Air hours slashed in new pilot licences (Australia)

[CD]

Air hours slashed in new pilot licences (Australia)

CO-PILOTS with less flying experience than the September 11 terrorists will be able to take control of commercial passenger jets if a new international aviation standard is adopted in Australia.

A new category of licences specifically for co-pilots has been introduced by the International Civil Aviation Organisation to address a global shortage of commercial pilots. It can be adopted around the world from November 23.

If used in Australia, co-pilots will be able to fly passenger jets after having completed 10 hours of solo flying. The existing Australian standard is 100 hours.

The requirements for the multicrew pilot's licence emphasises flight-simulator training, which is cheaper and quicker than actual air time. Simulators have been criticised for failing to fully replicate flight experiences such as g-forces and a pilot's "emotional sense of danger".

ICAO's minimum of 10 hours' solo flying in an actual plane -- coupled with 240 hours' total experience -- has alarmed Australian pilots' groups and left critics disgusted that passengers would be entrusted to people with less flight time than the al-Qa'ida hijackers.

Opposition transport spokesman Kerry O'Brien said the 10-hour rule was a safety concern and called for a Senate inquiry into the proposal.

"The hijackers who flew their planes into the World Trade Centre had more flying hours than that," he said.

The Civil Aviation Safety Authority has begun a 12-month consultation process to determine whether Australia should increase the minimum standards before the international licence is introduced here.

"What ICAO puts forward are the minimum standards, it's up to us in consultation with industry. We might decide different figures to the ones ICAO is putting forward," a CASA spokesman said.

Currently in Australia, pilots and co-pilots hold air transport pilot's licences, which require 100 hours flying unsupervised as "pilot in command" and 1500 hours in total.

A CASA spokesman confirmed that under the multicrew pilot's licence, co-pilots would fly less because there was "less emphasis on flying irrelevant aircraft such as single-engine aircraft".

"A lot of those hours (required under the current standard) consist of flying around in single-engine aircraft and they're taking them out because they're not particularly relevant," he said.

"(Presently) you learn a lot of things that aren't particularly applicable to flying a 737 or a 747. This is specifically designed for someone who wants to fly a big aircraft."

But the International Federation of Air Line Pilots Associations, the Australian and International Pilots Association and the Australian Federation of Air Pilots have grave concerns about the proposal.

"Downgrading of these standards cannot and must not be accepted in an industry that is striving to improve flight safety in the face of large traffic increases over the next several years," IFALPA president Dennis Dolan wrote to CASA chief Bruce Byron last month.

AFAP head Bryan Murray said his association was not convinced the multicrew pilot's licence would "produce airline pilots of a standard at least equal to that currently being achieved".

AIPA said the licence was "an extremely significant reduction in traditional minimum-experience requirements compared with the existing air transport pilot licence". AIPA general manager Peter Somerville called for a full regulatory review and asked Transport Minister Mark Vaile to intervene.

"It would be an excellent circuit breaker for the new minister to have a look at the MPL issue and slow the whole process down till we can get a proper handle on it," he said.

Link...

[gr8gazu]

So...now we are down to 1 pilot and 1 radio operator..

There goes salaries! again

[Cat Driver]

Simulators are great training devices but they lack the true sounds and feel of actual flight so necessary for the human brain to identify that something weird is happening during those moments in flight where the eyes have missed a trend starting.

Only actual flight experience has " ALL " the sensoratory inputs that flying produces.

Cat

[ZBB118.10]

The MPL would see trainees moving into the right seat of high-performance jet transports with just 240 hr. of instruction. Of this, only between 60 and 120 hr. might actually be in the air and the student would have performed just 12 takeoffs and landings in the type he or she is to fly. The MPL is designed to bypass the training for the current commercial pilot certificate with instrument rating and let the trainee head directly for the "frozen" airline transport pilot license

(From Air Transport World Online - http://www.atwonline.com/channels/train ... cleID=1428)

In Europe, the general consensus is that this new form of licencing would benefit the major airlines in a huge way. Its a risk eliminator for them, as the pilot would come out freshly type rated and ready to go. I certainly know that BALPA in the UK are strongly opposed to it. The points CAT Driver raises are part of the reason that it is currently under dispute between the JAA countries.

IMHO, the thought of a 300 hour pilot who has barely stuck their ass outside the flight sim door and into a real airplane in the "real" environment, is pretty scary.......

[goldeneagle]

So...now we are down to 1 pilot and 1 radio operator..

