Congress agrees to 1500hr min for airlines.

Giggity said:
Some of the scariest pilots I fly with are the ones with 4k+ hours...
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Hey careful, I resemble that remark. ;) Certainly, PIC in the aircraft is way more important than total time. I fly with a guy (me in the right seat, him in the left) who has way less time than I do. He's a sharp guy and he knows the airplane way better than I do. If I were picking someone to fly my BeatchJet for me, I'd obviously pick him and not me. That said, there's a minimum amount of experience that ought to be required to do this stuff, and it doesn't have to do with specific Systems or FMSes or whatever. If I'm going to put someone I care about on a plane, the PIC needs to know more than just how the transfer pumps work or what signals an overpressure in the tanks...he needs to know what's important when you're shooting an approach and how to pay attention to those things when stuff starts getting pear-shaped. The guy I'm using for an example has less time than me, but it's way more than 1500hrs. There's some nebulous point where you start figuring out what's going on flying an airplane, aside from the peculiarities of that airplane. It's not 300 hours, and it's not 5000. 1500 seems like a reasonable compromise to me, for the time being. At a certain point you reach a plateau in your learning...it's not that you stop learning, but the degree to which you learn tapers off. With the right 3000 hour guy behind the wheel of even the biggest and most horrible aircraft, I'm all daisies and daffodils. However good a guy with 500 hours is, I am not happy. Hours matter. They're not all that matter, but at the risk of being the bearer of bad news, they matter.

Dugie8 said:
He kept putting them to ON just so the lights would come on and would argue that they had to be ON for takeoff.
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What does this hurt? No, he doesn't understand how the system works, but AFAICR, it doesn't hurt anything that the transfer pumps are "on" for takeoff. Fly the machine, you don't have to build it. If anything, it points to a failure in the training that he found himself choking down a manual's worth of Systems in some rushed class so he could pass the Sim rather than sitting down beside a nice fire and drinking a snifter of scotch while he read about the airplane.

Without exception, the guys I've flown with who have 10,000 hours have something to teach to me. There have been some guys I've flown with who have 1,000 hours who also have something to teach, but you can't rely on it as you can with the high time guys. How the heck do you think they got 10,000 hours, by crashing?
 
Boris, I hope you are joking. Knowing the type and model of the pump is building the aircraft. Not knowing why the transfer pumps are off when in the AUTO position and putting them to ON because you can't understand a small binders worth of systems is unacceptable and IS NOT a problem on the instruction side. Besides, no fuel in the fuselage with the transfer pumps on will give you the XFR PRSS LO annunciator. I don't know about you, but I don't take off with annunciators illuminated.

A correction to my rant, there is no OFF, it is RESET.

The mighty beech has a limited amount of complications with it's systems. Anyone with two brain cells to rub together can learn them in a couple of class room sessions and understand them even more with a couple of sim sessions.

This goes along with the rest and people partying while on overnights. Go to training and learn your airplane.
 
Dugie8 said:
That's fine and all. However, with matrices and complex "rules" scheduling will always be able to skirt them by playing by the rules. Can only be on duty for 9 hours with a 0500 local show time. No problem, your show time is now 0505.
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That's an absurd argument. If the science shows that report times later in the morning allow for greater duty time, then there's nothing wrong with it. Science is what matters, not your desire for "rest rules for dummies" just because you don't want to check a matrix. Under ALPA's proposed rules, no duty day could be scheduled to be longer than 13 hours, and that would only be allowed during the window of peak circadian alertness. Other times of the day would require less duty, because science clearly shows that report times during those times of day reek havoc on your body. ALPA has proposed that report times during the worst periods of circadian alertness would have max duty times of as little as 9.5 hours. Your 12 hour blanket rule goes against a safe operation, as clearly indicated by the scientific evidence.

For domestic ops, including Canada and Mexico, Bahamas, etc. 12 on, 12 off works just fine.
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A 12 hour duty day beginning at 2am is a safety nightmare.
 
