Fortunately, things aren’t still going like they did the day I came down to Atlanta. In fact, things have smoothed out quite a bit.<\/p>\n
Every year, we do recurrent training and a portion of that is going over several FAA mandated subjects such as emergency equipment (survival, firefighting, etc.), security, hazardous materials, crew resource management (CRM), and so on. Because these items have to be done on a scheduled cycle, they like to reset the cycle for crewmembers going through upgrade or transition training. (Upgrade means a change in position, such as Flight Engineer, First Officer, Captain; transition means change in equipment). I was due for recurrent soon anyway (I’m training 7 years to the month after I started) so my cycle isn’t changing a whole lot. But I digress…<\/p>\n
That day went relatively smoothly. For most of the day, our class consisted of two of us upgrading Captains doing the reset, two new DC-10 Captains who just got displaced off the MD-11 doing the reset, two over-60 Captains returning to the line due to the recent mandatory retirement age change (also doing the reset), and a recurrent class. The only real interesting part of the day is when someone from management comes to talk company stuff to us. This time, it was the Chief Pilot and the DC-10 fleet manager. There was nothing truly newsy, but a lot of clarifications, details, and rumors that were valuable. If the 747 routes turn out the way he says, that could be some fun flying (round the world freight trips). Then, for part of the day (CRM), we added the new hire class (6 MD-11 FO’s, 3 DC-10 FO’s, and 6 DC-10 FE\/SO’s) and a flight attendant recurrent class (almost 40 people in all). <\/p>\n
That evening, I ran into two of the three DC-10 FO’s here in the hotel bar. Those two are the two that are going through at roughly the time (similar start dates) as me. I don’t know which one I’m paired up with but it’s one of those two. Both of them have non-glass widebody experience (1 former ATA L1011 F\/O and the other never flew the line but checked out at Omni on the DC-10). That’ll be helpful. <\/p>\n
The ex-ATA guy is a pretty interesting guy. He hasn’t been flying the last 5 years or so. He runs a restaurant (3-star) in the Boston area. He’s also a bass player and went to Berkelee for a semester (but hasn’t played in ~20 years). It’ll be fun picking his brain about the restaurant business. <\/p>\n
The last two days were just the other upgrading Captain and I with one of my very favorite instructors doing a ‘Captain’ class. There were some powerpoint slides and topics that were prepared, but a lot of it was digression into the Captainesque stories that have nothing to do with flying and everything to do with leading this operation around the world in the environment we fly in, which is not a trivial task. Some of the flying topics were good reviews, and the rest of it was beneficial, too. <\/p>\n
The one big important question I had was, at the same time, both answered to my satisfaction, and not. The question, “What exactly do you want me to do?” seems easy to answer, but it isn’t. Yes, the company wants us to move the airplanes (“get ‘er done”). No, the company doesn’t want us to violate rules (FAR’s, company policy, etc.). But there’s a lot of gray area in there. We discussed several scenarios, but in the end it came down to “use your best judgment, that’s what you get paid to do.” In some respects I expected that, but it was good to hear it. For better or worse (quite possibly better, here), even though they occasionally come down on Captains for various things, they do seem to have a greater respect for Captain authority (and not just when actually flying the airplane) here than at my last job. So I suppose if they’re ready for me, I’m ready for them.<\/p>\n
V-<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Fortunately, things aren’t still going like they did the day I came down to Atlanta. In fact, things have smoothed out quite a bit. Every year, we do recurrent training and a portion of that is going over several FAA mandated subjects such as emergency equipment (survival, firefighting, etc.), security, \u2026 Continue reading