Is there a standard time for prepartion for the flight crew before the pushback of the heavy jets. I presume this time would be prescribed by the company concerned but a generalised idea would be good.

 

Secondly, I would love to see some bright spark come up with a better way to start up the long winded process of organising a long haul flight. Imagine it starts with an animated sequence like seen in a first person shooter where you arrive at the dispatch office and you are greeted by the dispatch officer and by the other crew members. You sign up for a flight and PFPX generates a flight plan report for you which automatically transfers to the EFB. The briefing uses ASN to generate a weather forecast report which as usual is included in the PFPX Flightplan. Next you and the other flight crew members are time warped to the cockpit. The animated co-pilot starts her procedures (FS2Crew) and the dispatch team also visit the cockpit to update your fuel and payload data. At the end of the flight you report back to the dispatch office at the arrival airport to sign off for the flight and get your butt kicked by the operations officer for any number of reasons: tardiness, using too much fuel, near misses or bad landings in a analysis of your flying abilities.

 

I dont care if the crew look like they move like they are Bill and Ben the Flowerpot Men. I think it woudl be really cool.

I think you're asking for a different kind of simulator...

Sounds like you really need an airline pilot simulator rather than a flight simulator.

Sign on for me is 70 minutes before ETD at home port office or 60 minutes at the aircraft at outports.

Cool idea's. I'd buy something that simulated the things you mentioned.

An hour seems like a lot of time for preflight procedures. How much of that is spent just sitting around? Or is the crew pretty busy the whole time?

 

 

How much of that is spent just sitting around

 

I don't know the answer but there is at least a cup of coffee or two included in this hour. Add some water or a soda drink and possibly some short chatting on non-flight related issues with the first officer and / or a cabin crew member. A short visit to the toilet also might happen at times.

Do you have to sit around at the gate or crew room if the inbound aircraft is delayed; sit on the crew bus to the hotel?  Do you get to walk in the picket line when your pilot union goes on strike?  Or perhaps, do you get to sit at home on reserve for a month...maybe get furloughed and update your resume? 

From the crew arriving the cockpit to finishing setting up the FMC and be ready to go, 10-20min depends on the length of the flight if load sheets and everything comes in time. Passengers and cargos usually take a while to be loaded onboard.

 

In case of late arrival of the airplane, just look for the nearest Starbucks in the terminal and relax haha.