Wrong. Didn’t need pro standards just needed a difficult to hear debrief.

That is such a lame excuse. What is your price for being a professional? Aren’t you a former intern? Confirming the myth.

You are being paid per diem in the van. The same amount you are paid until the brakes are released. So what is free? Do you wait until after brake release to flight plan?

Your good will has been beaten out of you? You’ve have a pretty golden career compared to many others at UAL.

Van time is free time? Who knew?

If you're that sensitive, maybe this isn't the career for you.

You guys brief on the van at United???

not really, some crews will make a casual mention of the flight plan looks good, but in depth planning is usually limited to the insecure captains. I get car sick when i look at my ipad in the van so it stays in my bag, if i have time and the flight plan is out i will download it at the hotel so i can get an idea of how long the breaks will be. if its not out, i download it at the plane.

Needing to brief in the van does not mean you are a professional. I have not felt pressed for time since I was at a regional trying to figure out how to get some food during a 25-minute turn. At a major airline, there is no need to rush. We get to the airport an hour or more before the flight. It takes me 10 minutes to review the release and 10 minutes to do my flows/load the flight plan. Add in another 15 minutes for food/coffee and 5 minutes talking to the gate agent and FAs, that leaves 20 minutes to review an MEL or talk to the dispatcher about fuel, weather, or alternates. I can't think of any MEL that required more than a few minutes of my attention.

The kind of pilots that want to talk about the flight before they get to the airplane always seem to be under a false time constraint. Maybe it's a carryover from regionals or previous cultures where flight crews rushed.

Naw, not really. There will be brief mentions about the gas or maintenance. If we are with the FAs, then the Captain might give them short brief….

I don’t like looking at my the Flight Plan on the van ride either. I get motion sickness. I will look at it at the hotel room before leaving in order to build my SA before the flight.

I get up early, to prepare MYSELF for the flight. I do all the homework and treat it like I’m a professional. When I get to the van, I assume my flying partner has done the same. We don’t need to talk about it on the ride to work. We aren’t planning a lunar expedition. We don’t need to prebrief the brief, and then DEBRIEF the brief. Threat and error management, along with good CRM. At some point, if you saturate me with explaining how you fly an airplane….I’m no longer listening to you. Is THAT an effective means of briefing?

I happen to fly with quite a few half-wingers that don’t prep ahead so I have to take time to mentor them on being a professional pilot.

we don’t do a deep dive on the flight plan in the van. It’s a simple “what do you think? How’s the gas? Many times I get the blank stare, that’s a CA’s job or I don’t start working till I get to the plane.

Guess what happens next, we barely can get the jet prepped for departure and that’s with the divide/conquer method.

Quite a few of the half-wingers spent less then 5 yrs at the regional level and they didn’t have the mentorship they needed. Their CA’s there barely knew how to perform their jobs. We’re seeing the effects of lack of leadership/mentorship at the RJ level coming to UA.

I spend time in cruise attempting to mentor the half-wingers and help them understand what it takes to be a professional pilot. Some accept it, some reject it. Those pilots in the latter half get a “not nice probie report/call to pro-standards”. I have had one half-winger that after I contacted pro-standards they let me know I wasn’t the first CA to call regarding their lack of professionalism

Is this a joke? You expect your FOs to review the flight plan before you even get to the airport? What about when you have an hour or less turn? Is that not enough time for you to prepare yourself? How did you accomplish this van briefing session before we had ipads? Did you print it out in the hotel business center?

No, it’s not. I have only her. Here with IPads so I have no clue how you handled it before. Once I only see this with half wingers and not all of them.

It’s a nice change of pace when I fly with a seasoned FO.

Widebody I like a quick brief in the van, usually can ride is a hour and gives me more time at hotel to get food, coffee whatever, but I await the captains lead, I wouldn’t put my hand up and ask for it. Most of the time they do a basic flight plan brief and call the dispatcher etc.

look it’s all about mindset…..neither the ones that wait tell the airplane or the ones that look at the hotel are correct. All that matters is on time.

I look at it at the hotel and work everything out with dispatch before the van then have a very quick and casual convo in the van. I do this so we are never rushed. I hate being rushed and it is because of Jackass United and Continental CAs that never prepare until they are in the seat and then expect me to do everything to get the flight out and then mentor me on how I’m not moving fast enough.

if you you don’t want to talk tell we are in the seat that is fine but we better be on time. I will never rush you and if we are late we will talk about it. If we are consistently late then we will have a convo about professionalism.

do your job however you like but do it well.

It’s guys like you that make me ECSTATIC to not have to fly with CAs. I mentor guys when they need it, and definitely when they want it. I’m not an LCA, and neither are you. I realize you were, but that was also when our former employer was scraping. I fly with almost nothing BUT half-wingers, and they’re usually not in much need of redirection. Self-appointed crusaders were my least favorite to fly with. Keep trying to force me to discuss the flight with you…I’ll just put in earbuds. Show time is when my duty day starts.


side note……”barely get the plane ready with the divide/conquer method”??

You can’t program the box, brief the FAs, AND do the walk (both of them) within about 15-20 minutes? Alone?

Unless there is a maintenance issue, EDCT questions, etc…..this job is SUPER easy to do with the 45 minutes we are given.

Guess what? I also don’t meet in the CPO. What a waste of time.

Nice dig/personal attack. Feel better now.

Like I said not all FO’s but some. Take my last one. If you are the PF I let you load the box and I grab the walk around/do my stuff (that’s my divide/conquer).

Sounds easy. Well I had an FO that couldn’t get all the box work completed in time. It was like watching a slow motion train wreck. After 2 days of watching him struggle I offered up some advice.

