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The next one takes place about 18 months before the Most Interesting Captain trip. I’m only 6 months on the 777 at the time and this latest Captain is absolutely notorious with the 777 FOs. Since I’m a relatively new arrival to the jet, I am uninformed and go into the trip “cludo”. The first leg is one of the worst in the system with an 0400 takeoff to fly almost 7 hours from MEM to Anchorage as a two-man crew. Toothpicks holding eyes open, I’m willing to listen to whatever in order to try to stay awake. I get an earful as Captain Player describes the full-scale domestic disturbance that played out the night before he left on this trip. Cops at the house, he’s detained, wife kicks him out, no idea if he’s got a place to live when he gets back – classic Jerry Springer shit. Jeez dude, that sucks – I hope it works out, etc. etc. You okay to fly this trip? He says getting away for a while is probably the best thing. I try not to spin the guy up more than he is, but I’m thinking if I was in deep serious with the old lady to the extent that the po-po are involved and my future habitation in my residence is in question, leaving town with her having free reign with the checkbook and every available attorney in the area has serious potential to end poorly. Whatever, his call. We limp into ANC and I don’t see him for the next 24 hours until we’re leaving for Narita. Not surprised he’s out of contact considering the shit storm he’s dealing with at home. We leave the hotel and he appears to be in high spirits. Another 2-pilot leg at 7:30 block, but the sun is up the whole way and we’re well rested. He’s still pretty bummed about the home situation but he’s been talking to the wife and she’s willing to listen. “I’m just worried about being able to see my kids. I really hope we can work this out, blah, blah.” A while later, we’re 4-5 hours into the north pacific crossing and he starts telling me about his plans for a “sex vacation” to Trinidad and Tobago. “Oh, dude, it’s awesome. You land and they show up in a Range Rover, take you to the compound and you pick your chick for the week out of a line-up. It’s just sex, food, booze by the pool for the week. All inclusive.” 🙄 I’m thinking – what happened to the guy worried about his kids and trying to reconcile with his wife? So, like a dumbass, I open my pie hole. “Do you think the sex vacation is the best idea considering all the shit going on at home?” “Oh…. Yeah…. Maybe you’re right. Maybe??? 🥴 After 2.5 days in Narita (where I saw this guy zero seconds), we spend the next few days and two flights banging around short haul in Asia. Over the course of those flights, I get schooled on every city in our system that offers any opportunity to pay for sex. “You gotta try Pasha’s in Cologne… Go to this place in Dubai, I think I have a card………I hope we get revised to go to Singapore. I’ll take you to the 4-floors of whores there. It’s awesome – the higher the floor the more expensive and hotter the chicks are. If you every have any questions about where to go, shoot me a text, I’ll hook you up.” Now I’m pretty sure why I’m not seeing this guy on any of our layovers. I feel like I’m flying with Jeckel and Hyde. I never know if I’m gonna get crazy sex monger or bummed out dad/husband trying to keep the family together. The other comical aspect of this guy is that I don’t think he owns a mirror – or at least hasn’t used one in the last 15 years. 👴 I think most of us who are getting up in the years have that occasional loss of SA where we forget that we are invisible to every chick under the age of 40?......45?.......50? Not sure where the cutoff is. We have our new super-power of invisibility and we just need to embrace it. The hot chick in the grocery store parking lot isn’t smiling at you because she’s interested. She either thinks you look like her dad, needs help cuz her car won’t start or is completely broke and might be willing to make your day for a hundo. This guy is 64 if he’s a day and he looks every year of it. Yet, he still thinks he’s Captain Player. He’s been part of the international travel scene for so long that he’s forgotten that the only reason he’s getting attention in Asia, the Middle East or Europe is chicks dig the size of his wallet 💰. He actually pulls up to the chick in the Ferrari at the stop light and gives her a wink thinking something might come of it, the whole time forgetting that he’s effectively sitting in the human equivalent of a mini-van. So, now we’re doing long haul from Narita to Paris. I get the pleasure of his company for almost 4-hours, then a break in the bunk and then almost 3 hours more. For the 4-hour stretch, sad dad shows up and starts lamenting his situation. “What am I gonna do?..... etc, etc.” I learn that his wife is Russian and she’s a dentist. They met on one of his trips, eventually got married and he paid to put her through dental school. I’m about full at this point, so I’ve got my nose buried in a book trying to look busy and give the occasional sympathetic response. A couple of hours into this, he suddenly hands me his phone and says “Check it out”. I take a look at the screen and see a still picture of a blond chick giving some serious oral attention to an enthusiastically engorged dick. Not one to decline the occasional porn offering, I look a bit more closely. As I’m realizing this has the look of an actual picture and not something downloaded, he says, “That’s my wife”………..pregnant pause as I look up…………”and that’s me” – with a big grin on his face. Dude……”Did you just show me your junk in full rage with no warning? That’s not cool”. 🤮 He loses the grin and says, “Well, we’re swingers and it’s just our thing.” I didn’t think you’d mind. Then he starts regaling me with swinger stories – how awesome it is to do some chick while same goes down on the wife, etc. All I’m thinking is I can’t wait to get to the bunk for the next rest period. Rest break over, I’m actually dreading getting back up on the flight deck in case Mr. Hyde is back. He is, of course, and starts showing me pictures and reading texts from of a bunch of Eastern Euro chicks that he’s been “sexting” with. Our trip ends in Paris after our current flight, with a deadhead home. As we sit in the hotel bar after arrival in France, now he starts asking my opinion about whether he should deadhead home to FL or take a flight to Baku, Azerbaijan so he can hook up with one or more of the chicks that have been sexting him. “So, the get back with the wife plan and concern for the kids…. Maybe put that on the back burner for a week or so in Baku? – I’m sure it’ll work out okay.” That seems to re-cage him and he decides to book a ticket home. I’d like to think I had a positive influence in the end, but it was a seriously bizarre experience overall.

