Fueling with fwd door open?

[pilotmyf]

Signature has many contracts to refuels for airlines, when I worked there, policy was to fuel with the main cabin door open, or have a firetruck standing by.

 

[Kaman]

Hello,

Coming from a military background it has taken some adjustment to how things are done in the 121 world. Fortunatley, I had some 135 single-pilot 135 freight in between and some instruction to ease the transition. Fuelling with the main cabin door open makes perfect sense from a safety issue, and having at least one crewmember on board also. At the same time I have also found that the FAA seems to emphasize the manutae during ramp checks when they should spend more time watching the big picture i.e., maintenance, training and standardization.
One of my biggest pet peeves isn't fuelling, however, because I can exercise some control over that evolution. What gets me is the amount of FOD I see on the air carrier gate areas. On more than one instance I have found so-called "real" FOD (screws, zipper pull tags, bolts, squished pop cans, etc...). Perhaps my FOD awareness is more than most because of 20 years in Naval Aviation and I have personally seen three nasty FOD incidents on an aircraft carrier. FOD awareness during preflight/postflight isn't highlighted enough during either training or day-to-day operations. This is just my opinion, but the military found a real savings in lost man-hours due to injury and damage to equipment by having an aggressive FOD/tool control program. Just my opinion, but I think just by raising awareness alone could probably save the airlines some money.

Regards,

ex-Navy Rotorhead