What's the dumbest thing a crew has ever asked or requested?

[homerjdispatch]

Comfort fuel. What a concept.

Hell, I wish I had a comfortable chair to sit in at work. Nevermind doing 50 or 60 releases a day due to sick calls and turnover and central load control while management breathes down my neck about using "so much fuel". I love my job this much: make the "okay" symbol with your right hand. Note index finger and thumb position. That's how much I like it.

Edit: Yes, I am looking to get out so don't even ask.

Your lucky...We do 50-60+ when there ISNT any sick calls!!!

 

[405]

Your lucky...We do 50-60+ when there ISNT any sick calls!!!

We used to do 80 to 90 releases a day and up to 110+ if it was a bad day. It's gotten better. We got rid of having to type crew names on every release, which was a huge improvement on how we do our job. However, now we have to do central load control. One step forward, two steps back. Management says it's a financial decision but that's not entirely true in my opinion.

Sorry to get off topic. Rant over.

 

[dispatchguy]

You dont do CLC and run a dispatch desk simultaneously?

 

[405]

You dont do CLC and run a dispatch desk simultaneously?

Yeah, we do now.

 

[Occam's Razor]

Interesting thread. Pilots vs Dispatchers. S'posed to be Pilots AND Dispatchers.

Lamest thing I ever asked a Dispatcher was in '95. I had notified my dispatcher that I was a High Minimums captain, and he promised to "keep an eye on me".

Enroute I ACARS'd him to ask if he knew I was going to HPN. He replied:

"Yes...that is what we do. We know where you are going."

So I sent him a follow-up: "HPN is White Plains"

Him: "Very good. You are reading identifiers just like a seasoned captain."

Me: "My manual says no aircraft larger than DC-9-30 into HPN"

(We were in a -50. A larger aircraft)

Him: "Call me on voice ASAP."

The result: We landed at LGA and hauled the pax away in a charter bus.

Apparently, pilots and dispatchers are humans, and occasionally make mistakes. It's nice to have the other guy looking out for you.

 

[SKC]

Just to clarify, you accepted an illegal release then, right?

 

[405]

Just to clarify, you accepted an illegal release then, right?

Oh, that stung a little bit.

 

[152SIC]

One of my airplanes lost the weather radar enroute to BCT. There were thunderstorms everywhere, and apparently they had a pretty bad ride - though they didn't bother calling me to ask for a reroute.

So they call me on the ground and tell me they're broke. Long story short, Mx says "Could not duplicate, ops check good." So the crew says they're going to depart for PBI, 70nm away...

But there's thunderstorms all over the place, and a Convective SIGMET for most of Florida. So I tell the crew about the severe weather, and voice my concern about operating into known hazardous weather with an unreliable weather radar. The crew doesn't seem to mind.

All of my experience in 121 says "NO GO". But here, I get laughed at. Care to guess what the D.O. told me? "They're not in the thunderstorms, they're under it."

I just had to respond to this. I just flew in from TNCA to PBI. Then onto BCT. PBI is only about 18nm from BCT. And flying under thunderstorms is a WHOLE lot different that through them. I used to fly single pilot freight, and getting around the storms on short hops is not too difficult down low.

Flying through a line of storms up higher is different though.

Just thought I'd add 2 cents.

 

[Occam's Razor]

Just to clarify, you accepted an illegal release then, right?

Nope. I fly 'em. The Dispatcher sends them. He don't send it...I don't fly it.

If you're gonna take the role of "Mr. Operational Planner", then you oughta be able to handle it.

I'll be the other guy...the first guy at the scene of the accident.

The release in this case was completely legal. It complied with all FAR's. No NOTAMs restricted the flight. The only prohibition was internal. NWA didn't pay the higher landing fee for the larger version of our DC-9 fleet, so sending that particular model was a boo boo by Dispatch.

What I learned that evening as a new captain was that it is seldom a good idea to trust a dispatcher.

 

[Occam's Razor]

Oh, that stung a little bit.

