How many hours to be safe?

[TwinDisk]

Hey All,

I'm helping a buddy work on a paper about the minimum number of hours in a year a pilot needs to be safe. Has anyone here heard of any reports (from TC...FAA...Jimbo's Flying School...etc) that have studied this. We have tracked down a lot of info on what the minimum required is to maintain currency according to the rules and regs, but I realize this is probably just a random number picked from someone in government.

This will probably open a big can-o-worms about what is safe vice what is proficient. I'd be quite interested in that conversation as well.

Thanks in advance,

[mathias_now]

Good evening,

My best advice would be to check out a book called The Killing Zone: How and Why Pilots Die, by Paul Craig. I have posted a link below which will answer some of your questions. This information can be found under the headings 'Product Description', as well as 'From the Back Cover'. It's a good read, and I would strongly recommend it to aspiring pilots and seasoned professionals.

http://www.amazon.com/Killing-Zone-How- ... 007136269X

All the best,

MN

[Hedley]

*** edited ***

[TwinDisk]

Mathias, thanks I'll see if I can track down a copy of that.

Hedley, I wondered how long it would take for someone to say "it depends" I actually agree with everything you wrote, I intentionally left the OP a little vague to start with because my main goal isn't to ask the members here how many hours would make a pilot safe (as interesting a discussion as that would be, probably a good thread drift topic) it's to see if there is any research out there on how hours impact flight safety. I've done some pretty thorough web searches without turning up much, I was hoping someone could point me in the right direction.

If it helps at all, a friend of mine flies Chinooks for the Australian Army, most of their pilots normally see between 100 - 150 hours a year of flying, pretty low!! He is working on a report in attempt to have more flying time made available and needs some research to back his claim. Like I mentioned before he has tracked down minimum hours required by regs but he needs something more academically focused.

Cheers,

Edited for clarity

[Rockie]

It depends:

On what kind of flying you're doing and in what kind of airplane as Hedley says. It also depends on what you actually do with the flying time you get. In the military jet world pretty much every flight is a training flight that is extensively briefed before hand, every minute in the air is used for training, and extensively debriefed afterward. Making maximum use of the time available is what allows the military to not only be safe, but very proficient as well in much less flying time.

So how do you put a number on something like that? Well...it depends.

[LousyFisherman]

As a low time pilot (140 and change, woohoo) I find the scheduling is much more important than the number of hours.

If I fly more than once a month, I do not notice any deterioration in my skills. In fact there is noticeable improvement.

If I only fly once a month there is a small but noticeable lapse in my awareness and my fine control abilities. Things such as steep turns are not as consistent, or as steep . Checklists take longer and I have to think about when and how to do procedures such as approaching/landing at a MF airport or practising a forced landing.

If I have not flown for 2 months the deterioration of my skills is such that I will not fly into the mountains, or take passengers up until I have done a least a couple of landings solo.

I flew 55 hours last year, my first, and now that I am aware of the above impacts I will ensure that I fly at least 1 hour in any 30 day period.

HTH
LF

[paydaymayday]

1272.4 hours - precisely. Any less is sheer negligence.

[CelBatrin]

Like I mentioned before he has tracked down minimum hours required by regs but he needs something more academically focused.

You are in the right place Just quote some of these replies and the report should be good to go.
For what its worth, I feel comfortable with at 1.5h/week (usually a 3h chunk every 2 weeks) or more. Thats for single engine VFR.

[TwinDisk]

1272.4 hours - precisely. Any less is sheer negligence.

I guess that's what I get for asking a question to a bunch of pilots...I really should have know better!!

Rockie, that's the biggest reason I didn't want to do the jet thing, I'm much happier in the helo world where we can brief in 10 minutes and the debrief usually involves copious amounts of beer!! I could never handle the 4 hour brief followed by a 4 hour debrief, picking apart every little detail on the HUD tapes; all for a 1.5 in the air. I give the hornet drivers a lot of credit for maintaining their sanity through all that.

I completely agree with everyone here, it really does depend. I'm probably averaging about 250 a year, some years much better than others, and I find that good enough to maintian a pretty good level of proficiency. The guys I know in Australia get a lot less and are very worried about their lack of proficieny and experience.

My recommendation for the report wasn't so much hours but sorties, two sorties per week. Over the span of 40 flying weeks in a year (take away leave and courses, etc), in the Chinook world would come out to about 200 hours a year. With at least half of those flights being under NVG's, that's a skill set that fades rapidly!!

Anyway, thanks for the comment everyone, even you Paydaym it was good for a chuckle! The hunt continues for any research papers.

Cheers,