CEO of Cockpit

I always enjoy his column, but this one was particularly good. Need to print it out and slip it into some in-flight magazines.
 
I've not seen this column before, but I just bookmarked the page with all of the back-issues. One of these days I'll sit and read them... along with Bo's Flight Journal, which I've enjoyed immensely thus far.
 
As one of those GA fare paying passengers spoken of in the article, I am very tired of the poor service provided by today's airlines. It's absolutely terrible.

I don't mean to pick on any of the ATP's on this board and I realize it's not your fault. However, the company themselves are to blame. If I had a decent alternative, I would never fly an airline again. Too bad our rail service is so limited!

I dream of flying myself for work and actually can do it if I had the proper plane and it would require me finally getting IR, plus having outs for the same bad weather that keeps the big iron on the ground. So? It's just a pipe dream for me at this point in my life. I've quit dreaming about it.

I'm in line with the rest of us dangerous people, waiting on security, waiting to board, waiting on the ramp, waiting at baggage, waiting, waiting, waiting. :(

Perry

PS - We the flying public could help on time departures just a wee bit. If people would check their blooming bags as we used to, at least we could board and exit the plane with a normal speed versus having to wait while the FA's once again search the bins to stick ONE more piece of luggage in the overhead!

Sorry, ranting here, but.. I get SO ticked off when they announce for me to stick my computer bag under the seat in front of me so mr and mrs lazy and impatient can store their luggage in the overhead when it should be CHECKED! Since I have some status with a couple of carriers, I stick my computer in the bin, and hope no one picks the fight.

Rant off.....
 
I used to like [FONT=arial,helvetica,geneva]Kevin Garrison's writing, but a while back he casually used the phrase 'time to load the cattle' when describing one of flights and reminiscing about the good old days.

It's the attitude that their customers are 'cattle' that is the root cause of all the woes of the legacy airlines. I know of no other industry where outright hatred of their customers is displayed so openly. It's just so stupid to hate the people who pay your salary.

Ever since then I haven't enjoyed Captain Garrison's writing nearly so much.
[/FONT]
 
psellars said:
I don't mean to pick on any of the ATP's on this board and I realize it's not your fault. However, the company themselves are to blame. If I had a decent alternative, I would never fly an airline again. Too bad our rail service is so limited!
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Me neither! My fiancee and I ended up driving from New Hampshire to Des Moines, IA two weeks ago because the flights out of the northeast were so FUBAR. Gotta love the weather and ATC and rediculous security delays. Too bad the train takes 4 days to cross the state.
 
t0r0nad0 said:
I've not seen this column before, but I just bookmarked the page with all of the back-issues. One of these days I'll sit and read them... along with Bo's Flight Journal, which I've enjoyed immensely thus far.
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I enjoy his witting too. He is the ONLY thing on Avweb worth reading.
 
On my last non-rev trip I was stuck in the jumpseat of a 757, and the topic of user fees and VLJs came up. It didn't go very far 'cause some more interesting topics evolved, but the captain and f/o were certainly aware of the user fee debate going on. It was rather benign...along the lines of, how rediculous it is that GA is being targeted as causing delay problems for the airlines. They thought it a bit funny that management is using the in-flight magazines to push the issue as well. Of course, it seems that the unwritten SOP is that 25% of all discussions in the cockpit must be about managements poor decision making and all the different ways they come up with to cover up those decisions and blame them on someone else.
 
121Dispatch said:
Of course, it seems that the unwritten SOP is that 25% of all discussions in the cockpit must be about managements poor decision making
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That's true, actually. We're required to mention how dumb management is at least every 30 minutes, that way there's always some comment on the cockpit voice recorder.

I don't think I've met or flown with anyone yet who thinks user fees are a good idea. Quite the opposite, in fact. We may get annoyed when a Cherokee cuts us off on the ILS, but I can't even imagine how much more dangerous it would be (and how much more scud running there would be) if you had to pay for an instrument approach...or anything else, for that matter.
 
tonycondon said:
I disagree. there is also Rick Durden
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Occasionally he has something good but lacks the consistancy of the "CEO"

JoeSelch said:
And, there *was* Don Brown.
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Really, I could never get through a single one of his whiny columns where he was complaining about something that someone was doing that was not good enough for him.
 
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He is the only good thing on Avweb..Well him and Rick Durden.
 
Teller1900 said:
We may get annoyed when a Cherokee cuts us off on the ILS, but I can't even imagine how much more dangerous it would be (and how much more scud running there would be) if you had to pay for an instrument approach...or anything else, for that matter.
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Cherokee cuts you off, or is actually cleared to fly the ILS, and you have to slow down/s-turn to keep spacing?