I think they kept it on the down-low and had a private celebration with their crew chiefs.

Yeah, I got some stories............ First, I’ll say (in my opinion) the FO’s job is to be a tolerant chameleon, when necessary, which is usually infrequent. When I was an FO, I did that pretty well. I’m not suggesting a Captain gets to bring all levels of crazy, non-standard BS to the trip. However, some of the stories of conflict I’ve heard are just as much the FO’s fault for being unwilling (as opposed to unable) to flex and just get along. The one thing you never do is take your issues to management. You don’t put a fellow pilot’s job on the line over a dispute of any kind. The first option is man to man, face to face. If you can’t solve it that way, then the next stop is professional standards with the union. Ratting someone out to the company is really bad form. The bottom line is, if you’re an FO, let shit go and chill. The entertainment value of some of these guys is top notch. You’ll miss out if you bail too early. I never kept a “list”. I usually heard about these guys after I flew with them. Then I’d usually be asking, why didn’t someone warn me about this guy? Trust me, they were all on everyone’s list if they had one. After 23 years of doing this, I’ve got some doozies. I’ll start with “The Most Interesting Captain in the World” Standard 2-week around the world 777 trip at FedEx. At some point in the first few days, Captain Fantastic informs me that at some point in the late 1990’s, he had the lead role as the Phantom in the Phantom of the Opera on Broadway. Before he could begin his performances, he “blew his vocal cords out”, needed surgery and lost the part. I know it may seem stupid in hindsight, but I had no reason to question this and wasn’t in the frame of mind to wave the BS flag. In fact, the first instinct I had was thinking my kids (all musical theater performers) were going to be excited to hear that I flew with someone who was almost on Broadway. Of course, I asked if FedEx had agreed to give him a leave of absence to do this since that’s kind of a full-time job with multiple shows daily. He explained all that away and we moved on. The next one was, as a high school student, he discovered some DNA thing that had the potential to cure cancer. He didn’t have a PhD after his name, so no one took him seriously and he didn’t get any credit. I don’t know shit about DNA and it was early in the trip so I was still in “gee whiz, that’s pretty interesting” mode. The days continued and I heard about him getting the Arch Bishop of his church fired over a sermon topic, being a studio musician for various famous performers (this guy’ s cool, that guy’s an asshole, etc.) and his 80’s band that toured with and opened for Journey. They had a record deal but their drummer quit to get married and it fell through. I asked about the band name, etc. and did some online research but no joy. But it was the 80’s and they didn’t make it, so why would the interwebs have anything? Still semi-clueless and not being much of a talker myself, I’m just plugging along – warning bells haven’t started yet. As a side note, one day he starts going off about the full body scanners in use around the world. His doctor has warned him in the strongest terms never to accept them since we would be scanned so much more often than the average traveler. No shit – less than 24-hours later, we’re going through security in Osaka at o-dark-thirty and they try to make us go through one of those things. Amazing. I’ve been through KIX hundreds of times over that last 15 years and never – not once – have I every had to go through anything other than the normal metal detector for crews. Of course, it’s an absolute shit-show. This guy is getting badge numbers and asking for supervisors and threatening job loss – the whole shooting match. Of course, the Japs are sucking air through clenched teeth, avoiding eye contact and in full disengage mode trying to deal with the cray-cray American. They eventually plug in the normal machine; we walk through that and go on our way. He had big plans to write the whole thing up and maybe he did. I never heard a thing about it after that. There used to be a well-known interview process at Delta involving a psychiatric evaluation. From what I understand, the doctor doing the interviews eventually took his own life. Apparently, back in the day, Captain Fantastic threw his hat in the ring with Delta and got interviewed. His ability to parry and counter this psychiatrist’s questions during the evaluation were so clever and unnerving that the doctor eventually gave up in complete frustration. It was not long after this interview that the poor chap did himself in. Yes folks, our Captain was in fact, fully responsible for the death of the Delta doctor. By this point in the trip, I was a bit numb to the whole thing and it had been so much that I wasn’t really paying that much attention anymore. But I wouldn’t say the lightbulb had come on over my head quite yet. I know – I’m a dumbass. I am a music fan though and while we were waiting for an ATC delay in Shenzhen, we got talking again. We’re sitting #1 by the runway waiting to be released and somehow Jim Croce’s name comes up. You know – the guy who sang “Bad, Bad Leroy Brown”. Yeah – I know some of you don’t know it. Fucking youngsters. Google it. It’s 70’s folk/pop music. But the point is, that our Captain decides to tell me that “I used to play with Jim”. Now my radar finally comes out of test and I’m starting to really scan. I saw our hero’s birthday on the Gen Dec multiple times that trip. The most amazing Captain was born in 1961. I knew Croce died in a plane crash in the early 70’s so I looked it up when I got to my room that night. 1973. Mutherfucker!! So, you played with ole’ Jim when you were 12, huh? Yup – he got me. I guess I try to take people at face value. But I gotta say, if I was still an FO, I’d fly with him again just for the entertainment value. I’d love to be able to egg him on and see how far I could get him to go. Point being, not all the crazies are worth avoiding. Think of all the stories you’d miss out on.

