Left seat is iminent

If the FO willingly allows the captain to do something illegal, then he/she is not being a good FO. Yes, we've all flown with THAT guy, but keeping the operation legal and safe is part of the job of being an FO...
To the OP...CONGRATS!!! Enjoy the ride!
 
JD,
Don't worry dude. You're one of our best FOs. Know your systems and our ops spec and don't let Noel get you flustered. He gets a sick satisfaction out of it. ;-)

Just remember to not be like some of our more difficult captains (not gonna mention names) but think of the things they do that you don't like and don't do that. Be the captain you want to fly with. Use your FO, make him/her a team member (not a professional passenger). Remember you don't know everything and you don't have to. That's why we fly two crew.

The Navy taught you to be a leader so now you get to be one. You'll do fine. I'll fly with you any day.
 
Your an airline captain! Congrats dude! Beers on me at Skyland next time I'm in PDX, Captain. Bonus points if you can guess who this is :)
 
charlie1017 said:
If the FO willingly allows the captain to do something illegal, then he/she is not being a good FO. Yes, we've all flown with THAT guy, but keeping the operation legal and safe is part of the job of being an FO...
To the OP...CONGRATS!!! Enjoy the ride!
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Really? I've had captains who while flying us direct into thunderstorms give me a look like I've just said the dumbest thing in the world when I suggest we request to divert. Passenger who told him she was afraid of flying so he flies her up the gorge at low level in heavy winds so he can show her a "good time". Same guy told me to just sit there and keep my mouth shut while he tried to do everything. When the autopilot wouldn't work and he was trying to fly the plane and do paperwork he finally realized that I might be able to do more than sit there and look pretty. I was happy to let the jerk make a fool of himself in his own self importance.

Different captain never used checklists, said he was smart enough to memorize them. Started up with a cowling open, taxied and took off with baggage doors open, loosing passengers luggage, twice! Couldn't tell the guy anything. He taxied with the baggage doors open two days in a row with different FOs. He was gods gift to aviation. Same situation, happy to let the ass screw himself out of a job.

Some captains just need to taught a lesson otherwise you be finding them ignoring you or arguing with you in the cockpit. Some captains are so full of themselves that there is nothing you can do as an FO except sit and pray the jerk doesn't screw up bad enough to cost you your license or life.
 
Come up with a short and sweet cockpit brief.

Mine was, "If I screw up, you screwed up for letting me screw up." "Hinting and hoping not allowed."
 
av8tr1 said:
Really? I've had captains who while flying us direct into thunderstorms give me a look like I've just said the dumbest thing in the world when I suggest we request to divert. Passenger who told him she was afraid of flying so he flies her up the gorge at low level in heavy winds so he can show her a "good time". Same guy told me to just sit there and keep my mouth shut while he tried to do everything. When the autopilot wouldn't work and he was trying to fly the plane and do paperwork he finally realized that I might be able to do more than sit there and look pretty. I was happy to let the jerk make a fool of himself in his own self importance.

Different captain never used checklists, said he was smart enough to memorize them. Started up with a cowling open, taxied and took off with baggage doors open, loosing passengers luggage, twice! Couldn't tell the guy anything. He taxied with the baggage doors open two days in a row with different FOs. He was gods gift to aviation. Same situation, happy to let the ass screw himself out of a job.

Some captains just need to taught a lesson otherwise you be finding them ignoring you or arguing with you in the cockpit. Some captains are so full of themselves that there is nothing you can do as an FO except sit and pray the jerk doesn't screw up bad enough to cost you your license or life.
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What company do you work for?

Just curious as I know to avoid them. Thanks!
 
The left seat isn't that much different that the right seat as far as flying goes. The left is about managing the operation and crew while it under your responsibility. Remember you are the final say so and don't get bullied into taking a plane you don't believe is right or go into wx you don't want to go into. You are the final authority period. You can tell ATC Unable.

You can alway slow things down on the ground by using the parking brake. If something isn't right set the brake and assess and resolve the issue before getting airborne. The parking brake can give you valuable IQ points and time on the ground only.

Grow a thick skin, pax will and other crewmembers may say something you don't like or flat out insult you. Let it go and learn when, where, and what battles to fight and what ones just don't matter. Kill your ramp crews and ops people with kindness. Pissing off these people or FBO's rampies won't help you. I've seen capts do this and then wonder why it is taking for ever to get fuel or the FBO won't do them any favors.

Use your FO and don't isolate him/her, get them involved early in the flight planning and decision making. Solicit their input and listen to it when they offer it. They may have a valid point or see something you overlooked. Don't ever force an FO into the air that has a concern over the flight, figure out what the issue and resolve.

As others have said, you have seen good and bad captains. Take what you like from the good ones and mold their positive qualities into your style and don't be like the captains you couldn't stand.

