Microsoft Flight Simulator Handbook

Pilot's Log

As an air traffic controller, I was permitted to take familiarization flights and ride in the cockpit of an airliner during a regularly scheduled flight. I was surprised to find significant variations in the professionalism of the crews. On one flight from Washington to Miami, the airplane was barely off the ground when the captain engaged the autopilot, slid his seat back, put his boots up on the instrument panel, and started passing photographs of his horses to his first officer to look at. I was the only person in the cockpit keeping a careful watch for traffic.