Tool of the day
#1721
Banned
Joined APC: Mar 2009
Posts: 562
#1723
Gets Weekends Off
Joined APC: Mar 2008
Posts: 2,919
#1725
Banned
Joined APC: Oct 2008
Posts: 1,857
722!!!???
If we’re delving deep into the past recesses of our career, “the early days” were ripe…fertile ground for tool of the day stories. Prior to the advent of CRM and fewer concepts of accountability for behavior in the cockpit? Think Wild West.
So here’s my first of two TOTD self-nomination stories: A long, long time ago I was flying for one of several commuters that all got lumped together to feed a major’s hub. This was a ground breaking, unique concept at the time. Previously, regionals truly stuck to a region that was more or less synonymous with their name, (i.e. Air Midwest flew primarily to cities in…you guessed it, the Midwest) In any event I end up paired with a Captain that was several years junior to me, who was hired off the street as a captain because he had a type on the airplane. Due to the recent consolidation, I was commuting to my new temporary base. This was also before the invention of roller bags, so I carried a small hard sided suitcase about twice the size of a briefcase, that just barely had room for 4 days worth of stuff. And two binders of jeps in a small brainbag.
I walked into ops and sat down about two hours ahead of departure. My captain comes in, so I approached him to ask if he was Mckowan or Mckewan. Apparently I mispronounced his name. He said, “No.”, OK, whatever. I sat back down and waited. An hour prior to departure, I headed out to the ramp and preflighted. Threw my little hard shell suitcase in the nose locker. It was a nice cool sunny day, so I climbed in and sat down to read a little. In a few minutes, here comes Captain McWhatever. As he approaches the airplane he sets his flightbag and headset down ramp side and without bothering to stick his head in and ask if I'd already done it, proceeds to duplicate my exterior preflight. When he gets to the nose, even though I can’t see him over the glare shield, I see the battery bus powered annunciator light illuminate when he opens the locker where my little bag is stowed. The light goes off and a few moments latter he climbs up the stairs and introduces himself to me like we hadn’t seen each other in ops.
Next he asks me, “Do you know who’s bag that is in the nose locker?” (Mind you only crew, never rampers were allowed to use the nose locker. My bag always had a crew tag with my name on it, which I am sure he saw.)
Me, “Yes sir it’s mine.”
Him, “Well take it back inside and leave it in ops.”
Me, "Why?"
Him, "Because we're going to a high altitude airport and we might need the weight for performance."
Me, “Wait, this is a 4 day trip, my first week at this base... I don’t know where or even if it’s safe to leave it here and besides if we break down somewhere, I want my suitcase with me.”
Him, “Well if we need the weight, your bag is going to be staying at the outstation.”
Me, “If my bag stays, I stay. As far as I am concerned it’s part of the OEW.”
Him, “We’ll see about that.”
Me, “I guess we will.”
In an extreme situation, there was room in the cockpit for our little suitcases so long as you packed minimally. As far as everyone but this guy was concerned, that prevented it from needing to be counted on the manifest.
So the first six legs went about as well as can be expected, especially given how we'd gotten started. Fortunately push never came to shove on the bag issue and the day passed with minimal communication, no personal conversation, no bonding and wow, what could have been fun, was a long day, nearing it's end. On the last taxi out of the hub for the evening flight to the layover, we get closed, started and half way to the runway, when Captain MacGyver awakens the voice activated intercom for the first non-proceedural communiqué of the day, as he simultaneously bangs his hand on the glare shield, “Dang-it!!!!”
Me, “What?”
Him, “I forgot my overnight bag in Ops!”
Me holding back tears and laughter, “I might have an extra douche nozzle you can borrow.”
Macgyver theme song - YouTube And yes the number one engine is feathered at :29
If we’re delving deep into the past recesses of our career, “the early days” were ripe…fertile ground for tool of the day stories. Prior to the advent of CRM and fewer concepts of accountability for behavior in the cockpit? Think Wild West.
So here’s my first of two TOTD self-nomination stories: A long, long time ago I was flying for one of several commuters that all got lumped together to feed a major’s hub. This was a ground breaking, unique concept at the time. Previously, regionals truly stuck to a region that was more or less synonymous with their name, (i.e. Air Midwest flew primarily to cities in…you guessed it, the Midwest) In any event I end up paired with a Captain that was several years junior to me, who was hired off the street as a captain because he had a type on the airplane. Due to the recent consolidation, I was commuting to my new temporary base. This was also before the invention of roller bags, so I carried a small hard sided suitcase about twice the size of a briefcase, that just barely had room for 4 days worth of stuff. And two binders of jeps in a small brainbag.