Just relax and trust your training and ability and will be fine. In 100-200 hours you should be getting pretty comfortable in the left seat.

Congrats and Good Luck!
 
There are a lot of pilots whose captaincy puts their ego way over the top. Often they believe they know better than op spec or FARs. There are a lot of tyrants in this industry. We have examples of this all over the NTSB database. A simple search of YouTube gives you hundreds of examples of captains who refuse to use their crew beyond organic auto pilots.

I flew with them in the military and now in the civilian world. They have no clue what the definition of teamwork is. They often think that the FO is a brand new student there to learn and have little respect for the experiance and knowledge the FO brings to the table.

There are many captains who intentionally violate company policy or FARs. Refuses to involve crew in decisions and regularly try to fly the aircraft into dangourous flight conditions because their egos will not allow them to turn back, admit they made a bad decision or can't accept that they don't know everything.

Woe the poor FO and passengers who are stuck flying with these NTSB reports in the making.

Captains take note, use your crew, involve them in decisions, don't belittle them or ignore them.
 
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Seggy said:
Wow.

Just wow.

Anyway, @av8tr1 ever hear of CRM/TEM?
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Welcome to 135. Some outfits are awesome, have great CRM and do a good job with the threat-error-management game, others...well, not so much. I'm lucky enough to work for one that I think is pretty damn good, but I have worked for some in the past where those concepts are somewhat alien. At my first 135 job flying cargo as an FO, at 500 hours, the crotchety old CP there was somewhat legendary for being particularly old school. I was told by a buddy who'd gone through groundschool before me to just shut up and keep my head down during training and he was right. Apparently a few years before I got there someone posed the question, "but what about CRM?" Apparently, he stood up, threw his pen down and shouted, "CRM?! CRM?! YOU KNOW WHAT CRM STANDS FOR?! IT STANDS FOR DO YOUR F-ING JOB!" and stormed out. I guess class was over for the day after that. He was one of those guys who came back to working 135 after he couldn't work 121 anymore from what I gather, and has since disappeared to wherever those old pelicans go - I imagine he's well into his 70's now if he's even still alive. He was always nice to me, and treated me fairly (even when I didn't deserve it), but you gotta figure, he ran a training department where he inculcated that sort of philosophy into dozens of pilots along the way. What kind of downstream repercussions will that create I doubt we'll ever know. He knew the systems better than flight safety, but he was certainly of the "Captain is God" mentality.

Part of the problem in 135 safety culture is that a lot people simply don't know of a "better" way to do things. They've never been exposed to an operation that had the budget to have a real safety program or a real training program, and now, they're making it up as they go. This is especially the case in simpler airplanes where checklists may have been written by lawyers in Wichita rather than pilots, and never revised by managers that never used them anyway. There are tons of guys with multiple thousands of hours of experience (sometimes even in the tens of thousands of hours) who've never actually heard about ASAP, or SMS, or TEM. Sure these guys have heard about CRM - simply because the FAA is always talking about it, and many more have even discussed risk management in great detail - every pilot who doesn't have a death wish talks about how things could be safer, better, or easier. Still, unless you keep up with this sort of stuff on the internet (@Derg - seriously, thanks, without this website there's no way I'd be able to keep up with the sheer volume of new information coming in without it), it's easy to fall through the cracks in 135.

There isn't pro-standards at most 135 outfits. There isn't an official safety program at most small 135 outfits. There isn't really any stringent mandatory recurrent training at many 135 outfits. Hell, some 135 companies flagrantly violate FARs because it suits them (see basically all of the ad hoc freight operators). 135.351 is pretty lenient in what it allows, and many companies simply do a checkride and written test and send you on your way - this isn't necessarily bad if you have an excellent safety culture at your company, have on-going training events that are outside the scope of 135, and your company has excellent communication systems internally, but if any of those systems are less than effective, you need some recurrent to knock the rust off. Like I said, here we do a good job (recurrent sim training and a sort of CTS system that's pretty nifty), at my old job in ANC we did an excellent job (we were always doing some kind of training outside of simply stuff for the checkride), but there are many places where this is not the case and hazardous attitudes never really get a chance to be addressed because they never get exposed. 135 is great, and I love the flying you get to do in it, but there a lot of bugs in the regs and safety systems to work out, and the burden of safety typically rests on the shoulders of the line pilots - not the company itself in most "ma and pop" style operators.
 
@Seggy Of course I have. Are you suggesting that what I've described doesn't happen or do you think the FO is a paid passenger and should not be involved in cockpit management or safety of flight decisions?

What I am saying is that there are some captains who don't use crew resource management and refuse to involve the crew in any decisions. And when crew members speak up to suggest positive outcomes or things the captain might not have recognized they are belittled or ignored. So the crew might as well be a paid passenger. What does a crew member do at that point? Put their hands in their lap and stare out the window?

