Professionalism...is sometimes lacking.

cmill said:
I can't believe I'm saying this, but I actually agree with the profile crowd here. There's a time and a place for hot doggin, but a plane with pax isn't one of them. I switch pretty regularly between cargo flights, and pax flights with guys hopping off a falcon 50 and onto our amphibs to go out to their ten million dollar house boat. You just don't fly cargo and pax the same way.

If I feel the need to get my rocks off by blowin my ear drums out with nothing but bags in the back, that's fine. But with the VIPs it's gotta be Cadillac smooth baby.
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You passengers don't care about the sweet CANPA approach you flew, it's all about if you scared them to death and pranged it on the runway.
 
turbojet28 said:
Gotta love flying with the occasional guy who will fly long range cruise or Vmd against a 120kt headwind in order to "make some cash" (and then requests that I do the same on my leg). Or the guy who initiates a descent by spinning the vertical speed wheel as quickly as possible followed by slamming the thrust levers to flight idle as hard as he can. I just try to fly smoothly, on profile, and get the passengers there on time.
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I'm gonna give you a +1 on this right here. I'm all for "making money" but not at the expense of the passenger's connections.

Flying smoothly was something I always tried to ingrain in students from day 1 because one day they'd be flying me or my family members around.

Everyone's got their little tricks, and it's interesting to watch guys. On the jungle jet, you can dial in 1000fpm or less within 1000ft of level-off, be smooth on the throttles, dial the VSI slowly when starting an ascent/descent, etc. I always hate watching the thing make a clearing turn or 25 degrees of bank at 310kts to turn 30 degrees.
 
X-Forces said:
Your interpretation of "Professionalism" is yours, and your alone. But, if it make you feel better....
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I don't think he's alone on this one.

Then again, I fly the same with the boxes as I did for the pax. I'm probably just weird though. I dislike whitecaps on my coffee.
 
Polar742 said:
I don't think he's alone on this one.
Then again, I fly the same with the boxes as I did for the pax. I'm probably just weird though. I dislike whitecaps on my coffee.
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Yeah... You are just weird.

I fly a repo flight 100% the same way I fly a revenue flight. The only difference is a lot of times we are parking in front of places that don't have rampers to wand us in so I have to be extra careful.

That said, there are a whole lot of FOs I fly with that expect a empty repo flight to be a time to put the aircraft through it's paces. I don't know if that's just an assumption that new guys coming in have or it is being instilled by some other captains here who do stupid crap on repos. Either way, I am doing my damdest to stamp it out. One of the few things I agree with our VP of flight about is that if you want to go do crazy stuff in a plane, go buy a RJ out of the desert and do it.
 
Polar742 said:
I don't think he's alone on this one.

Then again, I fly the same with the boxes as I did for the pax. I'm probably just weird though. I dislike whitecaps on my coffee.
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Perhaps not, however I still believe that professionalism is subject to interpretation.

The concept "If you don not fly the aircraft exactly by company profile 100% of the time you are not professional" also does not equate, as least as far as I'm concerned.

I have done enough flying, both civilian and military, that relied not only on adherence to set procedures but the use of sound decision making, independent thought and action, and outside of the box thinking. I sincerely believe that 100% reliance on textbook procedure can be potentially dangerous.

But that's just me...YMMV
 
This whole thread seems a little too "either/or" to me. Either you fly like there are 300 Aunt Ethels in back, or you fly like Maverick--dangerous <sound of teeth snapping>. Throw the FOM out the window, because we're gettin' crazy!!!

There is a lot of middle ground, in which many professionals can reside, in my opinion.

At my operation, we have flows, profiles, checklists, rules, and regs that must be adhered to on every flight. But there are a lot of comfort considerations of flying pax in an unpressurized piston twin that go out the window if we're flying an empty leg. The GOM/FOM/NPH/QRH are the bibles of safety and how the company wants their aircraft flown, but rarely set standards of comfort.

To me, being a professional is all about having the judgement to make the right decisions at the right times. It has nothing to do with how smooth, or not smooth the flight is. There is a time and place for both. I'll take a slam dunk approach when flying empty versus with pax. But I won't do anything contrary to the FOM no matter if I'm empty or full.

Regarding the original story--I'd consider it unprofessional regardless of pax, but only because it's probably contradictory to published company procedures. I don't know anything about flying a CRJ. But I know at my company we're supposed to lift off at Vsse, maintain 112 knots (+/- 5) to 400 AGL, then make initial turns as shallow as practical. The only exceptions would be to comply with a departure procedure or wake turbulence avoidance. It says all this plain as day in the NPH/FOM.

I'd imagine the airline in question has similarly defined procedures for takeoffs.

If a pilot intentionally flies the aircraft contrary to these standards, guess what? They're not being a professional.
 
My squadronmate who during a jet penetration for a HI-TACAN approach, crossed the IAF inverted and made the turn to the radial-to-arc while inverted, rolling out still inverted and only being 0.1 off the arc, was unprofessional for being 0.1 off the arc before rolling upright. He should've been right on the arc.

:D
 
MikeD said:
My squadronmate who during a jet penetration for a HI-TACAN approach, crossed the IAF inverted and made the turn to the radial-to-arc while inverted, rolling out still inverted and only being 0.1 off the arc, was unprofessional for being 0.1 off the arc before rolling upright. He should've been right on the arc.

:D
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Your "squadronmate.". Riiiiight.
 
It's like the backcourse PAR, where you do opposite of whatever the GCA final controller tells you because you are on the backcourse. :)
 
ATN_Pilot said:
I think a key point is being missed here: if you fly the profiles you won't end up in a stall in the first place. Another key point, since a certain poster was scoffing at the benefits of automation earlier in this thread, is that an autothrottle system would have prevented that crash. I'm a big advocate of making autothrottles with low speed protection mandatory on transport category aircraft. You can talk about airmanship all you want, but a system that will add power when you're too stupid or fatigued to do it can save lives.
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YES! Obviously many things could have/ would have prevented the BUF accident. However, having mixed-mode automation is a bad combination. Especially in an aircraft as sophisticated as the Q. Flying LNAV/VNAV profiles but not having autothrottle to support the complexities within is a bad idea. This is yet another case of money over safety and trying to maintain a common type with uncommon aircraft.
 
jhugz said:
They were trying to power out of the stall which was the company profile to my understanding.
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Just a piston driver here, but I'm pretty sure there are no company profiles that involve yanking back on the elevator at the occurence of a stall. There's a difference beetween what the crew of 3407 did and a "power out of the stall" type procedure.
 
Hmmm, buy an RJ in the desert.

There's an idea! Jetcareers Airlines! PFJ-o-riffic! :)

Who's with me?
 
I want director of training. I'll design profiles to be flown mostly inverted. Anyone who rolls back to rubber side down above 100agl will be flogged and blacklisted as a sissy. We will have no missed approach profile, and no aborted takeoff procedures, were pro-life pilots.
 
I'm going to post routes, captains and fuel burn. The captain with the lowest fuel burn, per route, is going to get a bonus.

Can we see a Ponzi scheme being formed here? :)
 
Doug, I love the idea. Just looking for input here, should we cancel at the gate?
How about flap retraction? In the flare sounds appropriate to me.
Kidding aside, fly the book. If it says can do this/that, then you choose. If it says should or must, then do it. I've done probably 15 ferry flights and a handful of empty repo flights, and a dash has good enough performance to make those things fun flying just the profile. YMMV
 
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