Hats, braid, big pilot bags. Age, experience, ego. Someone’s the captain, but the what is right always trumps the who is right when it comes to matters like gravity, aerodynamics, weather. “It is not who is right, but what is right, that is of importance.” Thomas Huxley Picture is a cool looking Pan Am 707 flying to Moscow.
From a major US airline flight crew operating manual: Do not HINT & HOPE. Works well for crew communications in the cockpit, as well as for ATC, mechanics — and maybe marriages?
A superior pilot uses superior SOP to avoid situations which require the use of superior CRM. I think this is true. If I’m disciplined, if I follow standard procedures, it certainly doesn’t solve everything — but it means I have less need to involve the whole team and get creative. Saves that for the really hard stuff, the really important stuff. What do you think? It’s a simple riff on the great line, “a superior pilot uses his superior judgment to avoid situations which require the use of his superior skill.” Sometimes attributed to astronaut Frank Borman.
A new episode of the National Geographic Air Crash Investigation TV show, titled Killer Attitude is hard for me to watch. It describes the crash of a perfectly good Northwest Airlink Jetstream 31 from MSP to Hibbing, MN, on 1 December 1993. I was flying out of MSP that night, same airplane type, same airline. I knew the captain, Marvin. I remember the grief counselors in the MSP crew room for two weeks after the crash. And one of the presenters, Craig Railsback, is a friend. We met 25 years ago, as young first officers in Jetstream 31 training at this … Continue reading This hits close
YouTube has a great 15-minute video of an Airbus A340 crew running ECAMs and checklists that results in shutting down an engine in flight. For real. It’s been viewed a bunch of times, but I hadn’t seen it till today, so maybe you haven’t either. It’s an interesting, thought provoking experience. The Swiss airline crew were being filmed by PilotsEye.tv for a high-quality video production of their Zurich to Shanghai flight. But during climb out the number three engine oil temperature starts to gently rise. It’s not TOPGUN, but rather a rare invitation for an intimate look at how professional … Continue reading A340 engine shutdown video
