Poor, Brian. You lot are horrid to him.
Speaking of calm pilots - you have to consider whether they've completely grasped the consequences! I'm not sure if I told the story of our 777 dropping the front axle and wheels of the triple axle starboard main gear off the edge of the tarmac? It was Heathrow and we were off to Almaty for a few days. I was the CSD and the Captain was on his first flight in command unsupervised. It was a summer evening and we were taxying out to the holding point at 27R and second to go. I'd strapped myself into the crew seat at door one left when the brakes came on hard and we stopped. The skipper phoned me to go to the flight deck for a briefing and turned round in his seat with his back to the windscreen to talk to me. The F/O meanwhile had his head down talking continuously on the radio to several different people so I was the only one looking forward out of the screen.
He explained calmly to me how an aircraft taxying towards us had warned that our gear was dropping off the edge but he'd stopped in time and that it was only a matter of sending out a tug to push us back a few feet and that then we'd be on our way. Meanwhile I could see a panorama of blue flashing lights along the perimeter road and taxiways and it slowly dawned on me that they were heading our way. And as he got to the bit about ... then we'll be on our way ... two huge foam tenders pulled up facing the nose. My response to him was 'I don't think so, sir' and he slowly turned around and
that's when the consequences dawned on him
What the poor man didn't know was that the wheels had tilted off the tarmac enough to drop that big engine casing to within a couple of inches of a flashing runway light. And because the axle had dropped, pushing back on the nose wheel would have put too much strain on it.
They had to pump out the fuel, deplane all the passengers and freight but by then we'd checked into the Holiday Inn and were all in the garden of The Plough in Sipson drowning the Captain's sorrows! We made him buy the drinks, too!
Ian
