Good First Officer

[con-pilot]

I will agree the when the FE on a 72 says “Uh oh” it really gets your attention.

But the worst thing I ever heard one of my FEs say was, “Humm, what the?” and the entire cockpit when black except these nine yellow lights on the engineer’s panel.

Yup, for you 72 drivers the old dreaded ‘nine light trip’, left the APU on, never changed essential or brought the generators on line. No big deal, clear night he realized what he did when he shut the APU down and got essential on the number one generator then got everything on line.

But I can Goddamm gar-in-teen ya I NEVER took-off again without having a good look at that damm panel!

Those who are lucky live to learn from their mistakes.

 

[727cargoAv8R]

Oh boy that will leave a mark. I'm surprised you did not get a wheelwell fire warning. All the old heads I fly with always look back at the panel just before we go. CYA

 

[con-pilot]

No, actually I have taken off with the APU on twice. On both occasions the APU fire warning was the one we got, as you probably know that is the only fire warning that is NOT on the instrument panel.

The first time we about 45 minutes into the flight and when that bell goes off and you look up and don’t see any reds lights it takes a little bit to figure out what the hell is going on. The second time the engineer was a real idiot and soon as the bell sounded with no lights I knew immediately what was wrong and told him to pull the fire handle to shut down the APU. But this jerk tries to shut it down with the normal switch and when that doesn’t work (duh!) he starts arguing with me.

In my defense it is nearly impossible to see the APU panel from the left seat when there is someone sitting in the engineer’s seat.

As I said before; We who are lucky…etc.

 

[AAflyer]

Last but not least you must be able to conform. You are going to fly with many different personalities. Cockpit dynamics can make for a great trip or a trip from he11 . The F/O has the hardest job in the biz.

We have to keep abreast of all wx, flight plans, fuel, Mel itmes like the captain,in addition we pre-flight the outside and many times the inside of the airplane, we are there to help the captain and keep him out of trouble.

When you go back to get your cup of coffee tell the flight attendants that this is the best captain you hace ever flown with. He is the nicest guy you have ever met, who cares if he is gay. Then you won't have to take the fat one.

Fly SAAfe,

AAflyer
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"Don't ever let me wake up and catch you sleeping"