ATN_Pilot said:
ALPA's proposal wouldn't allow a 14 hr duty day at any time of the day. Science doesn't support it.
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Thank god.

Last month I did 320hrs of duty and 125hrs of flying. The 14 hr duty day is a bad thing. My opinions on flight and duty and safe rest periods has changed dramatically.

Does the ALPA matrix take away duty time for legs? Each leg past 8 legs for the day just makes things incredibly difficult.
 
Dugie8 said:
A correction to my rant, there is no OFF, it is RESET.
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At the risk of sounding like a huge jerk, which I might be, but I'm not trying to be here...you made my point for me. I think guys should know how the plane works, in all earnestness I do. And when I'm in class I try to suck up every drop of knowledge they give me. That said, the reason this rule is correct is because it's NOT true that high time guys are better at memorizing systems or what button does what. It's because they've got a handle on how to do the Pilot (Crap) such that they have time leftover to do the Systems (Crap) they might have forgotten from school. Everyone forgets, from the lowest time C172 F/O to the highest time B777 Captain. It's how you deal with the dynamic situation with which you're presented that separates the Pilots from the Seatwarmers. That isn't taught in a Sim, and it isn't something you're Born With (cue topgun music). It's something you learn by scaring the pants off yourself or someone else (wait, porn? what?)
 
I think, that is the difference between myself and a lot of other pilots. I am not above (or below) admitting when I am wrong or recognizing I have forgotten something. After I typed up my initial rant, something was bugging me about the OFF setting. It hit me like a tonne of bricks, wing overpressure and the circuit breaker. Why the Japanese didn't design it with an OFF setting that acted as a RESET is beyond me.

All that being said, someone fresh from groundschool doing their ATP/TYPE ride shouldn't have that much cotton in their head.


We get all wrapped around the number 3 bearing about flight time and it's great importance and we fail to recognize that the attitude and aptitude of the person writing that flight time down is vastly more important than how long one has been sitting at cruise with OTTO flying whilst playing soduku.

We can argue all day and all night, twice on sunday what the metrics are for a good pilot, in the end the answer is simple; It depends.

I giggle a little inside when the Colgan crash and pilot experience comes up. The basic argument seems to go that a more experienced crew would have recovered from the stall properly. I always wonder if I am doing something wrong because, besides once a year at recurrent and my 3 years or so of flight instructing many moons ago, I don't go out and routinely stall the aircraft in normal ops. So I wonder where these "more experienced" pilots would have gained the experience to recover from the stall. One may argue that more experience would have kept them from getting into that situation, but history tells us that more experience does not equal better judgement or skill across the board.

1500 hours will just turn already begrungended flight instructors into miserable or more miserable teachers. Already low pay for pipe line and banner towing will go down and people will find themselves in deeper and deeper holes trying to make it to this fictional promise land that isn't 121 flying. Meanwhile, training and checking will keep on being broken and those with deep enough pocket books will make it, while those with true passion and desire will be left in the dust. That faint sound you here is the ladder being pulled up and we all have a hand on the top rung.
 
Dugie8 said:
We can argue all day and all night, twice on sunday what the metrics are for a good pilot, in the end the answer is simple; It depends.
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This is true. I also believe that every individual needs to be self-policing. It's important to realize that every pilot has different levels of ability, and one needs to be humble enough to fly within one's own. When I had 500hrs. I had no desire to be part of an airline crew. Why? Because I sensed that I still "Don't know what I don't know" and didn't feel comfortable transporting dozens of souls in a more dynamic environment than I was used to. Maybe others were more than ready, but I didn't feel that way. It's not that I was a bad pilot with only 500 hrs., it's just that I didn't have much experience. And experience counts for a lot in my opinion.
 
