Miami, Friday, 1995-05-24 15:00 local (Z-4)
Well, I only got one full day at home, Monday the 22nd. Crew scheduling called me that day for the flight I'm on now. We left New York at 10:00 local, arrived Miami a little after noon. So for right now we're just setting waiting for a 17:00 local departure. I'm sitting on the upper deck, air conditioning turned up to max, all window shades down. It's quite pleasant. The cockpit is a sauna however in this heat and humidity. I am not going to enjoy going up there to load the INSes when the flight plan back to JFK gets here.
The captain I'm flying with should not, in my opinion, be a standards captain. I had been warned about him in advance. He's definitely a “one man show”, which is the last thing you want in a standards captain since the “standard” is that you are a crew, working together, each accomplishing the tasks assigned by standard procedures. On the way down here, he snapped at the flight engineer several times that “I'll do that!” when the flight engineer was reaching for switches on the overhead panel. That panel is the one panel that all three crew members can reach. Different switches on the panel are assigned to the individual crew members. However, this captain made it clear that when it came to that panel, it was all his.
I've now completed the required 75 hours with a standards captain. When I check in with crew scheduling on our return to JFK, I fully expect they'll put me to work rather than letting me go home. When I checked with them yesterday, they mentioned some possible military charters they would put me on once the training requirements were met.