I hope those bad bad Cherokee drivers aren't cutting you off all the time :rofl:
 
Bill Jennings said:
Cherokee cuts you off, or is actually cleared to fly the ILS, and you have to slow down/s-turn to keep spacing?

I hope those bad bad Cherokee drivers aren't cutting you off all the time :rofl:
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He's in a flippin' glorified twin. Heck, let him practice some slow flight. :D
 
Bill Jennings said:
Cherokee cuts you off, or is actually cleared to fly the ILS, and you have to slow down/s-turn to keep spacing?

I hope those bad bad Cherokee drivers aren't cutting you off all the time :rofl:
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We're happy to slow down or fly away from the airport for a little while when someone is ahead of us in the pattern, but when we're well inside the FAF in IMC and spot someone on TCAS scud running an improvised straight-in below the clouds at about 800 AGL without talking to anyone or they announce five mile base...we're not allowed to do S-turns across the LOC at an untowered airport and even if we set up slow flight at 115 kts, that still doesn't bring us into light single range. All we can do is go missed, and that's not fun in any kind of airplane. Glorified twin or light single, go arounds suck (and scare the hell out of the 19 people behind us). That's all I meant by that. I don't think airliners deserve any special priveledge at all, just the same consideration that everyone takes on a good VFR day in the pattern. :dunno:
 
121Dispatch said:
Of course, it seems that the unwritten SOP is that 25% of all discussions in the cockpit must be about managements poor decision making and all the different ways they come up with to cover up those decisions and blame them on someone else.
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Talking about managements' buffoonery is not limited to the airline industry. :rofl:

-Rich
 
Teller1900 said:
but when we're well inside the FAF in IMC and spot someone on TCAS scud running an improvised straight-in below the clouds at about 800 AGL without talking to anyone
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Ugh, now that sucks. I'd hit him with the phaser banks. Oh, wait, your Beech isn't a Starship. ;)
 
Bill Jennings said:
Ugh, now that sucks. I'd hit him with the phaser banks. Oh, wait, your Beech isn't a Starship. ;)
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Don't I wish!! We're only 100 Beeches off from being the Starship. ;)

We like to pretend we have guns, but just making the noise doesn't seem to clear the traffic for us.



Tuc a Tuc a Tuc a Tuc
 
Ha! At least we can hit the stall warning test which activates the stick shaker. makes a nice guns sound.
 
AWACSEng said:
Ha! At least we can hit the stall warning test which activates the stick shaker. makes a nice guns sound.
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You're in an AWACS! All you have to do is say "over there" and someone else brings the guns for you!! :p

We don't have anything fun like a stick shaker. And even if we did, I think that would REALLLLY scare the people in rows 1 and 2!
 
Rows 1 and 2! I press the Mach warning bell test and heads start poking over consoles like prarie dogs at dinner time.
 
HA! Ya, I think our overspeed/stall warnings could do that. The GPWS and TCAS always raise amusing reactions too..."Woop woop, terrain, pull up, woo woop" and everyone starts trying to look out the front windows. "Traffic, Traffic, Traffic, monitor verticle speed..." everyone starts staring out their windows and pointing (often at bug splatters on said windows) trying to see the traffic. It's even better when we start pointing around, too; though I suspect that would be less effective in your plane...

It's fun messing with the people in the back! :)

I've always wondered, can you hear the motor turning the Ra-dome from inside?
 
Nope, can't hear it. There are a few cooling doors n the dome that when they are open the slipstream passing over them makes a sound similar to a whale song. We refer to it as the humping whales. The doors are different sizes so therefore make a differnt pitched sound.
 
My favorite thing to do is to run towards the back of the jet. Apparently seeing the engineer in a rush to get somewhere is a bit disconcerning to those not in the know.
 
AWACSEng said:
My favorite thing to do is to run towards the back of the jet. Apparently seeing the engineer in a rush to get somewhere is a bit disconcerning to those not in the know.
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:rofl: HAAA! That's awsome. Oh the trouble I could cause with that idea....:D

Too bad walking from the back to the front changes our trim by a little over 2.5 units (not that we ever get up an walk around on the empty legs).
 
AWACSEng said:
Nope, can't hear it. There are a few cooling doors n the dome that when they are open the slipstream passing over them makes a sound similar to a whale song. We refer to it as the humping whales. The doors are different sizes so therefore make a differnt pitched sound.
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Weird. Good to know y'all have such a professional term for it. :goofy:
 
Only the best and brightest for the defense of the US of A
 
Teller1900 said:
HA! Ya, I think our overspeed/stall warnings could do that. The GPWS and TCAS always raise amusing reactions too..."Woop woop, terrain, pull up, woo woop" and everyone starts trying to look out the front windows. "Traffic, Traffic, Traffic, monitor verticle speed..." everyone starts staring out their windows and pointing (often at bug splatters on said windows) trying to see the traffic. It's even better when we start pointing around, too; though I suspect that would be less effective in your plane...

