757 A/T failure

Cherokee_Cruiser said:
Because…. The autothrottles didn’t work?

We did that crap in RJs for years. Now a big ol 757/767 is too hard without George controlling the thrust levers?
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I’ve never flown with auto-throttles. I honestly don’t even like flight directors too much, since I feel they are fairly aggressive. Pilots should be able to fly without all that stuff. But it’s also nice to have, especially when operating in a degraded mental capacity (like outside normal circadian rhythms). In this instance my comment was less about their decisions, but more to say I’d rather us figure out this mess in SFO than plug along to JFK with a crew that was tired, inexperienced, indecisive, confused, or whatever else led to all this.

Personal perspective: It felt to me that the Captain was exhausted, mentally strained, and probably should have called in fatigued in SFO. But he didn’t want to disrupt the operation so he pressed on. Things started to unravel, so he was looking for someone else to say “go back, it’s ok.” He was looking for validation. Maybe the mistake wasn’t with this entire conversation, but instead was taking the flight in the first place?
 
FlyChicaga said:
I’ve never flown with auto-throttles. I honestly don’t even like flight directors too much, since I feel they are fairly aggressive. Pilots should be able to fly without all that stuff. But it’s also nice to have, especially when operating in a degraded mental capacity (like outside normal circadian rhythms). In this instance my comment was less about their decisions, but more to say I’d rather us figure out this mess in SFO than plug along to JFK with a crew that was tired, inexperienced, indecisive, confused, or whatever else led to all this.

Personal perspective: It felt to me that the Captain was exhausted, mentally strained, and probably should have called in fatigued in SFO. But he didn’t want to disrupt the operation so he pressed on. Things started to unravel, so he was looking for someone else to say “go back, it’s ok.” He was looking for validation. Maybe the mistake wasn’t with this entire conversation, but instead was taking the flight in the first place?
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Maybe. It just sounds like a mess.

How much mental toll/fatigue involved in their random circles in the sky, unnecessary calls to a flight officer to make a decision for him, a botched approach to a go around, then a second approach…. Versus just to continue a normal flight once they got everything back except authothrottle, to normal cruise, descent, and landing in JFK.
 
Sounds like the duty pilot was trying to tell him “you can’t declare fatigued right after you took off, we can’t write it up that way. So what I think you meant to say regarding the return, is X…”
 
Skåning said:
It's shocking, 1000 hours in the left seat and a grand total of zero FOs have turned the FD off. When I do it they fumble around and are taken aback. Kinda weird for a company that touts itself as having a lot of hand flyers.

At Virgin guys would turn the FD off all the time. Much more common.
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haha when I was first out of training, if anything got weird in the automation at all, I had those things turned off faster than my new puppy •s when I'm not looking. But that was mainly because I was uncomfortable with the automation since id never used such tricks before, and ironically, looking outside and doing normal pilot stuff was my crutch when I didn't understand the automation. I would categorize FDs as automation, even if they aren't autopilot, for the record. It's been a while since I've felt the need, but I definitely did this on my IOE "check ride". I think he was honestly too confused about how I'd gotten from where I started us (space shuttle high and fast) to hitting the 500' gate configured on speed and stable with engines spooled and the FDs off the whole time, to fail me. I've since learned some non-caveman skills. I'm pretty sure the passengers appreciate this.
 
Cherokee_Cruiser said:
Second, I’m shocked Delta policy allows pilots to directly talk to MX in flight.
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That's something else that struck me....I feel like that ship sailed a long time ago (being able to call MX en-route for resets). Def a no-no at current shop, and I even feel like that was a thing at my regional back in the 2000's (maybe it changed while I was there).

My guess is the Swiss cheese didn't line up here.
 
Not sure of this CA’s experience but this is why it’s kind of important to maybe just hang out in the right seat for more than a year and learn the operation. Flying from the left seat isn’t hard. Sounds like this guy had issues “admining.” Good learning experience
 
Baronman said:
That's something else that struck me....I feel like that ship sailed a long time ago (being able to call MX en-route for resets). Def a no-no at current shop, and I even feel like that was a thing at my regional back in the 2000's (maybe it changed while I was there).

My guess is the Swiss cheese didn't line up here.
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I've certainly seen MX push to go down the wrong path before (both on the ground and in the air) but despite that, I still like actually being able to talk to somebody with an A&P after their name instead of playing a game of telephone through dispatch. Especially when the outcome decides whether you are going to keep going or going to end up dodging birds on the way into Midway at 3 in the morning.
 
Jordan793 said:
Not sure of this CA’s experience but this is why it’s kind of important to maybe just hang out in the right seat for more than a year and learn the operation. Flying from the left seat isn’t hard. Sounds like this guy had issues “admining.” Good learning experience
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This is an interesting point that resonates. I was talking with another former instructor yesterday about a guy who freshly upgraded on the Airbus, then was displaced to the 737 shortly after. This pilot could be described barely meeting standard at best, but that was on a hood day and that was historically documented. He struggled big time in Airbus upgrade, and barely made it through 737 transition. Fast forward to his 6 month CQ, he did not make it through and was eventually downgraded.

