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How does one become a flight engineer? What exactly does a flight engineer do? From what I understand the FE does the W&B, preflights and post flight inspects the aircraft. What does the FE actually do while in flight? Thanks.
How does one become a flight engineer? What exactly does a flight engineer do? From what I understand the FE does the W&B, preflights and post flight inspects the aircraft. What does the FE actually do while in flight? Thanks.
You bring up some good points.LOL!!!! aaww that is so cute! did you just finish watching office space and get some inspiration from the "bob's"?
To 717 guy....the FE's seat although rapidly becoming a dinosaur, is actually the best way to learn about 121 airline ops while actually being a crew member! Used to be that you could watch 2 people up front with total mastery of the airplane show you how it's done(most of the time). Being the FE also meant being a system's guy and really learning and knowing the nuts and bolts of the machine, so that when you upgrade, that stuff is so ingrained in you that the upgrade is a snap.
Im not saying that you cant learn today and that today's automation killed all those guys off.....but I have seen pilots on fully automated planes totally behind the plane when flying with autothrottles inop. Hopefully, at some point in primary school, when a student pilot looks down to reprogram something in the box in the traffic pattern after a runway change, or to update the altimeter for vnav or some other ridiculous thing, the instructor will slap him hard in the back of the head so that he will not ever do that again, and then perhaps well see less and less of those make it to the big leagues and want to go hold or remain heads down because of silly little gps light come on during a visual approach.
I for one am scared of what the VLJ's are going to do to airspace complexity, because used to be that the flight levels were where you are among professionals. Now any youtube millionaire will be flying mach numbers at the same flight levels as airliners, hopefully they'll get the slap in the back of the head that says be a pilot first, then be a systems manager.
ok, my rant is over.....sorry guys.....LOL
Other than all of this stuff, which over the course of a 4 hour flight really isn't that much, the FE basicly just sits there and enjoys the ride. You're essentially the equivalent of Scotty from Star Trek, you don't do much but when the fecal matter hits the fan you become extremely important and everything seems to be your fault.