Contrail Requirements

[sky's the limit]

[sissyphus]

Very straight forward.

Thanks for posting, I've heard many people ask over the years and the answer I've always heard was.."its complicated"
good to shed some light on it.

It would be interesting to find out how many people outside of the patch would not be qualified to do the job they already have.

[2good2btrue]

Are the contrail requirements for PIC on Large Turbo Prop about the same as the Large Jet requirements?

[Koizie1]

Wow a deep undercover agent on the inside of contrails. cool! How is the weather in Moscow this time of year?

[Panama Jack]

What are these requirements for? Who made them?

[ahramin]

Panama, when the Calgary corporate flight departments started getting shut down, there was a period of time during which charters were handed out to anyone and everyone with no thought to the safety of the operators. About the time the decision makers at the oil companies were starting to think this was a mistake, a certain corporate pilot saw a business opportunity, created contrails requirements, and sold the oil companies on it as a method of risk management.

So if you want to provide charters to the oil companies, you need to meet contrails requirements. On the pilot side this means meeting the matrix above, or getting a pass on them from the guy who writes it.

In my opinion it is more of a box checking exercise than actual risk management, but the oil companies seem to like it as it has been very successful.

[Panama Jack]

Thanks, Ahramin, for the superb explanation!

[Skyhunter]

Well they must not like all the low time hornet guys flying around over there heads then! Non of us could even get a job I don't think with the hours they want, and I am one of the higher time guys. Guess that limits getting a job there even though I flew over the patch all the time and regularly did approaches in Fort Mac.

[ahramin]

Skyhunter, while it is at times pretty obvious that military pilots have a fraction of the hours that their civilian counterparts have, keep in mind that the quality and quantity of training is far in excess of any civilian operation, airlines included. You just could not put someone with civilian training and military hours in charge of an airplane and have a safe operation.

As far as contrails goes, arbitrarily removing North Caribou may be the mistake that becomes his undoing.

[just curious]

Contrail fading away seems unlikely.

The company's founder wasn't a generic corporate pilot. He was a pilot for one of the major oil companies. When he was with them, he headed up their safety & loss reduction program, which was the 80's precursor to SMS. While the makeup of all of these corporations may have changed in the last 30 years, people forget that this is a relationship-based business in a lot of ways. There are people floating around the south end of YYC and likely in the north end of YYZ who seemingly move every five or six years from one hangar to the next,with an office similar to their previous one. Contrail has a warm relationship with the oil companies. They provide an analysis of the safety culture of a company and say, "Here you are", in a fait accompli. Large oil companies, and large government organizations can afford the time and money to perform a detailed audit of charter companies. The vast majority of smaller companies cannot.

Of the audits most companies at the south end of YYC undergo, Contrail is no more or less arduous than most. All of them are more in-depth than the recently dis-continued TC audits. with less bluster, and more direct penalties. TC might have said to many companies: "Address thee discrepancies in 30 days or face out wrath!" (and many have). Oil companies simply say, address these in your own good time, and let us know when you are ready for us to re-visit your operation, and we will at that time re-consider adding you to our list of approved companies. In the meantime of course, the company is not working for that auditor's clients.

The early framework for Contrail's requirements echoed the requirements for Shell, but were less restrictive than Esso. Simulation was a comparatively recent change. In contrast with earlier Esso requirements, Contrail's are fairly benign. In the early 90's only 4 pilots from any one company for instance were permitted to fly for Esso. An accident or incident scratched the company for a year, and often for the pilot, an accident scratched them forever.

As corporate flight departments fall increasingly under the sphere of influence of the larger generic safety programs, I would look to see pilot requirements ratcheted up, not down. I recently noted an audit for a different client group, where the team of auditors spent a month auditing our training and checkrides, attended the groundschools, Flight training, sim training, & checkrides, and interviewed every pilot who was slated to work for them. Companies who have something to hide live in fear of audits like that.

Since TC has had their hands tied by their own minister, I see companies like Contrail as a genuine positive.

JC

[Carrier]

About a year ago Sky's The Limit kindly set up this thread. It has been very useful. Several people have asked about the requirements and it is handy to be able to refer them to this thread.

Category "E" Pilot-In-Command is missing. This is for Large Prop > 5,700 kgs, > 19 pax (airline) and covers aircraft such as the ATR42 and DHC8. I noticed a poster above asked about this.

Is there anyone with a copy of Category "E" PIC who is able to post it on here? I tried a Google search for it but it came up blank.

[Fresh Prince of King Air]

CategoryE.JPG (101.36 KiB) Viewed 65183 times

[Carrier]

FPOKA, thanks for posting Category E.

All of the requirements above refer to fixed wing aircraft. Are there Contrails or similar minimum requirements for helicopters used by the oil and gas companies in Alberta and the mining companies in Saskatchewan?

[Fresh Prince of King Air]

...

[ScudRunner]

Regarding the Shell qualifications can anyone shed some light on what the (4) beside the Multi Engine Command denotes?

[Fresh Prince of King Air]

Notes:
1. Maximum Certified Take-off Mass (CTOM).
2. Instrument ratings are required to be tested at periods not exceeding 13 months. [Instrument base checks should be at 6 monthly intervals].
3. Requirement for Instrument Rating in all cases, with proven and annual current instrument competence (including Unusual Attitudes and Inadvertent IFR recovery training) required.
4 These Hours to be fully on aeroplanes. Up to 10% may be achieved in a flight simulator approved for the purpose by the regulatory authority
5. It is unlikely that a co-pilot will be required.
6. Flight Engineer and Navigator experience requirements are applicable to all Former Soviet Union (FSU) aircraft when flown in or outside the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS).
Section

[FlyingPat]

Very informative. I had no clue what a contrail was. Thanks a lot.