It's fun messing with the people in the back! :)

I've always wondered, can you hear the motor turning the Ra-dome from inside?
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Gee, don't you close the doors to the cockpit? Our company shuttle using a B-1900 does. What a flight - OLM to HIO. Less than 30 minutes from start of roll to landing. :p
 
Ghery said:
Gee, don't you close the doors to the cockpit? Our company shuttle using a B-1900 does. What a flight - OLM to HIO. Less than 30 minutes from start of roll to landing. :p
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Almost never. We dont' have a flight attendent, so if we close the doors we don't know what kind of schenanigans and goings-on might be taking place in the back. We will close the door for only a few situations: 1) night approaches if there are a lot of reading lights on, 2) one of us is eating something (great pizza and burrito place in LGA) 3) one of us is reading (People and Us magazines seem to be popular amongst captains), 4) we're bored and want to play with the O2 masks or Caution/Warning Annunciator test lights, or 5) we're getting a legitimate Cuation/Warning annunciator that's going to require the use of a red or yellow checklists (passengers never like to see big red booklets in the cockpit).

Is your company hiring? :)
 
psellars said:
As one of those GA fare paying passengers spoken of in the article, I am very tired of the poor service provided by today's airlines. It's absolutely terrible.

I don't mean to pick on any of the ATP's on this board and I realize it's not your fault. However, the company themselves are to blame. If I had a decent alternative, I would never fly an airline again. Too bad our rail service is so limited!

I dream of flying myself for work and actually can do it if I had the proper plane and it would require me finally getting IR, plus having outs for the same bad weather that keeps the big iron on the ground. So? It's just a pipe dream for me at this point in my life. I've quit dreaming about it.

I'm in line with the rest of us dangerous people, waiting on security, waiting to board, waiting on the ramp, waiting at baggage, waiting, waiting, waiting. :(

Perry

PS - We the flying public could help on time departures just a wee bit. If people would check their blooming bags as we used to, at least we could board and exit the plane with a normal speed versus having to wait while the FA's once again search the bins to stick ONE more piece of luggage in the overhead!

Sorry, ranting here, but.. I get SO ticked off when they announce for me to stick my computer bag under the seat in front of me so mr and mrs lazy and impatient can store their luggage in the overhead when it should be CHECKED! Since I have some status with a couple of carriers, I stick my computer in the bin, and hope no one picks the fight.

Rant off.....
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If Philly could just once, manage to NOT loose my luggage.... maybe people would check more luggage.
 
I thought there was an SD out after 9/11 requiring a secure cockpit door...As I recall that was why we decided to get rid of the J32s out if IAD
 
Missa said:
If Philly could just once, manage to NOT loose my luggage.... maybe people would check more luggage.
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I hear you. However, in all my travels, my luggage has been mis-placed only a couple of times. (about 25 years worth). Maybe I've been lucky?

Yet, I check my luggage 99+ percent of the time. Especially when inbound to home.

If everyone is going to carry everything on, let's re-configure the planes to allow this, i.e., a shute in front of the seat, drop and go. :)

Perry
 
121Dispatch said:
I thought there was an SD out after 9/11 requiring a secure cockpit door...As I recall that was why we decided to get rid of the J32s out if IAD
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I'm not looking at the FARs here, but if I'm not mistaken, that only applies to a/c certified for 34 or more pax seats. The 1900 is certified under SFAR25 and FAR35, so we have slightly different rules for certification since we're considered a "light commuter" a/c,. We do have a cockpit "door" but it's two sliding pieces of plywood with a hollow 1" drop bar and it only comes within about 5-6 inches of the cabin roof...doesn't really do much. Even though we're not required to have one, we couldn't even have a locking balistic door if we wanted one...we don't have any emergency escape route in the cockpit, so we can't have a locking door period.

Because we dont' have the door there are some restrictions; eg: the 1900 is not allowed to fly into Washington National. We're OK for Dulles, but not Reagan. We carry halon fire extinguishers, though, so if anyone tried to do anything...lets just say they wouldn't be long for this world after a face full of halon. The 1900 and the Jetstream (I think) are the last airliners flying without a locking door.
 
Missa said:
If Philly could just once, manage to NOT loose my luggage.... maybe people would check more luggage.
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I've flown as a passenger three times since starting to work for an airline...2 of the 3 times my bag was lost. The 3rd time I didnt' check anything. Gotta love contract help at the big airports.
 
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