homepage Forums SimHQ Community Community Hall God Forbid they want to have a bit of fun at work

After take off and reaching the assigned altitude and heading, the aircraft flies itself on auto pilot until landing or until bad weather ahead.

I bet it's very boring during the rest of the time, just sitting there in that little space staring ahead at the open sky.

Boring until warning lights flash with something going wrong. Just ask OG whom is a pilot.

It is not the time and place for screwing around on a shared resource (radio band).

Think about it... If something bad happened shortly after that childishness and the plane went down... guess what the investigators are going to hear on the black box recording. Now consider what the families of the deceased, (or owners of the cargo) are going to do in this litigious age. The pilot's employer is going to be much more heavily exposed in the resulting law suits. It is just unprofessional.

I thought the FCC and the Airlines prohibited non aircraft conversations between crew once in the air, no chit chat just aircraft related conversations, at least that my impression from watching " Air Disasters " on TV. As a passenger I would want the crew to be professional and focused on aircraft operations only. There was a recent crash of an Airbus where the pilot let his young son to try and fly the plane himself, the Airbus crashed killing all those on board.

"Strict R.T. Procedure will be observed at all times. And it is never... repeat, never... to be used... for private Polish chitchat."

There are ways for non pilots to make such radio calls and interfere on the frequencies you know.

What`s boring?

My point Wig is that nothing is boring when you are flying an aircraft with 300 people on board at 32K feet, their lives in your hands and your responsibility. Have you ever flown an aircraft ? I have, it’s not a video game.

I think I know what you mean.

IYKYK ha ha

Wigean has more experience at this than most of us

Indeed he does.

My thoughts are that piloting a commercial aircraft has special responsibilities and the cockpit isn’t the place for any unprofessional behavior. There is always some thing to do or monitor.

That said, human nature can’t be ignored and things will happen. Being grim doesn’t make things better. There must be zero tolerance for zero tolerance, if you get my meaning.

Wigean, how did you deal with hours of routine flight time ?

Yeah I thought Wigean was a commercial airline pilot although I may be mistaken. If Wigean is an airline pilot he knows better than anybody regarding pilot protocol when in the air. I am not a pilot but I flew my buddies Cessna several times, it was not easy, you use all your extremities to control the aircraft. I have respect for Wigean as a pilot, not an easy job I would presume, not to mention the responsibility of peoples lives in your hands.

Nice quote from "The great Escape" btw.

First I can say is that the treadstarter is totally wrong when it comes to describing how it is flying in the airlines.

Sadly , that` s how many people regard the proffesion. I get a little annoyed when people are comparing us with bus drivers.

I was pretty lucky working in an airline with very varying destinations. Everything from 25 minutes to 7 hours for the most part.

On the shortest sectors we have just a few minutes on level before descend. On longer flights not so hectic, but always something to do.

Frequency changes ,level chanfges,navigation, monitoring systems. Weather and wind. .Always staying ahead.

I enjoyed my job . Many variables . You could almost say that there was a new thing every day.

Of course the workload varied. Crossing the Atlantic where you basicly report when passing LAT/LONG could be a little boring, but one has to be on the alert anyway.

Also time for some chit chat. That depended on who my college was. People are different. And you know when you can talk and when not to.

The "Steril cockpit" concept was introduced early in my career. The old guys had a hard time accepting it,but

when CRM (Cockpit Resource Management) training was introduced they were forced into it anyway.


This from early career. Captain on a Citation II .On this flight we were flying a calibration mission for the military radars.

Fascinating post Wigean. It was a good read.

That is an excellent point!

Yes Wigean, informative post and summary. I bet you were / are one heck of a pilot.