CaptJhan is exactly right- any rumor can and will be used by manglement as turd polish for morale's sake. Whether they hold water is irrelevant, because they can only see about three feet (across the desk) and know we jump whenever any kind of news is put out there. We're like a group of crack-addled spastics with ADHD; all you practically have to do is shout "HEY LOOK, A MONKEY!" and we all turn to look.

We can't forget a few things just because some rumors are flying: We still have ~60 hostages on furlough. We're back to the old model of flying barely staffed, and they're choosing to run over the contract again to keep planes moving- and they could have brought back a few more from the street for relief. We have imminent fleet reductions due to the 60K death on some frames as they come up.

And then there's this:

Hom307, what about the kid on the line who literally sheds tears and says, "This isn't a 777! Why can't I fly it?"

 

shoot i wonder every year how i even managed to pass......
the hitcher, i have no idea. whats the punchline? are u referring to the kid who spoke to the buffalo newspaper?

 

No, my point was, it goes both ways. As a downgraded captain, I've seen it as such.

I've heard some phenomenally dumb logic sitting left, and I've heard some phenomenally dumb logic sitting right. I've my share of brainfarts, for sure. I'm far from perfect, let's make that clear.

We have a flawed training system. It's spring-loaded to the arbitrary position du jour. They are capable of and do some fantastic work, to be sure, but two options remain when a captain with 15000 hr in TYPE downgrades forever or a gob****e with zero SA and ability are allowed to fly pax. Here they are, in no particular order:

1) Training dept failed
2) Training dept failed

They shouldn't have failed at all. I'm not being an apologist, but I'm certain there are things outside the snapshot of AQP that aren't occurring.

Am I saying the FAA is being silly? Am I saying the training department is shackled by stupid mandates? Am I saying that passing training at PDT is an accomplishment? Do we have the most experienced training pilots on the Dash 8 in the world? Does this all add up to making no sense at all?

The answer is yes. As long as we have a young-un crying on the line as a qualed FO, and an almost 2 decade CA downgrade occurring at the same time, something dumb is going on.

 

if there was a button to 'like' this, similar to facebook, it would say "hom307 likes this"

 

Best of luck, man. We all need it, especially the furloughs. "Bring 'em back, Steve!" sounds like a good motto for me. I'd happily stay in the right seat if it brought all furloughs back- besides, I'm doing a better job in the right seat than any FO I flew with....

<dodging flamebait and feces>

C'mon!!! That's the natural order of things. I'd be a total failure if I couldn't adapt, maintain and further the cause as a former captain, right? RIGHT! All kidding aside, I would like some of the kinks to be ironed out. Sharpish.

 

What things are you doing that your FOs wouldnt do? jw

 

Stroke the ego of a 20+ year captain..."It's okay, 43,000 pounds is still pretty big!!" or "It's okay, it doesn't matter what you fly if you still get to live in Newport News, VA"

 

Hitcher since you keep talking about the FO who cried, what was that about?

You seem to imply it was just a person who didn't have enough emotional stability to fly airplanes, are you thinking that was something that should have been weeded out in training?

 

That is something that should have been "weeded out" in the interview.

 

Wow, you are so bad ass. Do you fly a jet? You must because I can just sense the bad assness. Is that something you read in an interview prep book? Hopefully you are studying hard for that next interview when your dirt bag operation goes Chapter 7.