Jet Jocks & Wide Boys
Contributed by: Captain Cargo

There's something I can't quite work out about this wide-body thing. I can't quite get my head round it. I fly a narrow-body, and according to popular myth, by getting onto an aircraft that is wider I would be furthering my career. There is a certain aviation authority that deems it inappropriate to have your first command on an aircraft that is "wide". What is it all about? Is there something I am missing? I asked a training captain on the company's wide-bodied type to explain it to me. All I could get out of him was some vague references to inertia. And it is apparently more difficult to taxi. Ah well. And here's me thinking I was paid to fly them.

The transition from turbo-prop to jet is a similar career move. There is something magical about jet engines, a world of mach numbers and buffet boundaries that somehow wasn't quite the quantum leap I imagined. It was just a matter of being trained to fly them, and I must have had good trainers, as I was surprised (not really) to find that the 727, my first jet, was easier to fly than the turbo-prop I had come off. Sure, it was faster, both in the air and on the runway, and heavier, but with the extra speed and weight came stability, the ability to fly over weather instead of through it, more reliability. In the last three years I have not shut down an engine. In my last two years on a turbo-prop, I had seven in-flight shutdowns. Indeed, as my career has progressed, I have found each subsequent type easier than the last. It's all a matter of training. Sure, when jets first came into service, there were a few crashes caused by lack of familiarity, or rather, lack of understanding, the combination of swept wings and longer spool up times catching out the unwary, or the inadequately trained. Training caught up with this, but the myths persist. Job advertisements specify wide body experience. The pilots get paid more, for flying more modern, user-friendly equipment. Where the whole argument about the width of an aircraft comes unstuck, is with the B757/767. A narrow and a wide-body that can be flown on the same type rating. How can that be? How would the afore-mentioned aviation authority deal with that, if a company wanted to dual -rate a new captain on both types? Would he have to do 500 hours in command on the 757 before he could fly the 767? Surely they are very similar if one type-rating can serve both types?

I'll leave it to the experts. In my twenty years of flying I've obviously missed something. If anyone can explain it all to me, please let me know. The best answer will appear in a future Captain Cargo article.

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