Agreed! I had contract instructors in a previous life and it wasn’t pretty.

 

again…how do you get past the loss of audio under stress or an FO that freezes?

Also. Should I not ever let the FO fly in low visibility? Contamination? Sever weather? Because when they screw it up it’s my ass.

when the plane is airborne there is a lot of time to think, disscuss, screw up. And for the most part there is time to correct and repair just about any situation.

But a reject decision is quite literally the ONLY time when a decision needs to be made by 1 person and needs to be executed RIGHT now with confidence.

 

Why do you assume this to be the case all the time? How do you get past the loss of audio under stress or a capt that freezes when the FO "calls out what they see" and the capt has a split second to analyze it and make a call? Wouldn't that induce more stress on the captains that we trust to call and execute an abort who is trained to operate the airplane in an almost identical manner to the FO? A type rating is a type rating after all. When I hear rotate, I rotate. If I were to hear abort, Im sure myself and other FO's could successfully abort without freaking out.

I think an argument can definitely be made for treating aborts the same as go arounds. A captain (who is so, firstly because of seniority) isn't inherently more capable of recognizing the need to abort or continue a takeoff roll or to execute it safely. As has been mentioned, the immediate transfer of controls, particularly in the high speed regime seems to complicate things unnecessarily. It could be handled like anormal landing made by the FO where the transfer occurs at a slower speed. And if the plan is to stop straight ahead, I don't see a pressing need to make the transfer at all.

The way we are trained seems to be, like most things in this business and at this air line, because thats just the way it's always been done.

 

it doesn’t have to be the case all the time….just once for your life or career to be over.

captains aren’t immune…..I could argue that every single reject that has been screwed up has been screwed up by the Captain. but someone has to be trusted with the responsibility of the aircraft and that fourth stripe makes you that person.

i cannot tell you how many times I have had a soft talking pilot or a deaf pilot say what or flat out not hear me. A Rejection is no time for that.

saying REJECT and having the FO not respond will cause me to TAKE the aircraft from them immediately which will be much worse then a positive transfer of controls. you can’t argue that.

the way we are trained is due to human factors most certainly NOT because that is the way it’s always been done.

 

This

I’ve called out an anomaly during takeoff and the captain just froze and said nothing. After a few potatoes I called continue (this was a few years ago). Fortunately the Captian was also the PF.

We discussed the situation afterwards at cruise and they still debated whether we should have aborted or not after discussing it when it was a clear cut decision.

It works both ways but most of us would agree a transfer window of controls at a critical time is damgerous in of itself. There’s two sets of controls and if the other pilot is putting us into extremis, you can always override.

 

But I could argue that the same threat could be present with an (older) captain who can't hear or doesn't recognize a threat that the FO does but lacks the authority to command a reject. Im just playing devil's advocate because pretty much any point you can make about an FO being deficient can also be made about a captain.

Regarding human factors, again others have pointed out this practice isn't uniform across the entire industry. I took on the responsibility of being a captain at my previous airline and will obviously continue to follow SOP here at DL. But its an interesting conversation to have for all the points that have been brought up.

 

any FO at any time has the Authority to say reject and I will no questions asked

and not a single poster yet has given me a 121 airline where the FO rejects a takeoff and has their hands on the throttles durring the roll

 

hey you guys where the ones complaining that your “Abort” procedures are not standardized and every Captain did it different and now your pilots are advocating for FOs to reject…..it’s certainly more exciting in here…….

 

…so you thought you’d jump in and help out. Thanks, we’ll manage.

 

yeah that makes sense……Delta on brother.