I've had to convince at least one of my captains of the importance of CRM. He's actually a awesome pilot. But his head is stuck so far up his ass he can see the light from his ears. Every single flight is a stream of complaints about everyone from the ramp team to SOC. No one but him can do anything right. I actually enjoy flying with him but I fear the day when an emergency comes and he wants to do everything himself because he doesn't trust anyone else to do it right. While I just sit there and hang on for dear life.

I've had a captain tell me "I'm in charge and if I want your opinion I'll ask you. Otherwise do as I say and don't speak unless spoken to". That's an actual quote from a guy I flew with......in this case he owned the bird and I was just there for insurance purposes. I was with the organization all of one single flight.

Now maybe is different in the 121 world but I've got no desire to fly 121. All my experiance has been military, 91 or 135. The rules out here seem to be more guidelines with some people but since there the captain their word might as well be law and woe the poor crew member who speaks without being spoken too.

Now to get the thread back on track, I have ZERO concerns about the OP and I think he will be one of our company's best pilots. But he's flown with a couple of pilots like I've described above and I know he knows that's not the way to lead.
 
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Get ready for major stress! How to handle it? Slow down and remember the "Job Saver".

The Job Saver: When you're all fired up and about to climb up the ladder take two steps back and count to 5: tail stand, upper cargo door, pods, chocks, prop stop. Point to each one as you check it. It is so easy to not see these simple things when you're stressing.
And when you close the passenger door, double check the door handle.
When you use the prop stop, never use the factory hook on the right side of the cowling--you can't see it from the left side and one day you'll crank it with it on there. Hook it on the nose gear or hook it into the air-con slots on the lower left cowling. That way you'll always see it before climbing in.

Just last week, a FedEx Caravan taxied onto the ramp next to me after landing and the rear pod door was hanging open.

Congratulations, you're on your way.
 
gliderboy said:
Get ready for major stress! How to handle it? Slow down and remember the "Job Saver".

The Job Saver: When you're all fired up and about to climb up the ladder take two steps back and count to 5: tail stand, upper cargo door, pods, chocks, prop stop. Point to each one as you check it. It is so easy to not see these simple things when you're stressing.
And when you close the passenger door, double check the door handle.
When you use the prop stop, never use the factory hook on the right side of the cowling--you can't see it from the left side and one day you'll crank it with it on there. Hook it on the nose gear or hook it into the air-con slots on the lower left cowling. That way you'll always see it before climbing in.

Just last week, a FedEx Caravan taxied onto the ramp next to me after landing and the rear pod door was hanging open.

Congratulations, you're on your way.
Click to expand...

In the van this is a great idea - personally, when I flew it, before I shut the door for takeoff, I always did one final walk around - plugs and propjock have been removed, pitot-covers, aft air-stair door closed and locked, cargo door locked, tailstand out and in the back pod, pod doors closed, TKS is sufficient, step up on the ladder and check the fuel caps, then I'm ready to fly. I did this religiously and never had a problem.
 
av8tr1 said:
Now maybe is different in the 121 world but I've got no desire to fly 121. All my experiance has been military, 91 or 135. The rules out here seem to be more guidelines with some people but since there the captain their word might as well be law and woe the poor crew member who speaks without being spoken too.
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Here's the thing. Everything you just said, that you don't like about • captains, doesn't exist in 121 land. So, you have no desire to fly 121, yet the exact conditions, which you desire, only exist if you fly 121.
 
av8tr1 said:
JD,
Don't worry dude. You're one of our best FOs. Know your systems and our ops spec and don't let Noel get you flustered. He gets a sick satisfaction out of it. ;-)

Just remember to not be like some of our more difficult captains (not gonna mention names) but think of the things they do that you don't like and don't do that. Be the captain you want to fly with. Use your FO, make him/her a team member (not a professional passenger). Remember you don't know everything and you don't have to. That's why we fly two crew.

The Navy taught you to be a leader so now you get to be one. You'll do fine. I'll fly with you any day.
Click to expand...


I have flown with all of our captains and can honestly say I have not had the same interaction and environment you speak of. I don't think there is a single captain I don't get along with or dread flying with. I will take the pros from each and try to mirror their strengths though!
 
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Thanks for all of the replies everyone! @milleR great story! If I end up in SAN and we have those shades in our planes, I will try not to cuss at them as I attempt to fold them! :)

I am studying as much as I can, luckily the caravan is not all that complicated so the "flows" (if you want to call them) are not that extensive. One thing that is quite rusty is my IFR filing, have not done that since my IFR checkride back in 2012! I am also blowing dust off of my instrument handbooks just to touch up on the little things I may miss, other than that mostly FSM, GOM, Opspecs and the POH. Thanks again for the encouragement fellas (and ladies...), again another example of a great resource this site is for all of us! @MikeD and @Roger Roger I will try not to EFF it up or ball it up ;)
 
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