Dugie8 said:
We can argue all day and all night, twice on sunday what the metrics are for a good pilot, in the end the answer is simple; It depends.
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Of course it depends. You're absolutely right to say so. I've seen idiots with 10,000 hours and Phenoms (pardon the expression) with 1000. That said, the law of averages dictates that the people who have managed to get to 10,000 without killing themselves or others might have something to say. The problem comes when everyone wants to argue Theory in the face of Experience. A lot of guys don't. They respect Experience and they learn from it. I had a Captain a few weeks ago who treated me like some wet-behind-the-ears 1500 hour kid. I could have gotten mad, but what I did instead was listen. And it turns out this guy knew a lot more about flying a jet than I did. Shock, surprise. Yeah, I'll go through a level 5 with the best of them, but do I know how to smoothly fly a jet? Not really. Do I know how to use the radar to see what attenuates behind the signal? Not hardly...it was always "I'm going anyway, so what's the point?" And I would have gotten through that stuff, but I would have had to cinch down the seatbelt, and I probably would have gloried in it. But that's not what they're paying me to do, now.

I'm not afraid of the guy who doesn't know what he's doing (the gummint takes care of that), I'm afraid of the guy who knows just enough to get us all in to trouble. You learn things by doing them. I'm still learning. By doing. The way it works.
 
Keep in mind this has reduced minimums for schools such as mine, riddle, ERAU, and might even included places such as ATP, who knows.
 
ppragman said:
Having done the 12hr duty day starting at 2am, I think that a 14hr day starting at 9am is much worse.
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Seriously? Let's see, that's 9am to 11pm, or just about what every 'normal' human does...every day. That's too much to handle? A Normal day? Too tough? YGTBSM.

My own measure of what's ugly or unsafe is based on when I last slept, and for how long. I do trips that sign in at 8:15pm, for a 17-20hr. duty period (ATL-JNB) and I've found that the first day is the worst, by far, because I've usually been awake since 7am on day one, to start "work" at 8pm, so I've already been up for 13 hours when I start my long duty day. Yes, we have augmented crews, two full crews in fact, and each crew will get two nap breaks, each of about 3+ hrs. But we spend a lot of time in the ITCZ where there are lots of TRW's and it's usually pretty bouncy up in the bunk, I usually get no sleep at all when it's like that.

By the time we get to JNB I'm a basket case. Luckily there are 4 of us up there, and each of us is maybe at 50% of "normal" so all together we add up to two pilots at 100%. As long as nothing goes wrong, it's not too bad. I usually brief the relief F/O to "wake me up when it's time to put the gear down..." as I'm usually paralyzed, just sitting there staring at the ND, 'look at all the pretty colors'.

I find I feel (and fly) much better on the way home from JNB, even though it's an hour or two longer leg, because I've slept all day (usually) at the hotel, right up until pickup time, so I've got at least 5-8hrs. good sleep just before 'sign in'. I can go quite a while on 8hrs. of good sleep just before pickup, 16-20 hours, no problem. It's when you start your 20hr. duty day at "bed time" having been up all day already that really hurts.
 
Timbo said:
Seriously? Let's see, that's 9am to 11pm, or just about what every 'normal' human does...every day. That's too much to handle? A Normal day? Too tough? YGTBSM.

My own measure of what's ugly or unsafe is based on when I last slept, and for how long. I do trips that sign in at 8:15pm, for a 17-20hr. duty period (ATL-JNB) and I've found that the first day is the worst, by far, because I've usually been awake since 7am on day one, to start "work" at 8pm, so I've already been up for 13 hours when I start my long duty day. Yes, we have augmented crews, two full crews in fact, and each crew will get two nap breaks, each of about 3+ hrs. But we spend a lot of time in the ITCZ where there are lots of TRW's and it's usually pretty bouncy up in the bunk, I usually get no sleep at all when it's like that.

By the time we get to JNB I'm a basket case. Luckily there are 4 of us up there, and each of us is maybe at 50% of "normal" so all together we add up to two pilots at 100%. As long as nothing goes wrong, it's not too bad. I usually brief the relief F/O to "wake me up when it's time to put the gear down..." as I'm usually paralyzed, just sitting there staring at the ND, 'look at all the pretty colors'.

