Originally Posted by
bcrosier
Today - May 29. I have deliberately left out any other specific details as I feel it would be inappropriate to identify a specific crew (thereby eliminating plausible denyability should someone from their management learn of this.
Duck, you can call me a drama queen if you want, but I was taught a long time ago that people's perception of you is affected by how you present yourself. Frankly, I'm tired of direction this profession has been headed for a while now (yes, now I'm a crochety old coot), and how eagerly many help this deterioration out.
I understand doing something to shield the cockpit from the sun - IN CRUISE! Put the crap out of view at top, don't leave it laying out as you taxi in. And for the record, it didn't look like leftover heat shield - it had every appearance of the entire paper (multiple sections) strewn across the glareshield. Guys taxiing in wearing a ballcap - I don't care for it, but that's a COMPLETELY different image than a newspaper all over - at least the guy in the ball cap MIGHT have been paying attention to the flight. Of course, the public knows nothing could go wrong with no one watching the aircraft - I mean you could never bleed off 50+ knots and get into a stall... oh wait, I guess you could.
Ok. So are you saying it's ok to read the paper in cruise? Just as long as the pax don't know about it? So if we keep it a secret from them and they think were not reading the paper, then we're then deemed professional? So, as an MD-11 FO, were you jumpseating on this flight at gate B20 in ATL? Because I don't think DAL or anyone that could nonrev on this flight flies MD11's. Maybe the professional thing you could have done was told the crew they forgot their newspaper in the on the dash, and not called out an entire pilot group on a public board. That, my fellow pilot, was unprofessional.