B767 Undifferentiated or Other Model
Flight Crew Last 90 Days 100; Flight Crew Total 12975; Flight Crew Type 10182
Training / Qualification
Aircraft Equipment Problem Less Severe; Deviation / Discrepancy - Procedural Published Material / Policy
Flight Crew Became Reoriented; Flight Crew Overcame Equipment Problem
Company Policy
The day started off badly to begin with when the pickup time from the hotel did not allow for morning traffic. We ended up at EWR curb 30 min prior to departure and had nothing been wrong we would have still been late. En route; in the van; we looked at the flight plan and it said at the top that we had to use CPDLC (Controller Pilot Data Link Communications) for clearances. This aircraft was a B767. I haven't flown it for two years since they put all the bells and whistles on it. My FO (First Officer) flew it once on IOE. No CPDLC training; unless you count some bulletin put out 8 months ago. Called the Dispatcher and she said it's a domestic flight and doesn't know why it's on there but EWR is CPDLC if you have it to get clearances so I wasn't sure we were even legal for this. Had her put me through to [flight operations]. Asked him if we were legal for this airplane. Spent a long time before calling me back and said yes we were legal. I wasn't sure because I had issues before with other airplanes I was assigned but not legal to fly. I told him neither of us have done CPDLC training; to which he replied well there's a bulletin; and anyway everyone was trained. I said I can't find any 'how to' guide for setting up the CPDLC (it would have been nice if nobody was going to train me to at least have a bulletin titled: How to set up CPDLC When Nobody has trained You). And again; why does everyone assume we've had the training? So I'm getting the impression that they are blaming me for this and then he asked where we were based and I [told him]. Long silence. So he put me on hold and finally called back with someone from [Training] and he said (again!) that everyone has been trained on this and (again!) [I] had to say no they haven't. So I got his cell number to call him and he'll walk me through this. Imagine that.So we get to EWR 30 min prior. I went to flight planning while The FO went to the plane. This was 15 min prior to departure. Got a couple of flight plans and called Dispatch because the flight plan had disappeared from the Sabre system. She finally got it in the system and had to sort through whether we should take it with AT (Auto Throttle) inop. Finally I figured we would pushback when we got this all together.FO and I tried to set up CPDLC (EWR ATC wouldn't even give us a verbal clearance) using setup pictures from a 757 manual; but we were missing some parts; so I am on my cellphone calling the [training] guy and having him tell us what to do. Finally got it to spit out a clearance.Took off and spent the rest of the flight dealing with the AT inop and a printer that decided to start printing on half the paper. This aircraft was refused previously twice for AT inop. The CPDLC episode was distracting and the auto throttles just added to it; not to mention the printer since all Sabre performance and the MRD (Maintenance Release Document) only come through the printer.I'm not sure whether I flew an illegal aircraft even though I had multiple management saying it was legal. I have been extremely disappointed with the training thus far on the 757 fleet; but this incident was the worst example. The company is determined to merge these two fleets; no matter how badly it's being done.
B767 Captain reported operating an aircraft that was equipped with features he was not trained to use.