Originally Posted by
Packrat
The Grave Digger and the Bust Brothers were from the generation who thought that Alaska's flying was the toughest in the universe. They expected you to have NDB and FSS freqs in SE memorized on IOE. RNAV and RNP left that kind of "thinking" behind.
Of course, legend has it they would also take Captain upgrade bid results and determine who would pass and who would fail before the first person even started training. So there's that...
Funny how bad ass they thought they were. Glad those days are mostly over and those guys are history. Despite what those guys thought, the reality is Alaska was operated as a bush league amateur airline in those days. I would have fired the bust brothers. A 40+% bust rate indicates a problem with the check airmen and NOT the pilot group.