Not at all. It simply reaffirmed my theory that dispatchers prefer to put the blame on someone else for their screw-ups. He sent the wrong type of aircraft to the airport, and the snappy comeback was, "and you TRUSTED him? Ha Ha! You TRUSTED him!"

If you believe the function of Dispatch is to play "gotcha" with pilots, then you need to find another profession.

 

[Mr Wu]

What I learned that evening as a new captain was that it is seldom a good idea to trust a dispatcher.

Oh, that stung a little bit.:laugh:

 

[RJAA]

Nope. I fly 'em. The Dispatcher sends them. He don't send it...I don't fly it.

If you're gonna take the role of "Mr. Operational Planner", then you oughta be able to handle it.

I'll be the other guy...the first guy at the scene of the accident.

The release in this case was completely legal. It complied with all FAR's. No NOTAMs restricted the flight. The only prohibition was internal. NWA didn't pay the higher landing fee for the larger version of our DC-9 fleet, so sending that particular model was a boo boo by Dispatch.

What I learned that evening as a new captain was that it is seldom a good idea to trust a dispatcher.

If I may say, in all likely hood, in a big and complex establishment such as NWA, there is also a position called "Operations Planner" who takes care of all of the routing of the fleet such as where they go and where do they end up sort of thing. For example, at my company, some tail numbers are off limits to DEN, MEX, SLC due to payload issues. We send the B737 classics as a last resort to SNA, LGA, and DCA. Some stations have no GPU or Airstart for the B737NGs. Although it is always a good idea as a dispatcher to keep an eye on these things and double check to make sure that wrong tail numbers are not ending up in a wrong places to avoid operational nightmares, it is hardly one of the dispatcher's prime responsibilities to make sure if the airline is willing to pay the fees incurred on your DC-9-50 at HPN or other small internal details that has nothing to do with safety of flight. If it's in the ops specs, you can go there. Dispatchers just release flights assigned to their desks in compliance of the FARs, MELs, Notams and the company regulations that are pertinent to the safety of flight. That's part of the joint responsibility of the PIC and the dispatcher. It doesn't sound like your situation had any of that violated. From what I can gather, the safety was never jeopetized by it and it was still legal, and yes somebody in the dispatch office probably did make an error. I do not endorse the Pilot vs Dispatcher argument but it's nice to introduce you the background of how things are done in the dispatch office.

 

[SSDD]

Got dispatched a couple of days ago with just a little over dest+alt(same as depar)+45 mins. Got to the terminal area and the field had gone below mins. Hung around for 5 mins then returned to departure airport with a full load of pax. Had I been able to hang around for even 15 minutes, we would have made it in.

We sure pissed away alot of fuel and goodwill in the name of fuel savings.

 

[gooseman13]

What was your dispatcher's response when you called after receiving the release and said you'd like to add additional fuel in anticipation of holding at the destination due to weather?

 

[kack911]

I just had to respond to this. I just flew in from TNCA to PBI. Then onto BCT. PBI is only about 18nm from BCT. And flying under thunderstorms is a WHOLE lot different that through them. I used to fly single pilot freight, and getting around the storms on short hops is not too difficult down low.

Flying through a line of storms up higher is different though.

Just thought I'd add 2 cents.

In 2005, Part 121 air carriers - who require an operative weather radar when flying into areas of known hazardous weather - flew 11,245,000 departures and had a fatal accident rate of 0.015 per 100,000 departures.

On the other hand, Part 91 operators - who like to send pilots into Level 5 thunderstorms without an operative radar - had a fatal accident rate of 1.31 per 100,000 hours.

So...let me see of I understand you correctly:

In a thread where all of the pilots are busy telling us dispatchers how stupid we are, and how often we tell them to do stupid/illegal things - you actually want to tell me that its SMART to fly into embedded level 5 convective activity without a radar...because its ONLY 18 miles away?

The statistics speak for themselves. It seems like in the Part 91 world, erring on the side of caution is a sign of weakness or something. I'll tell you whats weak...not having the balls to stand up and be "that guy" who says it's not safe.

Luckily, I don't have that problem.

The Kack