Originally Posted by 2StgTurbine

What do you do when you have to LAND at an uncontrolled airport? Do you do a low approach FOD check?

Some people go out of their way to make this job harder than it needs to be.

Originally Posted by OOfff

What about landing at uncontrolled fields at night? Anybody else do an inspection pass with lights on to check the field?

Originally Posted by crazyjaydawg

Everytime. Goose, er I mean my FO, usually tells me it’s not a good idea but I still do it.

CAG yells at me every time.

Originally Posted by zippinbye

Does anyone else think about the surface condition of the departure runway when you taxi out into the darkness at an airport where the tower is closed and no aircraft have operated for sometime? Even if there's been a departure ahead of you, there's no assurance that A/C didn't leave a "present" behind (think AF 4590). I didn't think of this via learning from a sage old captain nor any company policy, but a few decades ago I routinely did a crack-of-dawn departure at my regional out of a then-uncontrolled joint use airfield in TX, where big long runways might have T-38s running a tarffic pattern, but the smaller civie runway was greatly unused durng the night hours. I decided that going the long way to back taxi on a runway clearing pass was a prudent action. One morning it paid off; near the centerline at a point close to where we would normally rotate we discovered a separated retread from a realatively large aircraft, probably a C-130 if I had to guesss. Had we just taken the shortest path to the departure runway, pushed up the throttles and rolled, it would have been a factor. I was able to raise a USAF ground operations vehicle on guard and they came out to remove the FOD.

I was recently presented with a similar situation; late night, dark, with the tower closed something like two hours earlier. I started relating the above to my F/O when we got to threats on the briefing, and as my thoughts evolved I said "we'll back taxi to make sure everything is good." His response was "are you serious? Do you know how long that's going to take?" I indcated yes, and that it was an investment I was willing to make and one that Delta would support. I was somewhat taken aback that my rationale was met with resistence, so I laid out an alternative for him; pleaseget on CTAF or Guard and find some ground guys or ARFF to see if they'd do a sweep for us. He said "I don't think that's a "thing." To which I picked up the mic and called on CTAF "any airport operations vehicle on frequency, this is Delta xxx." Got an immediate and wiling response to my request - coordinated the timing to be just prior to our push. We got an all-clear and were on our way. The somewhat surprising cockpit dynamics with the F/O are a topic for another day. It was leg 2 of 2, and we seemed to have a good rapport - he was on the final lap before going to IQ for upgrade and seemed to be testing the authority waters early, so to speak. Plus, there was a commuter flight on his mind. Obviously using external resources to clear the runway is more practical and less expensive, but as pointed out by my F/O, it's not really an established, routine procedure.

It was all civil, but a bit strange to me. Am I out in left field for thinking a FOD scan is in order?

Originally Posted by zippinbye

...he was on the final lap before going to IQ for upgrade and seemed to be testing the authority waters early, so to speak. Plus, there was a commuter flight on his mind.

Originally Posted by 2StgTurbine

Honestly, this is the part that concerns me the most. Look how quickly the OP discredits the FOs resistance to such an unusual request. If an FO offers up resistance and questions my plan, rather than assuming they are overstepping their bounds or are more concerned about catching their commute, I look inwards first. FOs get second-guessed constantly and they put up with it for the most part, yet when a captain get's second-guessed, apparently it deserves its own thread for the OP to repair their ego. If an FO is speaking up, that is a warning that not only are you doing something out of the norm, but it's also something they don't feel comfortable with. The downside with upgrading is that captains rarely get honest feedback. It's easy to convince yourself that you are a great captain and are operating well within normal standards. 99% of FOs will put up with your oddities as long as its safe and isn't too inconvenient.

Originally Posted by Nantonaku

1. But any traffic that is operating is less experienced and more likely to do something dumb even if they aren’t 70.

2. I don’t agree. Risks are different. And even for the risks that are the same the rate of incidents per flight is lower.

3. This isn’t a risk you can avoid. It is different placing yourself in risk on purpose and the risk from operating normally. (Aren’t transponders required 30NM from class B?).

4. Doesn’t this result in an even higher risk of doing a FOD sweep?

Originally Posted by cornbeef007

Operating procedures? Where does it say that he can’t do this? We are authorized to back-taxi, right?

I’ve operated out of uncontrolled fields constantly during the early part of my career. At Delta we need reminders on how it should be done. As a whole, we suck at it.

The argument about spending more time on the runway is moronic. If it wasn’t, we wouldn’t be doing uncontrolled ops in the first place. We already spend 2 minutes on the runway during the takeoff roll anyway. That’s exposure.

If zip wants CYA, that’s his prerogative. The guys saying this “technique” is unsafe are idiots.

Originally Posted by Planetrain

https://i.imgur.com/H0Dizdp.gif

Who can fill in the next line ________