I’d counter your “probie report/call to pro-standards” with a sole source FSAP against you. Requiring FO’s to perform their duties outside of report time is not part of your job description and I’m sure the FAA would take a dim view of that.

Marvin’s and their professionalism….

Welp, guess the contract got signed.

Why the big debate over when someone reviews the OFP? I personally review it in the hotel because I'm lazy, don't like to rush, and I'd rather leisurely go get a cup of coffee when I get to the airport rather than review and prep. If someone else wants to wait until they are at the airport to review the paperwork, who the hell cares as long as we push on time? This stuff isn't brain surgery.

Wait.. you've never flown with a paper flight plan in your airline career... but you're mentoring FOs that they should be reviewing the flight plan and briefing with you before you even get to the airport??

When we had paper flight plans the FO barely got a few minutes total to look over it 😂

​​​​​​​Scratch your itch to troll over on the Delta forum, especially since you are a Delta pilot. Could you take StoneQOldcrazy and LaxtoDen back there with you please?

Internationally, folks peruse the FP on the bus on the way in, NBFD. Maybe they also let the FA's know flight time and ride report on the bus. What's your problem/agenda with how other pilots run their crew or what they personally do, other than trolling?

Oh I have flown with paper flight plans that roll off the dot matrix printer and that were 40ft long. I remember the good old days……

Here’s my point. Every CA I flew with at UA always asked me in the van ride “did you look at the flight plan? What do you think about the fuel plan”. I would have an answer for them and that’s all I asking my flying partner.

Guess that makes me and every CA I flew with a Marvin

the good old days…or at delta , 6 weeks ago.

“And the lie detector has determined… THAT WAS A LIE” said Maury.

*crowd goes wild*

I’d love to hear the response from pro-standards when you’ve contacted them for FOs not looking at the flight plan prior to duty.

im not going to put words in his mouth. But if a half winger has the balls to look at their CA and say I don’t work tell I get to the airplane, puts earbuds in and walks away….im fairly certain there is going to be other attitude problems, professional problems and the pilot will most likely be behind in the operation, during the flight and the aircraft.

not once in my time at United have I ever had a CA NOT talk about the flight on the van. He’ll L-UAL CAs used to print the OFP in cruise and deal with any issues (like gas) via ACARS. Then they would print off a scroll, roll it up and put in their shirt pocket.

y’all throughing a fit about this are probably the most vocal on the new hire upgrades too…..haven’t been around long enough….have no experience…..have no idea how the operation works…..we are going to bend metal…..then they come on here and see you guys posting this drivel chastising pilots that want to get ahead of the game. What kind of mentorship are they receiving from that?

Actually, I was more curious as to what pro-standards response was. Telling people to do work prior to the start of their duty time would be a pretty big no-no on their part.

yeah pro standards would never do that. But I also have a strong feeling that flyND would never call pro stands for ONLY the pilot not pre looking at the OFP. I am sure that there were/would need to be other issues and the fact that the pilot is not prepared is just the cherry on top.

atleast I hope that’s the case…..would be for me.

ehh…it was late and I’d been having a lame day. Ish happens, dude….I retract the dig, but the rest of my statement stands. This job is super easy 99% of the time, unless WE overcomplicate it. But, like I said….best thing about upgrading is not having to deal with 5-stripe guys ever again. That….and getting away from the temperature panel.

He’s not lying. We flew with the “old guard” quite a bit. The newer CAs probably don’t do it as much, because we didn’t like being bothered on the van as FOs.

You're correct, 99% of FOs will just cooperate to graduate and once they realize that captain anal wants them to analyze the flight plan before they even get to work, they'll do it...but the whole idea is insane to me and I'm sure most of your FOs are thinking the same thing. (Admittedly I'm DL and maybe it's a UA culture thing, so I'll just drop it 😂 )

Some of these old bid avoid captains (and they are at every airline) need to figure out the pendulum swings both ways nowadays. You can’t act like a jacka$$ to your FO under the guise of “mentoring” and consider it a get out of jail free card, especially if you are using it as a tool to leave negative feedback etc...

Some of us don't need to review things off duty and still be "ahead of the game"....

yeah….an hour and 30 minutes before every flight with 1-2 extra pilots tends to slow things down……

Just so you know. UAL flies with 3 FO and 1 captain on most long haul flights . It's usually one of the FO's, that wants to show how "smart" they are and have morphed into "capt anal" 20 years before they can hold it, that peruses the IPAD flight plan on the crew bus.

Is it only Delta that has a large majority of anal captains? All the Delta FO's are hip and laid back? If you're a di**/anal as a FO, you will probably be a di**/anal captain.

Thanks for your insight, now go back to Delta and quit trolling.

Was in the Caribbean, heading to EWR. On the van, CA pulls up the info. He mentions EWR is doing the whole circle to 29 thing due to the winds. Says we'll have to do all the briefings for that, etc.

Did I mention we were in the Caribbean? And that we're on the van? ETA is still like 4-ish hours away? Good thing he's getting spooled up NOW.

And, as everyone can guess, we weren't doing 29 when we arrived......

But man, good thing he was so ahead of the game.

I bet he's the guy who spends 10 minutes during of the preflight analysing the weather to figure out the landing runway on a transcon.

Did you tell him you were only flying to EWR, not bombing it?

Gear up, get the Newark gate assignment for our arrival in 6 hours. I’m sure it won’t change before then!

You know, there are too many unfilled CA positions to be *****ing about captains who make the grave mistake of talking about work in the van to work. Upgrade and show us how to run the show.