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Changes In Flight Duty Time Regulations


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And what is this I read about AME? ok to fair to the AME's they deserve to have some sort of regs, but we are not talking about that we are talking about safety, I don't know the % but the engineer factor in crashes is pretty darn minimal, its pilot and pilot all the time, so yes something need to change, but why must it be as the proposal? Can education have something to do with it? a monkey can get a license...

The attitude of some senior guys that all low timers look up to.

The fact that a lot of people wants to fly them because its cool, and the need of a thrill is calling...

 

I say make it way harder to get a license... maybe more hours, but not necessary. Its what is being done with the 100 hr. like some schools, where they just pump out students, and you can get your license in 3 months.. Its freaking harder to get a drivers license in my old country than to get a heli license here...

 

But in the end of the day, it is a dangerous job, and we are working in dangerous environments all the time.. thats a fact.

Is new regs gonna change that? -no, it might have a small impact, but if you dont know what you got yourself into than maybe you should look at another career..

I hate seeing fellow pilots die in all kind of crashes but we can never get away from the fact that its dangerous, AND we are in canada. The lay of the land and weather is pretty extreme... cant compare it to the flat lands in england or germany or australia..

 

I am aware of what it is, and I accept the fact that it is dangerous..

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You seem to be laughing at the fact that without HEPAC (or equivalent) things are going as you (and others) predicted, whereas I think the opposite is true.

 

HV

 

Can you tell me where all these improvements are HV? I haven't seen it.

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And what is this I read about AME? ok to fair to the AME's they deserve to have some sort of regs, but we are not talking about that we are talking about safety, I don't know the % but the engineer factor in crashes is pretty darn minimal, its pilot and pilot all the time, so yes something need to change, but why must it be as the proposal? Can education have something to do with it? a monkey can get a license...

The attitude of some senior guys that all low timers look up to.

The fact that a lot of people wants to fly them because its cool, and the need of a thrill is calling...

 

I say make it way harder to get a license... maybe more hours, but not necessary. Its what is being done with the 100 hr. like some schools, where they just pump out students, and you can get your license in 3 months.. Its freaking harder to get a drivers license in my old country than to get a heli license here...

 

But in the end of the day, it is a dangerous job, and we are working in dangerous environments all the time.. thats a fact.

Is new regs gonna change that? -no, it might have a small impact, but if you dont know what you got yourself into than maybe you should look at another career..

I hate seeing fellow pilots die in all kind of crashes but we can never get away from the fact that its dangerous, AND we are in canada. The lay of the land and weather is pretty extreme... cant compare it to the flat lands in england or germany or australia..

 

I am aware of what it is, and I accept the fact that it is dangerous..

 

You need a reality check on so many levels I wouldn't even know where to begin...............

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Slightly off topic but there are AME associations the represent every province and territory except Quebec. Quebec's died a few years back due to lack of membership.

 

I know the Western AME Association is having a hard time getting members and it's one of the more active associations. So I think to get a helicopter Pilot / AME association going would be a tough go it would take some serious effort.

 

Also remember generally the people who have the ability i.e. time to run an organisation like that aren't field types because field personnel are gone away from home a lot of the time and aren't able to attend regularly scheduled meetings. So you get managers etc. running the organisations then the same complaints will start that it's being run by the evil management types.

 

 

Just my two cents from being involved in lots of different associations over the years.

 

Sean

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Can you tell me where all these improvements are HV? I haven't seen it.

 

I never mentioned the word improvement. I was merely saying that Black Mac seemed to be reveling in the current path to perdition we, as an industry, are on, which somehow could have been prevented had HEPAC managed to capture the hearts and minds of pilots and engineers across the Canadian landscape. I believe that HEPAC isn't relevant to this discussion, and rather than continuing to tell people that they're so ignorant they don't understand what an association will do for them, at some point the realization has to dawn that people are generally content with the status quo. From great angst comes great change and we're not there yet. I completely understand that many hate the industry as it is but many more do not hate and, in fact, love the business.