I find I feel (and fly) much better on the way home from JNB, even though it's an hour or two longer leg, because I've slept all day (usually) at the hotel, right up until pickup time, so I've got at least 5-8hrs. good sleep just before 'sign in'. I can go quite a while on 8hrs. of good sleep just before pickup, 16-20 hours, no problem. It's when you start your 20hr. duty day at "bed time" having been up all day already that really hurts.
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Uhh, yeah, try doing that with 10-20 legs. It sucks. Especially when you do it every day in the month. Our duty period here starts us at 5:25, and gets off around 7:25, that's worse IMO than a duty period from 9-11. Regardless, when you do that for more than about 3 days in a row, you're worthless afterwords. 9am to 11pm doesn't mean you "wake up at 9 and go to bed at 11," it means you wake up at 8-ish, go to work, fly all day, get off at 11pm and instantly fall asleep. With only 10hrs of rest, you'd better hope that you don't live to far from the airport, or that you don't want to do anything with your 2 available hours off a day.
 
And when have you ever flown "10-20 legs" in 14 hours? They must be very short legs with incredibly quick turns! That alone will keep you awake! And you say you do this "every day in the month"?? Who do you work for?!

The Matrix does lower duty time based on number of legs flown however. 20 legs? Really? What are you doing, touch and go's? I can usually fit in at least 10 per hour in the Scout.

Show me that trip...

The point is, your body clock is f'd up if you go to work at 2am, or 10pm, and it's going to hurt. But most people can hack 9-11, because that's what their body clock is programed for.
 
Timbo said:
And when have you ever flown "10-20 legs" in 14 hours? They must be very short legs with incredibly quick turns! That alone will keep you awake! And you say you do this "every day in the month"?? Who do you work for?!

The Matrix does lower duty time based on number of legs flown however. 20 legs? Really? What are you doing, touch and go's? I can usually fit in at least 10 per hour in the Scout.

Show me that trip...

The point is, your body clock is f'd up if you go to work at 2am, or 10pm, and it's going to hurt. But most people can hack 9-11, because that's what their body clock is programed for.
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I can actually show you that trip, I think the most legs I've ever done was 23 in a day with about 7.7 on the block. Most days are between 12 and 15. Yesterday I did 5.8hrs flight, 13.6hrs duty, and 14 legs iirc. Our longest trip blocks around .7 one way unless the weather is bad.

Basically I do that every day. I do at an absolute minimum 8 legs per day if there's no mechanicals or weather holds.
 
timeless said:
I think pay rates at regionals will be up about 20% across the board within 3 years of the rule taking effect. If it wasn't going to cost so much there would be much less resistance. This will however be another kick in the balls to low time pilots. Just as the age 65 stagnation wears off they may still be many hours from meeting the new part 121 minimums. For everybody over 1500 hours this will equal more money.
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Really? God forbid you spend a year or two working before you annoy the hell out of some captain in a crj. It's a level playing field because EVERY ONE needs 1500. It will thin the herd and that is a great thing!
 
ppragman said:
I can actually show you that trip, I think the most legs I've ever done was 23 in a day with about 7.7 on the block. Most days are between 12 and 15. Yesterday I did 5.8hrs flight, 13.6hrs duty, and 14 legs iirc. Our longest trip blocks around .7 one way unless the weather is bad.

Basically I do that every day. I do at an absolute minimum 8 legs per day if there's no mechanicals or weather holds.
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Wow, 14 legs in only 5.8hrs? That's about 24 minutes per leg! What equipment and to what city pairs? Not even enough time to do the crossword puzzle...let alone a Sudoko!
 
Timbo said:
Wow, 14 legs in only 5.8hrs? That's about 24 minutes per leg! What equipment and to what city pairs? Not even enough time to do the crossword puzzle...let alone a Sudoko!
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Yeah, C206 and PA32, the boss does it in the Navajo too, pretty standard for this style of work. We have offices in PAGY, PAHN, PAOH, PAJN and PAGS. We usually average around .4 - .5 per day per leg, with freight, pax, and mail in scheduled service.

In the month of June, I worked 322 duty hours, flew about 125hrs, and did 260 legs. That was the busiest month, but this month isn't too shabby either.
 
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