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Scientists fly the Kansas sky to study enormous, and often ferocious, nighttime storms.
NASA scientists in a DC-8 and NOAA researchers in a P-3; depart from their temporary base at Salina Regional airport in Salina, KS to comb the skies over the great plains in search for hazardous weather. (www.kansascity.com) Más...Sort type: [Top] [Newest]
That's why I'm glad that I'm a captain, so I can make flying decisions that are safe.
We've had some real cowboy types at my airline. Luckily, we've unloaded some of them! I hear the stories of FO's being called "weather wussies" because they don't want to fly through Level 4's, etc. I came through when people were upgrading fast, so I was only an FO for one year of my career. Especially with one idiot I flew with, for two months no less, that was enough right seat time for me. He went on to Part 91 stuff. If you can't navigate storms, or know when it just isn't going to work out, you shouldn't hold a left seat in Part 121.
There are still some out there but what scares me worse are the types that know absolutely nothing and get promoted on. Then they teach nothing to the right seat and when the blind lead the blind, they both fall in the ditch, or in our case, crash. I ain't crazy about all the health problems but I am kinda glad to be retired now. While I was back last year, AV did a major expansion of flight operations, people wise. I hired 5 as close to myself as I could find. What is amazing to me is that there are damn good, qualified, pilots out there starving and flying junk in 135 or 91, just to keep from having to fly with the assorted dummies that the 121's are hiring. The 91 I left was/is a class act but there was a legacy there for me to carry and now the torch has been passed again.
When my replacement was still a newby, I remember being out over West TX somewhere. He was PF on the way back to the yard at FSM. There was a big line of wx up ahead but nothing that we couldn't skirt real easy. I kept expecting for him to call a new heading but he never did and instead, we just kept getting closer. Finally I asked him what he was doing. Turns out, he had never been around wx like that and wanted a closer look. I left him as PF but called the new heading and away we went. We had about and hour and he got a better education in wx than he had.LOL
What gets me is that they fly the "diesel 8" but won't penetrate on account it would rip the wings off. Relegate them to the Hurricane Hunters and a C130 and they'll learn all about it.
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