I walked into ops and sat down about two hours ahead of departure. My captain comes in, so I approached him to ask if he was Mckowan or Mckewan. Apparently I mispronounced his name. He said, “No.”, OK, whatever. I sat back down and waited. An hour prior to departure, I headed out to the ramp and preflighted. Threw my little hard shell suitcase in the nose locker. It was a nice cool sunny day, so I climbed in and sat down to read a little. In a few minutes, here comes Captain McWhatever. As he approaches the airplane he sets his flightbag and headset down ramp side and without bothering to stick his head in and ask if I'd already done it, proceeds to duplicate my exterior preflight. When he gets to the nose, even though I can’t see him over the glare shield, I see the battery bus powered annunciator light illuminate when he opens the locker where my little bag is stowed. The light goes off and a few moments latter he climbs up the stairs and introduces himself to me like we hadn’t seen each other in ops.
Next he asks me, “Do you know who’s bag that is in the nose locker?” (Mind you only crew, never rampers were allowed to use the nose locker. My bag always had a crew tag with my name on it, which I am sure he saw.)
Me, “Yes sir it’s mine.”
Him, “Well take it back inside and leave it in ops.”
Me, "Why?"
Him, "Because we're going to a high altitude airport and we might need the weight for performance."
Me, “Wait, this is a 4 day trip, my first week at this base... I don’t know where or even if it’s safe to leave it here and besides if we break down somewhere, I want my suitcase with me.”
Him, “Well if we need the weight, your bag is going to be staying at the outstation.”
Me, “If my bag stays, I stay. As far as I am concerned it’s part of the OEW.”
Him, “We’ll see about that.”
Me, “I guess we will.”
In an extreme situation, there was room in the cockpit for our little suitcases so long as you packed minimally. As far as everyone but this guy was concerned, that prevented it from needing to be counted on the manifest.
So the first six legs went about as well as can be expected, especially given how we'd gotten started. Fortunately push never came to shove on the bag issue and the day passed with minimal communication, no personal conversation, no bonding and wow, what could have been fun, was a long day, nearing it's end. On the last taxi out of the hub for the evening flight to the layover, we get closed, started and half way to the runway, when Captain MacGyver awakens the voice activated intercom for the first non-proceedural communiqué of the day, as he simultaneously bangs his hand on the glare shield, “Dang-it!!!!”
Me, “What?”
Him, “I forgot my overnight bag in Ops!”
Me holding back tears and laughter, “I might have an extra douche nozzle you can borrow.”
Macgyver theme song - YouTube And yes the number one engine is feathered at :29
#1727
Gets Weekends Off
Joined APC: Apr 2007
Position: 320
Posts: 709
#1728
Gets Weekends Off
Joined APC: Jul 2010
Position: window seat
Posts: 12,522
OK you're back on my good list.
While I don't mind, and in fact value, opinions and points of view like yours, I also understand and empathize with at least a little bit of the inherent defensiveness that may prejudice certain lines of thinking. I'd say try not to take it personal, but it appears you don't so that's cool.
Its just frustrating from our point of view sometimes, especially in light of what it takes to get here and the level of assault our particular profession has endured. Couple that with management's non stop push to rile up other work groups against us using completely out of context "we're all equal" rhetoric and you're going to potentially get some disproportionate pushback for even the smallest contrarian viewpoint.
Now I despise Bolshevism in all its forms, and have a very low tolerance when its directed at pilots by other work groups or management, but I am very much in FA's corner in some critical areas. Y'all need to get strong scope. Stronger than ours preferrably. And I find it disgusting that subsidized dellusional foreign airlines get to discriminate to levels that would literally get US companies SWAT raided with machine guns drawn and shut down overnight. While that applies to all work groups to some extent, its really, really bad WRT FA's and love of quality underboob aside, that ain't right. Its also our fight too, because like it or not, labor law ain't changing here, so we all need to take that fight to them in the court of public opinion as well as the laws of our land allowing them to pillage our flying here.
Welcome to the kitchen. It gets hot in here. But I think you can stand the heat.
While I don't mind, and in fact value, opinions and points of view like yours, I also understand and empathize with at least a little bit of the inherent defensiveness that may prejudice certain lines of thinking. I'd say try not to take it personal, but it appears you don't so that's cool.
Its just frustrating from our point of view sometimes, especially in light of what it takes to get here and the level of assault our particular profession has endured. Couple that with management's non stop push to rile up other work groups against us using completely out of context "we're all equal" rhetoric and you're going to potentially get some disproportionate pushback for even the smallest contrarian viewpoint.
Now I despise Bolshevism in all its forms, and have a very low tolerance when its directed at pilots by other work groups or management, but I am very much in FA's corner in some critical areas. Y'all need to get strong scope. Stronger than ours preferrably. And I find it disgusting that subsidized dellusional foreign airlines get to discriminate to levels that would literally get US companies SWAT raided with machine guns drawn and shut down overnight. While that applies to all work groups to some extent, its really, really bad WRT FA's and love of quality underboob aside, that ain't right. Its also our fight too, because like it or not, labor law ain't changing here, so we all need to take that fight to them in the court of public opinion as well as the laws of our land allowing them to pillage our flying here.
Welcome to the kitchen. It gets hot in here. But I think you can stand the heat.
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