In praise of flight engineers

[Splitpin]

I watched a dvd i got from JustFlight a few weeks ago ,today . Its one of the itvv series . It follows a Virgin Atlantic flight from to Miami and back, in a Classic (Captains words , not mine) B-747-200 .
The thing that stood out was the workload the F/E had ..... amazing. It also highlighted the back up for all the systems on that aircraft , quadruple redundancy over a huge part of the operating system.
All this made me think about how much work Boeing put into eliminating the F/E position , the fuel management system alone took up a good chunk of his panel , now all consigned to a pop up crt and computer backup.
I remember C.P mentioning the flight engineers capacity for food and drink ,the guy on this flight looked like an expert on both fronts , but extremely professional , and with a real feel for the aircraft.
I will watch this again , then put it up as a sunday comp prize .... reinstated next week.

[Ian Warren]

QUOTE (Splitpin @ Jul 20 2014,7:28 PM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>

I remember C.P mentioning the flight engineers capacity for food and drink ,the guy on this flight looked like an expert on both fronts , but extremely professional , and with a real feel for the aircraft.
I will watch this again , then put it up as a sunday comp prize .... reinstated next week.

I got to see the engineer at his work station on the QANTAS City of Canberra 747 200 , and his job It was impressive to see the numbers he was watching .. 3 man crew .. the 200