow the other is sweating profusely with stomach bulging out, shirt around the navel has a button unfastened because it can barely take the strain, who looks worse? I know the answer. The best Captain (CRM and handling) I ever flew with regularly came to work unshaven, reckon I ever raised an eyebrow?

I like the different comments about the “Captains letting the FO dig holes so they can learn” and the Captains are running the show also when it’s the FO’s sector. This the case most of the time but I have to say there are some exceptions when Captains aren’t running anything. I’ve seen some pretty poor performances from Captains where they lost their being in command due to actions like: not going around on an unstable approach, trying to cross red stop bars when I shout stop and they continue (incl lining up runways), or planning to take minimum fuel to a place with heavy snow. Just saying it’s not only FO’s trying to kill Captains.

The ones I really like is when they ask me to say silly things to ATC. Only recently: “Can you tell tower we would appreciate the first available airborne opportunity?” No, I will not tell tower Captain, we all want to get airborne ASAP..

I am so glad I have never flown in the airlines. You lot sound like you are right on the edge of killing each other! All this bull!!!! about buttoning up your jacket and when you shave and over managing the poor bloke flying the plane.

There are two pilots up front in case one dies. Redundancy, same reason why we have more than one engine. I expect to go to work, enjoy my day with whoever I am flying with, probably spend a week in a hotel somewhere, do a bit more flying, have a chat about life at some point, and generally find a way to finish batting through 25 years of flying. Why do people try to make this job difficult! Go to work, dont be a cock, go home. Its reaaly really simple.

NLP the badgering of and backchat to ATC is one of the things I really dislike about our current employer, there’s far too many skippers around who try to do their job for them. As an ex controller myself it really gets on my tits, I always pretend I haven’t heard them and basically make them make the transmission themselves. And we wonder why we get a bad reputation in places like Dublin for instance.

That would never happen in my outfit. If the F/O wanted an extra tonne there would be a discussion, you know, like two professionals would have, it would go something like this;
“ why the extra tonne?”
” We’ll, with the single runway Ops here we might burn an extra 200 on taxi and then that jet will effect us if we don’t get our level, the other thing I’m thinking of is the delays into XXX at this time of day, we will probably get 20 mins hold and that would leave us with the low fuel lights on, I think an extra tonne is sensible”
” yeah ok, are there any fronts we need to clear?
” Nup”
” Landing weight good?”
Yup”
”ok, an extra tonne sounds good, how’s the wife and kids?”.

Bingo.
Most of my F/O’s had turbo prop commands for years and have between 3 and 15,000 hours.
I might feel differently if I operated with a different demographic.The reality is at my joint that we pretty much agree within a few hundred kg’s 99% of the time. The $58 to carry the extra tonne doesn’t bother me too much and happens rarely.

Agreed Rex, luckily it’s a small minority who do it. And Dublin ATC is pretty poor ;)