As proud as I am of being a proper single-seat, single-engine, single-tail fighter pilot… I can give respect where respect is due. You’ll never hear me say it out loud in a public forum or at a Flag, but I know Eagle drivers are goddamn good at their job, and I wholeheartedly hope they are my escort team lead on night 1, no matter the theatre. I am proud to be 4G4L with them - 4th Gen 4 Life!!! Happy Birthday fellas!

So for a FedEx interview should I talk about worldwide sex odysseys as a perk or not?

Surprised it wasn't posted yet, but happy 50th to the Eagle bubbas here. An amazing combat aircraft and a brilliant piece of American technology.

Ugh, that’s horrible. So how was Kiev?

Funny you should post that. Years ago, I'm at Carlos Murphys West in Tucson for a 4th of July soiree. I'm with another A-10 dude and somehow we end up taking to this liberal couple. When they find out we are Hawg drivers, the liberal chick says, "How can you gun down women and children." Well, if ever a softball question was tossed my way, that was it. Just like the movie quote, I replied "It's easy, you just don't lead them as much." The shocked looks on their faces was absolutely priceless. We also ended up drinking with a midget wrestler who was the regional distributor for Coors but that's another story.

But I have thousands of hours of combat time and a bunch of deployments! Surely all that Afghanistan/Iraq experience will help!

Tinfoil hat: do we think it’s a coincidence that the recent fleet issues crop up immediately after the injunction update?

She has amazing tits

I'd love to know how many FO's there had my now retired bro-in-law on their list. He never knows when to STFU and wears me out every time wife makes me visit them.

0400 takeoff for a 7 hour block flight, with a 2-man crew...that does sound pretty bad. This ain't Vietnam, there are rules and we're not barbarians! Hell, I get upset when I get a flight over 1.5 hours in my current jet. Nothing worse than seeing > 60 minutes to top of descent when I reach my cruise altitude of FL280 🤣. Though I can't top Weeds story, I've ran across the same types. One 330 Captain spent the entire trip to Rome, trying to convince me to go to Kiev with him to bang chicks. I mean full court press, time share sales pitch, trying to convince me I should join him. Want to see more of this in action. Watch dudes lose their minds when São Paulo or Singapore either leaves their fleet or gets cancelled all together. Watched that happen when they moved São Paulo to a different base (same fleet). Dudes lost their shit. Of course they bid over to the new base on the next bid. Their Brazil families must have been pissed for those few months lol.

Surely it has nothing to do with California regulating building so tightly that a 1500 sqft home costs over a million dollars to build, right?

yeah he ragequit a long time ago

But I'm not sure you and I are using the word Liberalism the same way.

And that's the just the " women" but I'm not a biologist so I might be wrong.

Awkward FO- “Parking checklist complete. Good flying with ya, maybe I’ll see you on another trip soon!” CA - “Yeah, about that. Here’s my employee number. Do me a favor would ya…”

At FedEx we used to have the ability to create a "negative airman list". Essentially a list of the pilots you didn't want to fly with. If your awarded schedule came up with one of the folks on your list, the system would bypass and you got your next choice. Now it gets funny. Of course, the same 5% minority of clowns were showing up on everyone's list. The FedEx lawyers start pondering this system and decided it's a bad idea. They didn't like having a consistent list of problem children being created each month by a group of competent professionals whose judgement is respected and well paid. Bzzzt to the negative airman list. Now the Captain's bid are published Tuesday and the FO's bid's are delayed 24-hours. This allows them to manually de-conflict if they find someone they'd rather not fly with on their bid with no paper trail for the lawyers to worry about. As Serious said, Captain's are stuck with who they get. But, it seems the majority of the pilots who have a list are FO's, so it probably works out most of the time.

What serious said. At DAL anyway, FO's can bid to avoid certain employee numbers. I've never actually bid to avoid anyone because I'm not going to let one asshole take away any of my bidding power. I have heard of Captains telling FO's to add him to their no-fly list lol.

This is what happens when we cater to the kids who got beat up on the playground...they're now running HR. Since my move to the left seat, I've thankfully only ran into one FO that I was glad we only had one, short leg together. She was a SJW type who clearly hated old, white men (good thing I'm not 40 yet lol). A vast majority of the pilots out there are great to chat with, but there are the occasional odd balls that you're ready to be done with.