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on another trip and saying, “That’s how we did it at United.” It is my observation that however it is done, “standard operat- ing procedures” that are understood and followed by the entire flight crew make flying safer and easier.
Another thing most captains with airline backgrounds routinely do is trade off alternate Pilot Flying (PF) and Pilot Monitoring (PM) legs with their sec- ond in command. This is a custom often not followed by people with a purely Part 91 background which I think detracts from safety. As it turns out, the PM in a busi- ness jet is usually the busiest pilot in the cockpit, and it takes a while to learn that role well and practice to keep it current. Captains that never choose to work that side of the flight can get rusty with some of the busy SIC duties which paradoxically makes them avoid that role even more.
As an example, I once flew a trip from the southern U.S. to the far end of South America and never once touched the controls. The captain/owner reserved that role for himself. By the time we got well down into the southern continent, I was starting to wonder if without a very active and competent SIC, he could
operate the black boxes and deal with the Spanish accented controllers well enough to even find his way back.
At the same time, pilots working as SIC who never actually fly any legs can lose currency in basic aircraft operations which is not a good thing either. If they have not had a lot of experience them- selves, they tend to get stuck in that role which makes upgrading to captain dif- ficult. There was a Learjet pilot in my area who had several thousand hours in the aircraft as SIC that applied for a job as captain to one of the air ambulance com- panies, and just plain busted the company check ride that would have given him the job. He, of course, was embarrassed but then explained that the PIC he had flown with for the past five years never allowed him to touch the controls. As a result, he was a whiz with the FMS and ra- dio communications, but little else. Good captains regularly alternate Pilot Flying and Pilot Monitoring legs with their SIC because it keeps both pilots sharp and contributes to safety.
Another thing that pilots with military and airline backgrounds usually do very well is understand the notion of “chain of
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