I laugh at you guys talking all this freight dog crap. I was a single pilot night ifr guy and I can tell you that doing that type of flying has given me the guts, or whatever you want to call it, to say no. Being a freight dog doesn't make you a better pilot per se, but it helps you make better decisions. You learn really quickly when you have bit off more than you can chew when you are the only one in the plane flying. There are more than a couple flights I can look back on and think to myself, man I should have stayed on the ground. Now that I am a captain with OTHER peoples lives in the back I need to evaluate everything that much more closely. Anyone bringing the freight dog attitude to the airlines is just looking for trouble and when they find it all the people they were entrusted with will pay the price.

 

What is the training like at Pinnacle? Was there a lot of hand flying low approches in the sim? It sound to me like it was a good call on the Captains part. If he did not feel the flight was safe, of he was up to hand flying a low approch after what ever day he had, then good job! Is sounds like he payed attention in the Private pilot days with not getting an unsafe mindset of Macho.
To all of you ready to hang this guy for not flying the plane, How many times have you accepted an unsafe condition? This is the Airline Biz, not Top Gun. Saftey should be your highest priority, Not who has the Biggest... Ego.

 

seriously? sounds like a normal day at great lakes dont see the problem here

 

If everything originally posted is true, I wouldn't worry too much about the unpaid portion, since I'm sure he will receive back pay. The problem is management using strong arm tactics to try and force people flying into a situation they are not comfortable with. Kudos to this guy for standing up and doing the right thing, even if it does mean going through this hassle.

I don't think I'll ever understand management's side of things. At our airline we are required to use the autopilot on approaches in IMC, yet it can still be MEL'd. So anytime you want to practice handflying an approach in IMC we are technically violating our company policy...that is until the autopilot is MEL'd.

 

ur so kewl

 

You get a lot of practice, the PCL guy didn't. He also would have to do it faster than you.

But as bad as PCL is, I'd probably rather work there than GLA.

 

If the captain actually thought he could not make the flight safely, great job for walking away from it. Now if the captain, can't pull off a two hour leg without autopilot, maybe it's time for a little self assessment. The CRJ is about as easy as it gets when it comes to hand flying. Was the problem a lack of background, proficiency, recency, fatigue? Who knows, but it's a pretty sad day when an AIRLINE PILOT can't FLY an aircraft for more than a few seconds after take-off and the last couple on landing.

 

In my experience hand flying a CRJ isn't THAT easy. Can it be done? Sure. For all the freight dogs I'm curious what it was you were flying at that point? I can fly a 210 almost in my sleep, it will trim that well and lets be honest it just isn't THAT sensitive. The CRJ is a different monster, it requires constant attention even in cruise, half of a degree of pitch will quickly result in climb or descent that will put you outside the 100 ft altitude tolerance. If you're OCD like me that means constant attention to avoid a possible violation. Maybe I'm just an idiot but I never could quite get the electric trim just exactly perfect to be able to take my hands off. Could you ask for a block altitude? Yea and that would probably greatly reduce the workload, even then it's more mental gymnastics than autopilot by a long shot. At night after a long day, looking at hand flying for 2 hours into weather followed by a handflown approach, I don't have anything to prove about how big my balls are. I agree with one of the previous posters; if you take this flight and anything goes wrong they pin it on you for pilot error, it sounds to me you've got the first half of an accident report that's waiting to be written and get crucified by the guys here for poor decision making. Bottom line most of those conditions are outside of SOP, generally guys just don't hand fly daily in bad weather, if they did then obviously an autopilot isn't a big deal.
If pinnacles union is worth their salt he'll get back pay for his whole trip and this nice vacation, you really want a guy taking 50 people on a flight he isn't comfortable with?

 

-Agreed 100% with Irish. Well stated.

 

[quote=rickair7777;756965]

...But lets say we had a non-precision, non-radar, full approach with a PT and/or a complicated missed in mountainous terrain. I'd take a pass on that...we are just not current on that kind of hand flying...
quote]

Why are you guys not current on this? If your company has the ability to defer the autopilot system, it must occur to you that an autopilot deferal is a very realistic possibility that may pop up in daily line flying. That being the case, part of being a professional, to me, would include having the professional ability to deal with this situation. That would mean staying current on hand flying the aircraft, and even hand flying more complicated approaches. I'm not saying I'm better than RJ pilots, or cooler than RJ pilots, or have more skills than RJ pilots...I'm not, and I don't believe that at all. I'm just not understanding the justification for non-acceptance of this aircraft. I understand that it's the PIC's discretion; but, at the same time, part of our job, as professionals, is to be an effective part of the chain of providing efficient and reliable transportation to our customers. We can't be scared of flying things to mins, unless there is a reasonable justification for believing safety is affected. I'm not seeing the reasonable justification here...unless, like I say, he wasn't comfortable with hand flying the aircraft...which goes back to the whole professionalism thing...In the end, I'm just saying I'm not understanding this situation, perhaps, maybe, because I don't have the full story. No judgements; just questions. On the surface, it doesn't make sense to me. There may be much, much more to the story than what I'm seeing here, which may cause me to actually agree with this CA's decision.