Guppydriver95

I’ll take things that never happened for 1000$, Alex.

bluespoon

Haven't had it in a while but in my experience, the ones that say something like "I'm laid back or I'm real easy" are the ones where you're going to have a long trip every time. Obviously if you have to say it, you have poor social skills or are insecure. There's also the not very agreeable types but they're fine as long as they follow the SOP. The worst ones are the ones that try to make this job harder than it really has to be, still haven't figured out why they want to do that.

Hedley

You'd be wrong. It was prior to the language allowing the captain to set an alternate site came out and my original captain was reassigned in the middle of a trip. I picked up a captain from ORD who was reassigned into my trip, so there was no FPA brief. During the flight he asked why IAH crews don't meet to brief as it was a FOM requirement. He also said that it was a safety issue since it allowed the captain to set the tone, blah, blah, blah. I asked where his hat was since that was also required by the FOM and also asked if he felt that the safety of our flight was compromised since we had met for the first time on the plane and his brief was just the usual "are you comfortable with the fuel and did you see any issues with the paperwork?" I'm sure I wasn't his favorite FO, but he really didn't have much more to say. I didn't say it in a disrespectful or argumentative tone, I just asked the questions to make a point.

SoFloFlyer

To add to the list. The ones that say “those instructors at the training center don’t know ****” followed by an explanation as to how they think it should be done are the worst. Those CAs tend to nitpick technique too.

Turbosina

To those CAs who feel it necessary to "set the tone" by meeting in the FPA (fortunately I haven't encountered one yet)... exactly what are they trying to accomplish? What "tone" is "set" by insisting we traipse over to a location that may be far from the gate?

I totally get the necessity and logic of meeting in the FPA for Global flights. But for domestic narrow body? Just why? What can we do on the FPA that we can't do in the flight deck? I mean, sure, if you both just happen to be hanging out in the CPO/FPA because you both commuted in and are having a doze, it makes sense to just meet there anyways. But aside from that, I don't see a single rational reason to meet anywhere but the gate/ airplane.

But seriously

I honestly like meeting at the FPA. I’m not going to insist we walk a mile out of our way just to do it (re: ORD departing the E gates), but I do think it is preferable. When we meet at the plane, inevitably, one guy gets there first and starts working. The other guy then shows up in the middle and starts briefing FAs or goes right out for a walk around and by the time you say “Hi, I’m Johnny…” you are both done with your preflight and haven’t discussed the flight at all. Nine out of ten times there’s nothing wrong with that, but, occasionally, you saw something I missed or vice versa and we could have addressed it 30 mins ago if we had talked.
A pet peeve of mine was, as an FO, programming half the box only for the CA to walk in and say “I wasn’t happy with X-Y-Z so I called the dispatcher. Release two should be out any minute”

PipeMan

A simple text message or email giving the other pilot a heads up could do exactly all that without the need to meet at the FPA.

“Hey Bob, see you at the plane. Just a heads up I added 2000lbs. How does the flight plan look to you?”

Here you set a welcoming tone and show you value the other guy’s input. Now he doesn’t have to rush to the FPA first and can make his way to the plane.

Spesiellsporing

I’m sure you have good intentions but flight planning by text?

Poor pilots on the employee bus will have the iPad in one hand and phone in the other. You signed the release and bumped the gas 2k. What if Bob would prefer not to have the extra weight so the plane could climb above the 1 hr of moderate turbulence? What if Bob wasn’t comfortable with the deferral?

Spesiellsporing

Hats on for safety.

SoFloFlyer

Don’t entertain PipeMan, he/she isn’t a pilot