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GuppyWN said:
CAL has had TWO over 60 Captains die inflight. Not exactly how I'd like to go out. I'd rather do it on the fishin' boat long after I retire at 60!

tick, tick, tick
Gup
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How about the 300 people sitting behind him! There is only one fully qualified and trained captain on any CAL flight, no matter how long the flight is. Newark to Hong Kong 16 hours--ONE captain. When he goes back for rest, guess who's flying? Two copilots, neither have been through the captain's upgrade course. The ONLY airline that does this. FAA allows it through a technicality.
 
densoo said:
How about the 300 people sitting behind him! There is only one fully qualified and trained captain on any CAL flight, no matter how long the flight is. Newark to Hong Kong 16 hours--ONE captain. When he goes back for rest, guess who's flying? Two copilots, neither have been through the captain's upgrade course. The ONLY airline that does this. FAA allows it through a technicality.
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I hear what your're saying, but we saw how this plays out when the guy died enroute. CNN filmed the airplane land normally, taxi in, and go to the gate. Normally. There are a lot of us who have upgraded and been sent back to the right seat and a lot of us long overdue for upgrade. One of these guys dies enroute? Big f-ing deal. Haul his/her dead body out of your seat, land and go to the gate. Fill out a pay claim and make your commute flight home. Skip flowers to the funeral. You don't owe their dead a$$ $hit....
 
Flopgut said:
I hear what your're saying, but we saw how this plays out when the guy died enroute. CNN filmed the airplane land normally, taxi in, and go to the gate. Normally. There are a lot of us who have upgraded and been sent back to the right seat and a lot of us long overdue for upgrade. One of these guys dies enroute? Big f-ing deal. Haul his/her dead body out of your seat, land and go to the gate. Fill out a pay claim and make your commute flight home. Skip flowers to the funeral. You don't owe their dead a$$ $hit....
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Yea, but it's borrowed time. At some point things won't go normally.

Within the industry, people know what's going on, thinning the margin of safety for these kinds of money-saving practices. But if there's an incident it won't look good. We know what a captain, a first officer and an international relief officer are. But outside the industry, there's just the captain and the copilot--and when you've got only copilot IROs, then you're asking for a media problem.

"Does the major airline you fly now use just two copilots to operate the plane, and no captain? And this on the most challenging international flights? I'm Morley Safer. Join me this week on 60 Minutes as we look at one airline's practice of using just one captain on flights up to 16 hours, and he is not even on the flight deck for six hours of it. Who is flying your plane?" tictictictictictic
 
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Flopgut said:
One of these guys dies enroute? Big f-ing deal. Haul his/her dead body out of your seat, land and go to the gate. Fill out a pay claim and make your commute flight home. Skip flowers to the funeral. You don't owe their dead a$$ $hit....
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I'll probably be the guy who dies enroute for saying this, but...AWESOME!

+1 Flopgut

tick-tock, tick-tock...
 
Flopgut said:
There are a lot of us who have upgraded and been sent back to the right seat and a lot of us long overdue for upgrade
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Well, ask the 777 captain who showed up for a flight when there was hiring going on and was greeted by three probationary copilots as his first officer and IROs. I'm sure he rested quite comfortably over the north pole and north pacific when he left the flight deck in the hands of two guys right out of training.

Seems that right about that time the company started looking into why so many pilots were bypassing moving to the left seat or larger equipment. Their answer was the contract had gutted all quality of life guarantees so the only way to guarantee some quality of life was to stay as senior as you could on junior equipment. Decided it was too hard to fix and the issue died a natural death when the economy went south and they furloughed.
 
densoo said:
Well, ask the 777 captain who showed up for a flight when there was hiring going on and was greeted by three probationary copilots as his first officer and IROs. I'm sure he rested quite comfortably over the north pole and north pacific when he left the flight deck in the hands of two guys right out of training.

Seems that right about that time the company started looking into why so many pilots were bypassing moving to the left seat or larger equipment. Their answer was the contract had gutted all quality of life guarantees so the only way to guarantee some quality of life was to stay as senior as you could on junior equipment. Decided it was too hard to fix and the issue died a natural death when the economy went south and they furloughed.
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I mostly agree with what you're saying; Probably would be better to fully augment

Something I learned after upgrade: We don't hire co-pilots. (We used to! But not anymore.) There isn't anybody confused about what's going on at this level. It's really just a matter of who was hired first and who has found a way to stay the longest. I wish it wasn't that way, but the age change really watered down the esteem factor in command. I'm right in the middle of CAL's list and just spent several years flying with the junior half, but now back flying with the senior half. The junior half will be better captains than the senior half is now.
 
Flopgut said:
We don't hire co-pilots....There isn't anybody confused about what's going on at this level.
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You're right. At the majors, everyone's been a captain somewhere else, sometimes for many years. And "at this level" there's no confusion.

But....

-- IROs = FOs and were rated by doing one approach, one landing, and one taxi from the left seat up to a decade or more ago. Since then, they did not go through five weeks captain upgrade, have never had a left seat sim check, and have never been subject to left seat sim training and evals, or left seat line checks.

-- and, the public only knows "captains" and "copilots" and nothing else, and two "copilots" are alone up there flying the plane

Put those two together after an event that does not go normally and you have "Next on CNN: are copilots who haven't been trained in the left seat as captains flying your plane? Only one airline does it. Stay tuned to find out which one--and how the FAA allows it."

Everything comes to light when things go wrong as seen most recently in the oil spill. When the media and the government get into it, nothing stays hidden. And while those in the business understand "ratings," "first officers," "IROs," "PIC" and other terms, the public knows captains and copilots and as far as they can tell, copilots are flying those airplanes.
 
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I don't know. I think we already eclipsed this issue when the 777 landed in EWR. THe media was ready for a fiasco and there was none. In fact, it was a non-event. The camera never left the airplane from approach, landing and taxi in.

Captains are paid better and are oldler than they used to be. That's all the public sees now. And when this current group starts bawling about working longer they are going to know it's only about greed.
 
:smash:Niner :uzi: Forty :beer: One



tic toc, tic toc...


I got this 2 days in a row? slackers...
 
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I don't know what your computer says. But mine has the same date posted for mine and yours.
 

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