There goes salaries! again

Does anybody remember the concept of 3 crew? Well, the unions kicked up a fuss, but, 2 crew is the norm today. This is a logical step, anybody flying today will likely live long enough to see the first transport category aircraft certified for single pilot ops (ya, that includes you cat).

This is an admission that modern transport aircraft need a pilot, and a cruiser that's capable of punching up the right buttons for an autoland if the pilot keels over. This need comes about because on anything over 2 hours, there is a need to allow the PIC a potty break.

gr8gazu, you are wrong about salaries, this will be good for salaries, it means more of the salary budgets can be spent on the left seat. The salaries will get larger, but, there will only be one, not two. Where it's going to bite, is hiring, because once this license category is accepted in north america, airline hiring out of the ranks of general aviation comes to an end. Flight schools will re-configure the training syllabus, and new candidates will take either the GA option or the transport option. In the former case, they will complete training and end up with an instructor rating and multi/ifr like today, in the latter option, after 10 hours of solo, they will go directly into the boeing sim. Two distinctly different career paths, and the left seat of the tier 2/3 machine becomes a career destination rather than a stepping stone, while the right seat in a tier 1 operation becomes an entry level position rather than the 'graduation' it is today.

Think about it, if all the airline aspiring candidates take the boeing option at flight school, what's going to happen to the pool of candidates available to fly that medevac kingair ? The supply (or lack thereof) will drive salaries. The absolute best thing that can happen for salaries in the non airline part of the industry is to re-configure licensing such that the kingair medevac is no longer a required stepping stone enroute to the career destination. How many folks are gonna risk 10 to 20K on a training committment for a metro if that job is no longer a stepping stone into a boeing ?

This new license concept is EXACTLY what the industry needs to fix salaries for once and for all. The supply of back stabbing candidates that will sell thier mother for a ppc on a ho will dry up instantly, they will all be standing in line at the simulator, stepping on each other to get that boeing endorsement on a student pilot permit. Thats a perfect lead in to the world of company politics and seniority numbers that they will find when they get hired by a tier 1 strait out of the simulator. Those that choose the GA route will find a world driven by supply and demand, one where the supply of fresh young blood has dried up, the medevac kingair is a career destination, and, the salary it pays reflects this reality.

I say bring it on, this new license class is long overdue.

[Cat Driver]

(ya, that includes you cat).

Hey GE, I'm of the same opinion as you.

By the way do you have any of my DNA in you?

Reading your stuff I sometimes think I coached you?

Or you just one of the few who have a grasp on reality?

Cat

[goldeneagle]

By the way do you have any of my DNA in you?

Reading your stuff I sometimes think I coached you?

Or you just one of the few who have a grasp on reality?

Cat

Where were you flying summer of '59 Cat. I'll have to ask mom sometime when dad is gone fishing...

[sky's the limit]

(ya, that includes you cat).

Hey GE, I'm of the same opinion as you.

By the way do you have any of my DNA in you?

Reading your stuff I sometimes think I coached you?

Or you just one of the few who have a grasp on reality?

Cat

I've had breakfast with GE, and I can assue you, reality is the farthest thing from his grasp.....

Sorry GE, couldn't let that one slide.... Lmao

STL

[Hedley]

boeing endorsement on a student pilot permit

I love it!! The honesty of this 10-hour licence is hilarious - they're not pretending it's anything but a video game endorsement.

As a side effect, down the road, the guys who have taken the 10-hour licence are going to be a whole lotta fun when they, as the kings of aviation, try to fly anything but their video game machines

[Cat Driver]

" try to fly anything but their video game machines "

You must have not been thinking when you typed that Hedley.

Flying is something we do, modern airliners are monitored. With the odd moment of hand to controls contact at take off and sometimes landing....voice prompted of course.

[gr8gazu]

So...now we are down to 1 pilot and 1 radio operator..

There goes salaries! again

gr8gazu, you are wrong about salaries,

GE, I wouldn't be quite so emphatic in your remarks. I can certainly see the industry reaching that stage eventually, but the entry requirements are the minimum requirements. Do you think all the guys starting up today are just going to be cast aside and leave with their tail between their legs? As long as there are Airlines, there will be guys not settled with being a medevac driver.

It is my opinion that there will be entry level guys with experience, for the forseeable future and their salaries will be marginalized by the reduced entrance qualifications. But then, I studied sciences not economics!

[ei ei owe]

Oh shit. If metro salaries go up, so will the frequency of Juicy telling us how many more model planes and computer games he'll buy.