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But, but, the book says I can do it so what’s the problem captain? (Sarcasm) I’ve never understood guys that just try to swim upstream and go against everything the captain says. I never seen it happen until I was on a AA jumpseat last week and the FO had a different suggestion every time the captain asked him to do something. I don’t mean to come off as nonchalant but if you want me to do something I will as long as it won’t get me violated or killed. As long as it gets done idc. It’s crazy to hear guys getting upset because they can’t do something they way they want to.

Show me a CA with an ID outside of the 90,000's who actually flys SOP to the letter and i'll eat my shoes. The amount of mixing of Pincolsaba procedures with REV 3 is stupid. I can count on one hand the CA's that can even do the damn runway position, departure, first fix + HAA briefing correctly. I don't care if you like or don't like the scripted briefings. Company says do it this way then we do it that way.

Let the SOP argument end here. If you aren't flying by the book then you open yourself up to trouble. Right or wrong if the book said cut thrust levers to idle at 100ft AGL no one could fault you if doing so resulted in aircraft damage because you were following SOP.


Now, if what the CA is doing won't get me killed or violated then I am inclined not to care. My job description does not say SOP COP.

Well, it kind of does. The 2 pilots are a crew, and if one isn't following SOP then the crew isn't following SOP. By joining a crew, we buy in to responsibility for the other member. Obviously more so for the CA, but it goes both ways.

Now I get it, you've gotta pick your battles because you can't bog down the whole fight in minutiae like the order of the HAA briefing.

But every time I hear something like "won't get me killed," it immediately makes me think that the speaker's threshold of acceptability is too low. After all the whole purpose of SOP's is to avoid getting killed to begin with, and it's not up to us to determine that a SOP is too conservative and ignore it. They're supposed to be more conservative than the bare threshold of safety and allow a margin.

Everybody ever who got themselves killed due to SOP non-compliance of course didn't think they were gonna get themselves killed, and that the SOP in question was inconsequential queep. Therefore there's a mismatch between their evaluation of the necessity of that SOP, and the reality.

How do we know we're not making the same mistake?

Agree 120%..HOWEVER..The 10,000' chime now being predicated on AFE and not MSL is ridiculous

Is there anything in the FARs or AIM that specifies altitude for sterile cockpit? Other than our manuals, I mean? 121.542 just says 10,000 feet, and doesn’t specify what measurement is being used. OAL use 10,000 MSL, just curious why we choose “approximately 10,000’ AFE”, when there is an easier number to see on our instruments?

Let's hope it's because we're heading west : )

AFE
 

2nd that!

Filler

Remember, we have a crew member or 2 in the back too. We have standard altitudes we as pilots do things at, this gives the FA's a standard altitude and thus known quantity of time to finish all the junk they need to do. The chime is their trigger, take a peek in the FAM all the stuff they are supposed to accomplish. Now they don't have to google the elevation of Denver, Boise or Casper to see how fast they have to work. Per FOM, sterile for cockpit is still 10k msl and 1000 feet to level off, the 10000 afe chime is simply for the flight attendant as far as I can see, so we can chat away between 10k afe and 10k Msl. The only place in a company manuals that states the 10k agl chime is the start of sterile is in the FAM, which obviously we don't have to follow.

If the chime is really for FAs, and provides a known amount of time, then it should be based on time to landing, not altitude. Consider flights that never get up to 10,000.

OAL use 10,000 MSL for the chime, just curious as to why we choose to be different. Haven’t really paid attention when on DL JS, but maybe it’s “the Delta way”.

On flights below 10k a good flight crew briefing should solve that problem. As long as the CA brings it up, the FA isn't on her cell phone talking about her cats, and the FO isn't busy studying for upgrade.