Should pt 135 pilots be FFDOs?

My experience with 121 FFDOs have been less than stellar. Half never bothered to strap on. The other half seemed to personally enjoy strapping on and looking forward to be a hero. I like how there’s literally no training for the non FFDO folks who fly with FFDOs. “You fly, I defend” doesn’t really help me much. And who’s done the math on acoustics in a flight deck and hearing when a .40 is fired 10 inches from your ears with no hearing protection?

20 yrs since 9/11 and the only thing a FFDO has managed so far is to put a hole through the side of an A320. Useless ego stroking program, time to end it. I’m more concerned about violent Antifa or white supremacists far more than I am any brown terrorist inside this country.
 
I've known some 135 pilots I'd absolutely trust to carry a firearm and some I wouldn't. I'll give you my perspective and you can form your own opinion, if you go to a pilots house and the first thing he wants to show you is his gun collection that's not a good sign. If you go to a pilots house and somehow through the course of a semi-guarded conversation he lets you know that he owns firearms and you end up going to the range together that's a good sign. I hate people with gun stickers on the back windows of their trucks, it's worse than an AOPA sticker.
 
Roger Roger said:
Anyway isn’t everyone flying out of Bethel packing?
Click to expand...

BE8280E9-B027-4360-8DE4-3355D53B27D1.gif
 
Hasn’t this been done before in a sled maybe 5 or 6 years ago? Yute maybe? 135 pax ops are annoying in those airplanes. The Navajo and sled especially when someone is sitting right next to you. Pick the least crazy looking person and tell them they get to be copilot for a day. Should be fine....

Edit: it was only a couple years ago

www.adn.com

Teen grabbed air taxi controls over Western Alaska, troopers say

He caused the plane to “enter a steep climb and then a dive towards the ground."
www.adn.com www.adn.com
 
My way: Children or women only in the right seat; long, flat-bladed screwdriver within easy reach....
 
alaskadrifter said:
A passenger recently tried to take control of a flight from Bethel to Aniak.
www.alaskapublic.org

Passengers safe after 18-year-old takes control of plane in Southwest Alaska

An Alaska State Troopers report says that Bethel resident and flight passenger Jaden Lake-Kameroff entered the cockpit of a Cessna Caravan on a flight from Bethel to Aniak. The 18-year-old took control of the yoke, causing the plane to nosedive.
www.alaskapublic.org www.alaskapublic.org
Click to expand...
In AK, any Pax making for the right seat (cockpit really is a tad vainglorious for something separated by a curtain, donchatink?) is probably just concerned about the quality of the flying going on up there. ;)

BTW, armed 135 pilots?!? Why not just start handing out pistoles to the drunks in the bars on Front Street?
 
Last edited:
CFI A&P said:
You’ll get a security door a la 121 before armed 135 pilots. The spontaneity of on-demand and varying laws between destinations will make it prohibitive to stay ahead of all the possible conflicts with local regulation.
Click to expand...
Not to mention all the local accoutrement (shovels, axes, adzes, picks, ivory tusks, snow machine chains, fish hooks, fishing string, bricks, bags full of canned whatever, sixes of coke and/or pepsi, etc, etc)

A security door worth a tinker's damn in a 208 would cost more than the hull.
 
Last edited:
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top