[FlyingPat]

Very informative. I had no clue what a contrail was. Thanks a lot.

I have a question with regards to Beech 1900D: MTOW is 17120 lbs, and is equal or less than 19 PAX, so it falls under category "D".
For a SIC, Category D, it requires 500 hrs TT, right?
Sunwest minimums for an FO on Beech 1900 are 1500TT, 200 PIC, and 300 Multi. I guess it's just them asking for higher minimums than Contrail? If anyone is familiar with Sunwest, please let me know. This company really looks like a good company to work for, I'd really like to join their team I'm asking since I have 437 hrs on B1900D, but a TT of 840.

[Fresh Prince of King Air]

I would imagine a company like Sunwest would be able to fill that position internally.

If you are looking for a direct entry flying job in YYC you'd have to at least meet the Shell Large aircraft requirements of 1000TT and 150MPIC. They are listed fully above. Also if you don't have Simulator experience you'd have to be retrained and your type rating is worthless. As all of the companies that use the above standards require sim training where one exists. Shell uses/subscribes/created the OGP standards. OGP guidelines are basically identical to the above Shell requirements.

I am going to tell it to you straight. I don't think your 1900 rating gives you any advantage in YYC. If you have a job flying a 1900D right now keep it until you get an upgrade.

If you don't... Your resume is a huge red flag to me. How did you get a 1900D job with less than 500 hours and why don't you have that job anymore?

If you're a good dude and a loyal employee you're going to have to prove it on the ramp to get a flying position. Even then I think you're making a bad move.

I don't recommend flying out of Calgary if you don't have any command time. Cariboo and Sunwest are great companies but they are horrible if you want to be anything either than an FO for the next 5 years. You'll be an FO for at least three to four years longer than if you go somewhere else. Calgary is becoming a captains town. Most FO's have to leave Calgary to get upgrades.

The requirements will only continue to go up. I can see Contrail getting trumped by OGP in the next 5 to 10 years.

There are other companies in this country that don't have client standards find them and go there. Once you meet the above standards then apply to a Calgary Oil and gas charter company.

FPOKA

[Darkhorse]

ya

[Darkhorse]

ya

[Krimson]

.

[single_swine_herder]

I'm curious what makes the Contrails requirements for a King Air 200 to be a "ridiculous system" in your opinion?

The clients served by Contrails ... (or any other aviation consultant) have a right to set whatever standards they wish to establish sufficient confidence in the people that are flying their staff around. Bearing in mind that the "value" of a fatality of a staff member sits at roughly 5 million dollars per event, what's wildly excessive about a business to be looking for someone with a minimum experience level of 2,500 TT, 1,000 PIC, 750 ME TT, and 650 ME TT? To get that low, all they need is to have attended a proper sim training program. For a 200 with Proline 21 avionics, that's sure not excessive.

Does it make it tough on somebody joining an organization as an FO with minimal experience, yep ... likely it does.

This whole concept of a client specifying a minimum experience level sure isn't anything new ... when I worked in Ontario decades ago, Bell Telephone had some pretty high experience requirements to fly their technicians and engineers around the province. Lots of our staff didn't meet the requirements, some did. Same thing with the Ont Govt's "Lands and Forests" department that would be flown around in a 185 or 206 doing game counts. When the Health Dept was specifying what experience crew members must have to obtain certification to fly medevacs, they were pretty high too.

Or is this case where anyone expecting a pilot to have anything more than a licence and a PPC, and a charter company have an AOC hanging on the wall is unrealistically shooting for the moon?

[Krimson]

.

[single_swine_herder]

Thanks Krimson ...

Many other things go on behind the scenes in addition to specifying minimum pilot hours before a consultant advises a client that most likely there is a manageable level of reduced risk of their staff flying with "Al's Aviation," and with Krimson as one of the accepted pilots.

For example, there will generally be a company audit to see how well they maintain records, interviews with key personnel, and get a feeling for their general corporate culture. There will also be an on-going process of monitoring CADORS, do a follow up service with operators based on observations passed by the passengers about things they think may have not gone well on a flight, or would like some explanations for questions which may not have been answered by the pilot at the time because the answer has the aroma of BS or general inconsistency.

The simple fact is that responsible corporations look closely into the activities of their supporting companies at the very least because of being subjected to vicarious liability due to lack of due diligence, or by a genuine concern for the welfare, safety, and comfort of their employees on their way to and from work. You may not be aware of a mining accident in Nova Scotia now called "The Westray Mine Disaster." The hearings, court cases, and sentences which were levied against supervisory staff following the deaths of several their employees after having been informed of safety problems changed the conduct of executives who have any education in the ramifications associated with taking on those positions. Some are still many people blissfully unaware that by accepting the position of Chief Pilot, Ops Mgr, or Accountable Executive and not taking action to run a safe operation in the face of known issues has any "big picture" downside.

If that process of performing due diligence, conducting Risk Analysis and mitigation limits the advancement of someone from the FO position to Captain, its of no concern to those clients, and in fact may be viewed as a good thing.

So back to your original observation, are the minimums arbitrary? Perhaps, but those minimums are based on the cumulative experience of a group of aviation personnel with many decades of experience in the business that have seen and heard a lot.