 

Frankly the issues that face the broad industry are not coming from management or regulators, they're coming from the clientele, who have been completely bamboozled by the industry that has sprung up around "safety", especially when it comes to that particularly pernicious breed, the "aviation advisor". Not to say there aren't some great ones out there, but we are being forced into tighter and tighter bonds based on offshore and airline standards that are impacting safety in the wrong direction in Canada and around the world.

 

Where is the next generation of pilots coming from when you need 2000 hours to do a friggin powerline patrol? What happened to the push for competency based requirements as opposed to prescriptive hourly limits? Every aviation advisor that comes along wants to trump those that came before (and perhaps charge more) by claiming to have a higher standard, which is often solely based on requiring more minimum flight hours for a "pilot approval". And where do these advisors come from? Are they people who have moved drills, fought fire, let geo's off in the hover on a cliff in the Burgess Shale, slept in a tent on Banks Island or net gunned caribou? Some yes... but the vast majority have never flown single pilot, have never flown single engine, have never even flown VFR. Yet they are often considered, and called, experts in their field.

 

There was an accident overseas about two weeks ago that highlights what I am trying to say perfectly. A fully loaded "OGP compliant" helicopter with an OGP compliant crew. They landed on a pad and rolled the throttle off only to fall over backwards. How could this happen to an experienced crew? Well, the issue is the relevance of their experience. The riskiest (I will not use the word dangerous with regard to what we do - it's a misnomer) thing we do with a helicopter is land. After that the riskiest activities are maneuvering in confined areas and taking off. Ground proximity events (GPE's) all. So when selecting crew for onshore activity in bush situations why would you want a helicopter that had TCAS and weather radar, crewed by pilots with IF ratings? Nowhere do any of the OGP documents drill down into a pilot's experience with unprepared sites and basic bush flying experience, except to make vague statements about geographic area. Until rationality is brought into the clients' worldview in this regard we will continue to face a pilot shortage, with steps to increase safety leading to further declines, a completely unintended effect.

 

Flying a helicopter can be pretty stressful at times but compared to trying to figure out who is going to relieve that pilot in that camp when there is no one available is a lot worse... believe me... At least for the guy in the hot seat handling crewing.... And to have to send that guy or gal out who has the hours but isn't the one you'd pick, when the pilot who's perfect is sitting there in front of you without those 2000 hrs they require, is one of the most disheartening things about the business over the last few years.

 

Until there is some rational discourse and some way of making our clientele see and understand what's required, I think pressure will continue to build... and to suggest (as Fred does) that all we need to do is hire more pilots and charge more is to simply miss the target by such a wide margin that you may as well have stayed at home... If we're going to get the schedules we want and have enough new pilots developing their skills so that a viable succession plan exists, then we need to bring pressure to bear on the clients and the aviation advisors. They seem to feel they are somehow compromising safety when they have to "lower the standard" but in reality they need to see that a standard doesn't imply anything other than an arbitrary number which may or may not have anything to do with skill or judgement. What's really needed is an industry developed standard, sort of like the "Red Seal Endorsement" for the inter-provincial trades associations. In such a system "we" say a pilot is good to go and that's that... And if there's a problem then it needs to be handled by those who gave their "Red Seal" to the pilot, so the system becomes self policing. And apples are compared to apples.

 

That is my rant of the afternoon...

 

HV

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HV - don't get me started on "consultants". :) One of them that was advising us had actually run out of fuel in flight.......

 

Phil

 

So what are you saying? If a guy makes a mistake he instantly looses all credibility? Or is it a progressive thing depending on the severity of the mistake?

 

Additionally, I guess that means you have never made any mistakes, or have you?

 

RedDog

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HV - don't get me started on "consultants". :) One of them that was advising us had actually run out of fuel in flight.......

 

Phil

 

I remember when some consultants for the oil patch worked out that if two engines are safer than one - then three engines were safer than two. Almost had Alberta converted to EH-101's.

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