Having evaluated this guy in training events, and having my buddy fly with him on an ETOPS trip, we talked about all of his shortcomings. ALL of his issues were basically admin. None really had to do with occupying either seat. It wasn't directly related to airmanship either. Now this person is senior to me so if he doesn't get the operation now, he never will. That being said, it was all basically admin stuff that if he was with a new FO who needed to lean on a more senior pilot for these nuances, they would be dead in the water.
 
Inverted said:
This is an interesting point that resonates. I was talking with another former instructor yesterday about a guy who freshly upgraded on the Airbus, then was displaced to the 737 shortly after. This pilot could be described barely meeting standard at best, but that was on a hood day and that was historically documented. He struggled big time in Airbus upgrade, and barely made it through 737 transition. Fast forward to his 6 month CQ, he did not make it through and was eventually downgraded.

Having evaluated this guy in training events, and having my buddy fly with him on an ETOPS trip, we talked about all of his shortcomings. ALL of his issues were basically admin. None really had to do with occupying either seat. It wasn't directly related to airmanship either. Now this person is senior to me so if he doesn't get the operation now, he never will. That being said, it was all basically admin stuff that if he was with a new FO who needed to lean on a more senior pilot for these nuances, they would be dead in the water.
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Had he spent much time in the right seat? If one chooses, that's the time to really pick out what "admin" style you want.....try to take mental notes of what's going on in the left seat, maybe reflect a little on how you would have done things.

Looking back at my regional days, even 2.5 years in the right seat seems very quick now and I should have been considering those things to a greater degree. I could fly the plane just fine....never felt like handing the plane was difficult....but the admin stuff was still a work in progress which I didn't realize at the time. But when you're 28, never had a bust, flew through all phases of training you think you know everything. Or at least I did.
 
Cherokee_Cruiser said:
He gets crapped on because he comes off as narcissistic, look at me, look at what I’ve done. Seriously, who publishes a book about their career at 27.
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Uhhh that dude in the picture isn’t the book guy. Stop crapping on somebody you don’t know. They guy in the picture is actually a cool dude who’s done more to help people than you have done in your career.
 
nc1982 said:
Uhhh that dude in the picture isn’t the book guy. Stop crapping on somebody you don’t know. They guy in the picture is actually a cool dude who’s done more to help people than you have done in your career.
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Actually, now that I’ve read this Reddit guy post, did he type all that? Because if he typed that, it too reeks of narcissism look-at-me and what I did type. You’re not going to impress me with any of that, nor do I care what he did in his 5.5 yrs to help someone else - unless that involved walking a resume in and getting someone an interview.


Anyway. Back to the incident. How senior is a Capt at a 10,xxx number?
 
Cherokee_Cruiser said:
Actually, now that I’ve read this Reddit guy post, did he type all that? Because if he typed that, it too reeks of narcissism look-at-me and what I did type. You’re not going to impress me with any of that, nor do I care what he did in his 5.5 yrs to help someone else - unless that involved walking a resume in and getting someone an interview.


Anyway. Back to the incident. How senior is a Capt at a 10,xxx number?
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If you can figure out the captain on this incident was a 10,000 number you can figure out how senior he is by looking it up. Don’t play stupid.
 
Baronman said:
Had he spent much time in the right seat? If one chooses, that's the time to really pick out what "admin" style you want.....try to take mental notes of what's going on in the left seat, maybe reflect a little on how you would have done things.

Looking back at my regional days, even 2.5 years in the right seat seems very quick now and I should have been considering those things to a greater degree. I could fly the plane just fine....never felt like handing the plane was difficult....but the admin stuff was still a work in progress which I didn't realize at the time. But when you're 28, never had a bust, flew through all phases of training you think you know everything. Or at least I did.
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He was an FO for years on the bus before upgrading. But just never really took the time to think about the operational side of things and the admin side of things. Never practiced on how he would make a decision if he was in the left seat. I always practiced scenarios of what I would do if I was the CA, when I was in the right seat and something was going down. He didn't know who to talk to, didn't know when he needed a new release, or when to send for new performance data. He didn't know how to plot for an ETOPS flight, and when I say plot, literally loading the CP, EEP and EXP into Jepp FD. Just seemed like he spent years not paying attention because the CA would just take care of it and when he became a CA, he couldn't help when the FO had questions. Very bizarre scenario but really reminded me of just an overall lack of admin skills when it came to operational decision-making.
 
nc1982 said:
If you can figure out the captain on this incident was a 10,000 number you can figure out how senior he is by looking it up. Don’t play stupid.
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Nah - I don’t have DeltaNet access anymore. Apparently Endeavor was cool - or he just didn’t care. But then after 15+ yrs at EDV and finally at Delta, they scared him from day 1 and he doesn’t give his pwd out anymore. (Yes, I know the policy prohibits password sharing).
 
Cherokee_Cruiser said:
Actually, now that I’ve read this Reddit guy post, did he type all that? Because if he typed that, it too reeks of narcissism look-at-me and what I did type. You’re not going to impress me with any of that, nor do I care what he did in his 5.5 yrs to help someone else - unless that involved walking a resume in and getting someone an interview.


Anyway. Back to the incident. How senior is a Capt at a 10,xxx number?
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I guess it depends on your perspective. It wasn’t a picture of him flexing in the gym, it was a post about how he went from the ramp to 75/76 CA in 5 years. It’s really impressive. Yes, he got lucky, but it’s clear he busted his ass, too.

I view it as a post to inspire people who think it isn’t possible.
 
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