Quote:
Originally Posted by IAJETCAPT
Turning on the APU bleed when it's hot isn't breaking a limitation. How in the h... are we responsible for what the ground crew does 20 min after I leave. It's ridiculous and who says we have to wait around until the pax are off. I'm done sweating and giving this place free time. If you take a plane from me it will be ice cold as a courtesy for the next crew.
I agree with you. I cannot control what the ground crew does after I leave but I have to assume they know how to do their job and it's not my job to micromanage them especially if I'm on my way out.
We have a limitation to not use bleed air and ground air at the same time. We have a Cheif pilot email or read file (not sure which) stating they are witnessing this limit being broken. The AOM sop is also to shutdown the APU when ground power is applied. The assumption would be that air is coming if they have just plugged in the GPU. If I'm there I will obviously leave the APU running til the ground air is applied in case they don't do it.
A lot of things we do defy common sense but that's how they want it done so that's how I do it. If they want to officially tell us that ground crews will no longer be applying external air automatically (which seems to be the cultural norm these days) then I'll be happy to walk away from the plane with the bleed running. They haven't said that yet and I don't make up my own procedures on purpose. They say fly it like you own it but that's not in any manual and they will not hesitate to hang you with that rope. If I owned it I'd leave with the bleed supplying air.