The great big "ask an airline pilot" thread!

A trip earlier this month...

Arrived at the airport about 7am. Went through security to the briefing area, picked up the paperwork as I was the first pilot in, and dropped it in the briefing room. Then headed off for an important duty...a large coffee from the coffee shop! By the time I got back, 2 of the other pilots had arrived. It was a long flight so we had 2 crews, 2 Captains and 2 First Officers. After introducing ourselves to each other (none of us had flown together before), we briefed the flightplan, route, and decided among ourselves how to do the rest breaks. Next we met the Purser and the rest of the cabin crew, introduced ourselves and gave them a brief on the flight times, weather conditions and any extra details. Then we all headed together to the aircraft on the crew bus.

Onboard, the augmenting Captain went to do the external walkaround, and the augmenting F/O to make sure there was plenty of pillows and blankets in the bunks.
In the cockpit, we went through the techlog, set up the flightdeck, downlinked the flightplan and details to the FMC and ordered more coffee. As I was Pilot Flying for this leg, I did the pre-departure briefing, reviewing the actions in the event of an RTO, an engine failure after take-off, the expected taxi route, expected SID and anything else considered pertinent on the day.
By the time this was done, we had a final zero fuel weight sent from load control. We then agreed on what fuel we would uplift, taking into consideration the take-off weight allowable, enroute weather, destination weather and our experience of previous flights to this destination. We then independently did the performance calculations in the EFB's and cross checked them.
Once fuelling was complete, and our loadsheet had been downlinked from load control, we entered all the performance calculations into the FMC.

Then the usual, push back, taxi out, take off and climb to initial cruise altitude of about FL320. At top of climb, the augmenting Captain and F/O headed off to the bunks. For the next 6h 30m, we cruised across Africa, avoiding thunderstorms, trying to talk to ATC on HF and VHF, and making position broadcasts to other aircraft on the Inflight Broadcast Frequency. Thankfully, some of the ATC units there now have CPDLC, so that made things easier.

After some lunch, it was time for my break. The augmenting crew returned, we briefed them on what was going on and then headed off to the bunks ourselves. I changed into more comfortable clothes, went to the bunk and watched a few episodes of Family Guy, then had a sleep. 6H 45m later, it was time to go back to the cockpit. I had a wash, changed back into uniform and re-took my seat.
At this point we were about 1 hour from landing, so we got the ATIS for destination and the Metars and TAF's for the alternates. We briefed for the approach, paying particular attention to the large thunderstorms transiting through the airfield area and the fact that ATC there is not the best in the world. On checking in with approach, we were directed to take up the hold at the IAF point. After a bit of "direct" questioning of ATC, the told us to expect 30 mins in the hold due to traffic and weather. We checked our alternates, deciding that we could only hold for 20 mins before needing to divert. ATC were informed of this, and miraculously, we were almost immediately vectored out of the hold and onto the STAR. A bit of thunderstorm deviation on the approach was followed by an ILS in lashing rain.
After landing, we taxied in and parked at the gate, waving to the Lufthansa crew beside us in an A340 waiting to pushback. After shutdown, we completed all the relevant paperwork between the 4 of us and tidied up the cockpit. Total block time from pushback to shutdown was 15h 40m.

The bus ride to the hotel took about 50 mins in rush hour traffic. After checking in, myself, the 3 other pilots and the purser said we would meet in the hotel exec lounge at 7pm. Pilots are notoriously good at sniffing out good deals, and the free beer, wine and food until 8pm in the lounge couldn't be turned down!
After a few drinks, it was time to hit the bed for a nights sleep. At this point I'd been awake for over 22 hours.

The next morning I was up at about 7am and went for (free) breakfast in the exec lounge again. I then went for a walk around the city and picked up a few bits and pieces on the shopping list I had from other people! I got back to the hotel about 2pm and spent the rest of the afternoon watching TV and browsing the internet as it was now pouring with rain again outside. Around 6pm I had some food, then got into bed to catch a couple of hours sleep before pick up at 11pm.
At pick up time, I met up with the rest of the crew downstairs and we got back on the bus for the 50 min drive to the airport.

Once onboard the aircraft, we pretty much did the same things as the day before, except this time the other 2 pilots were operating and we were augmenting.
Pushback was a few minutes early and soon we were climbing out on the way home. At top of climb, myself and the other augmenting pilot headed back to the bunk. As it was about 2am local time now, the next 6 h 30m of solid sleep was great!
After getting a wake up call from the cockpit, we headed back to replace the other 2 pilots. It was now blazing sunshine outside, which soon wakes you up!
For the next 6h 30m or so, we cruised along, doing the reverse of the previous day. At one point we passed 1000ft underneath our fellow company aircraft heading in the other direction to where we had just come from. In no time it was dark outside again, our "day" having lasted about 5 hours.

An hour from landing, the other pilots returned and replaced us. They did the briefings for the approach and set everything up. As we were arriving at a busy time, ATC had us slow down for sequencing about 200 nm out. We then spent 20 mins going around the hold before being cleared on the rest of the STAR. At about 10 mins from landing, ATC asked us if we could do the RNAV approach to the other parallel runway as there was some FOD reported on our expected landing runway. A quick re-brief and set up and that was sorted.
Taxi-in, shutdown and more paperwork completed, we left the cockpit. Total block time from pushback to shutdown was 15h 20m.

Once all the passengers were off, the cabin crew completed there post landing duties and we all got on the crew bus back to the briefing area. There we collected our suitcases and went through customs. I arrived home about 45 mins later at about 1 am local time.

I left home about 0620 on Monday morning, got back about 0100 Wednesday night/Thursday morning. 31 hours of flight time and about 34 hours in total onboard the aircraft in 3 days.

I was rostered off for the following 3 days and used them resourcefully....in the pub.

Dogwatch wrote: »

Does each crew member get credit with the full flying time(30+ hours) or do you only get the time in the seat(15+ hours)?

When operating, you get full credit time. When augmenting, just stick time.